g people by nature, and probably always less savage and
rough than the Franks. We may remember that even at the beginning of our
story the court of the pious King Robert, according to the monkish
chronicles, was hopelessly corrupted by the attendants of his Provencal
bride, Constance, with their scandalously fashioned costumes and their
ungodly minstrelsy. The rich clothing, the minstrelsy, the more gracious
manners, were always characteristic of the southerners, from the very
first moment we hear of them until the end.

During the eleventh century, while the kingdom of France was just
beginning to gain something like an ascendancy over the other provinces
which were eventually to constitute a real power under one rule, the
riches and the power of the Mediterranean district came to full flower.
We speak of this whole territory as Provence, although in reality
Provence proper was but a small portion of the whole. It would be,
perhaps, better to confine one's self to the old distinction between
north and south France, based on the difference in dialect. Dante,
distinguishing between three groups of the tongues derived from Latin,
says: _Alii Oc, alii Oil, alii Si, affirmando loquuntur:_--"For the
affirmative, some use Oc (Provencal) some use Oil (French), some use Si
(Italian)." The langue d'oc was the tongue used in that part of France
south of a line drawn from the south of the Garonne to the Alps,
including not only Provence but Guienne, Gascony, Languedoc, Auvergne,
etc. The people and the language, however, throughout this whole
territory, were generally named from that Provincia which, as we have
said, was the most fertile and the most favored. Thus, in ordinary
speech, a citizen of Beziers, Toulouse, or even Bordeaux was as much a
Provencal as one from Aries or Aix.

Among the other influences to which Provence owed part of its culture
one must not forget that of Spain. At the time of which we write a large
part of the richest lands in Spain was in the possession of a race more
cultured, more intellectual, more refined, despite their warlike nature,
than any race with which western Europe had yet come in contact. The
story of the Saracen empire in Spain, its rise, its glorious struggle,
its almost fabulous luxury, and its pathetic fall, is one of the most
fascinating in history. Arab songs, Arab singers, Arab instruments
became known among the Spaniards, and even in the face of continual
warfare some little of inf