o matter in what class it was found. Yet the troubadours as a
class belong to the nobility. That this was almost necessarily so one
can easily understand, for the troubadour was expected to live a life of
gay extravagance in his own chateau and to travel about the country
during favoring weather, accompanied by a little band of retainers who
must be trained musicians, and who at the castles they visited sang or
performed pieces of their master's composing.

We can imagine what a flutter there must have been in the breasts of the
ladies, always the prime object of the troubadour's songs, when the gay
cavalcade approached, heralded by the song of the _jongleurs_: "We come,
bringing a precious balsam which cures all sorts of ills, and heals the
troubles both of body and mind. It is contained in a vase of gold,
adorned with jewels, the most rare. Even to see it is wonderful
pleasure, as you will find if you care to try. The balsam is the music
of our master, the vase of gold is our courtly company. Would you have
the vase open, and disclose its ineffable treasure?"

The troubadour himself must go in knightly panoply, and he and his
musicians or jongleurs were usually provided with rich clothing. Gifts,
of course, might be accepted from a sovereign, but no pecuniary
recompense; the knightly minstrel disdained to sing for hire; it was
pure love of his art that inspired him, and the idea of making it a
lucrative profession never occurred to him. The troubadour, therefore,
had to live upon his patrimony--until he squandered it in riotous
living--and only a gentleman could afford to do that. Of the scores of
troubadours whose names are known to us, the great majority are nobles,
though not always belonging to the higher nobility; but the artist, the
musician who "found" enchanting melodies, was almost _ex officio_ a
knight, a chevalier, the terms troubadour and chevalier being
interchangeable, and knighthood was considered so essential that one of
the well-known troubadours was accused of having conferred the dignity
upon himself, since no one else would knight him. Among the number of
the troubadours one can count a score or more of reigning princes,
"counts and dukes by the dozen,... many princes of royal blood, and
finally four kings." Yet beside the royal troubadour, and associated
with him in a perfect freemasonry of art, one finds the troubadour of
humble birth. Bertrand de Born, the petty baron, was on terms of perfect
e