dships of its men and women, pure as well as
impure; it is a slander to limit them to the latter class. The reason
of this is to be traced in historic causes, going back to the birth
and dispersed influence of chivalry. Chivalry burst into its most
gorgeous flower in Provence; Toulouse was the capital whence its
light and perfume radiated through France. It spread thence into
Spain, Italy, Germany, England, and other places; but nowhere reached
the height and copiousness of power it had in the land of its origin.
Its most fervent manifestation, at the summit of its state, was seen
in the worship of woman, the chaste and enthusiastic homage paid by
the knight to the lady of his choice. This ideal idolatry of woman,
which played so dazzling a part in the poems of the minstrels and in
the inner life and historic feats of the knights, subsided, in the
gradual change of times, into delight in the society and conversation
of woman. The peculiar combination of influences that presided over
this process may be briefly indicated.

Few women at the present time appreciate the debt of honor and
gratitude they owe to the troubadour or wandering minstrel of the
early Middle Age. Moncaut has well revealed it in his "History of
Modern Love." Feudal tyranny then held the whole sex in the sternest
slavery. One day, the wife, or the young daughter, confined in the
upper story of the walled fortress, sees, passing by the castle, a
poor youth with a guitar suspended from his neck, humming a
languishing air. She gazes on him; she hearkens to his song; she
thanks him with a gesture and a smile. He has brought a momentary
relief to the weariness of her sad captivity. Cast a glance on this
roaming singer, this houseless rhymer; the last representative of
that noble poesy born before Homer. This gentle son of poverty,
seeking his bread with the strings of his viol, this Bohemian of the
eleventh century, goes to regenerate barbarian society. The influence
of music and poesy, which nothing mortal can resist, will win him
permission in all places to sing what no one would dare to say. He
will publish the sighs of woman for liberty, at a time when her life
is an imprisonment; the prerogatives of love, its independence, when
the father disposes of his daughter without deigning to consult her
wishes or her vows. Before the ladies of the castles, he will
celebrate the splendid deeds of the knights; before the knights, he
will compassionate the tears