in Latin. He soon outstripped his patron, to whose
wife, Agnes de Montlucon, his early poems were addressed. His relations
with the lady and with his patron were disturbed by the _lauzengiers_,
the slanderers, the envious, and the backbiters of whom troubadours
constantly complain, and he was obliged to leave Ventadour. He went to
the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the granddaughter of the first
troubadour, Guillaume IX. of Poitiers, who by tradition and temperament
was a patroness of troubadours, many of whom sang her praises. She had [47]
been divorced from Louis VII. of France in 1152, and married Henry, Duke
of Normandy, afterwards King of England in the same year. There Bernard
may have remained until 1154, in which year Eleanor went to England as
Queen. Whether Bernard followed her to England is uncertain; the
personal allusions in his poems are generally scanty, and the details of
his life are correspondingly obscure. But one poem seems to indicate
that he may have crossed the Channel. He says that he has kept silence
for two years, but that the autumn season impels him to sing; in spite
of his love, his lady will not deign to reply to him: but his devotion
is unchanged and she may sell him or give him away if she pleases. She
does him wrong in failing to call him to her chamber that he may remove
her shoes humbly upon his knees, when she deigns to stretch forth her
foot. He then continues[19]

Faitz es lo vers totz a randa,
Si que motz no y descapduelha.
outra la terra normanda
part la fera mar prionda;
e si.m suy de midons lunhans.
ves si.m tira cum diamans,
la belha cui dieus defenda.
Si.l reys engles el dux normans
o vol, ieu la veirai, abans
que l'iverns nos sobreprenda.
[48]
"The _vers_ has been composed fully so that not a word is wanting,
beyond the Norman land and the deep wild sea; and though I am far from
my lady, she attracts me like a magnet, the fair one whom may God
protect. If the English king and Norman duke will, I shall see her
before the winter surprise us."

How long Bernard remained in Normandy, we cannot conjecture. He is said
to have gone to the court of Raimon V., Count of Toulouse, a well-known
patron of the troubadours. On Raimon's death in 1194, Bernard, who must
himself have been growing old, retired to the abbey of Dalon in his
native province of Limousin, where he died. He is pe