ay have possessed and poetical ability in
abundance, but there was no great incentive to work, inasmuch as poetry
offered them no career such as it opened up to the men. A troubadour
sang at the command of his noble patron, but with the women poetry was
not an employment, but a necessity for self-expression. It is altogether
probable that their efforts were for the most part the result of a
sudden inspiration, their mirth or their grief was poured forth, and
then they relapsed into silence. Other than in this way the voice of the
woman was rarely heard in song, unless she took part in the _tenso_, or
song of contention, and then her words were uttered as they came,
without premeditation, and were lost as soon as sung.

The city of Toulouse was a centre for much of the literary life of the
time, and it was during the reign of Count Raimon VI., who was a poet of
no small merit, that the art of the troubadours reached its culmination.
For half a generation, it is said, his court was crowded with these
poets, and he dwelt with them and they with him in brotherly affection.
With the terrible Albigensian Crusade, the voice of the singer was no
longer heard in the land, and the poetic fire, which had burned with so
fierce a blaze at times, smouldered for long years, until in the
beginning of the fourteenth century the flames burst forth anew. At that
time a company of poets, and they were of bourgeois origin and not of
the nobility, determined to take vigorous measures to restore the art of
the troubadour to its former high position, and to this end they founded
the College du Gay Scavoir, which was to support and maintain annually
in Toulouse a poetic tournament called Les Jeux Floraux, wherein the
prizes were to consist of flowers of gold and silver. With the definite
establishment of these Floral Games the name of a woman has been
intertwined in most curious fashion; and although many facts are
recorded of her life and deeds, there are those who deny that she ever
lived. This remarkable woman was called Clemence Isaure, and the story
has grown up that some years after the founding of the Jeux Floraux she
left a sum of money in trust which was to serve as a permanent endowment
for this most illustrious institution of her native city. Then it was
that the College du Gay Scavoir became a thing of permanence, and
brilliant were the fetes which were celebrated under its auspices.
First, a golden violet was bestowed upon the victo