AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF FRENCH 
LITERATURE. 
IL.—THE TROUBADOURS, AND THE RISE OF CHIVALRY. 
“ But I will make another tongue arise, 
in which exprest 
The hero’s ardour, or the lover’s sighs, 
Shall find alike such sounds for every theme 
That every word, as brilliant as thy skies, 
Shall realize a poet’s proudest dream, 
And make thee Europe’s nightingale of song.” 
Prophecy of Dante. 
OF all the languages of Europe formed from the corruption of the 
Latin, the Provencal was undoubtedly the first in which memory at- 
tempted to preserve the works of the imagination ; and the Trouba- 
bour’s was unquestionably the first school of poetry which arose after 
the extinction of the Roman. 
Lineal descendants of the Bard and the Scald, the Troubadours 
were equally well received in the castles of the great, and the court 
of the monarch and the hall of the baron were ever open to them. 
Dispersed through most of the courts of Europe, they created a love 
for their compositions, and gave an originality and a celebrity to their 
language equalled only by that which the best modern productions 
have given to our own. Thousands of poets—men of all ranks, from 
the monarch to the boor—flourished almost contemporaneously in 
this new language ; and while it gained riches and respect for the 
obscure, it was considered both an ornament and an honour to the 
great. The first Troubadour who obtained any high distinction for 
his poetic talents was William IX. Count of Poitou and Duke of 
Aquitaine. This poet was born in 1071, and died in 1127; and in 
these, the palmier days of chivalry, emperors, kings, princes, and 
nobles, enrolled themselves as Troubadours, and practised “ El Gai 
Saber,” the Gay Sciences, as their poetry was termed. The Empe- 
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