112 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF FRENCH LITERATURE. 
Troubadour, as it was his constant aim to gain the heart of his mis- 
tress; and the rite of matrimony, which formerly was so sanctimo- 
niously observed, was now only wished for to be abused. No lady 
was without her poet: to compose verses was the surest way to pre- 
ferment, and men of all ranks found it the surest recommendation to 
their mistresses. The artificial gallantry of the Troubadour often 
grew into reality, and the “ ladye faire,” who at first listened only to 
adulation, but too frequently yielded to an incontinent love. The en- 
chantment of perpetual flatteries, of tender and impassioned vows, of 
alluring sighs and of seducing verses, conspired to corrupt the sex ; 
and that cold, unconquerable chastity, that majestic and ceremonious 
dignity, and that scrupulous and fastidious delicacy, which in former 
ages had raised it above nature, had withered beneath the increasing 
immorality of the age. This universal depravity extended to the very 
privacy of the closet, and the devotee was taught to seek a mistress in 
heaven, and to look up to the Virgin with the eye of a lover, and to 
contemplate and apostrophize the graces of her person and the beauty 
of her mien.* The delicacy of former ages wore away, and, in the 
south of France more especially, peace, wealth, and a gay or giddy 
life, engendered amongst the nobility that spirit of voluptuousness, 
that propensity to vice, and that excess of gallantry, which are gene- 
rally observed to precede and hasten the decline and fall of nations. 
Having thus cursorily traced the rise of that great bulwark of the 
middle ages, Chivalry ; and having partially shown its connection with 
the Provengal literature, we will, for a future article, reserve the ac- 
count of the literary remains of the Troubadours and of their fol- 
lowers, the Jongleurs. We shall endeavour to show the reasons of 
their so rapid degeneracy and sudden decay. 
CRITES. 
* A celebrated Troubadour thus apostrophizes the Virgin :—“ Je suis de- 
vant elle & genoux, les mains jointes, comme son trés humble serviteur, plein 
d’ardeur dans l’attente de ses regards amoureux, et d’admiration de son beau 
corps et de ses agréables maniérs.”—St. Palaye, Hist. des Troub. t. ii. p. 225. 
(To be continued. ) 
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