GUYOT DE PROVINS. 153 



far higher rank and consequence than himself, were attack- 

 ing Innocent with even greater rancor and openness. The 

 Pope settled most of these scores to his own satisfaction, 

 during the Albigensian Crusade. 



Guyot's onslaught on the papacy is mildness itself com- 

 pared with his vituperations against the hierarchy gener- 

 ally, or even as contrasted with the poem of Pierre Cardi- 

 nal, who openly accused the Pope of betraying his sacred 

 trust and "vending his pardon briefs from cot to hall." 

 He merely holds up the Pole star as an example of con- 

 stancy and rectitude for papal emulation, but, in thus doing, 

 so closely copies the verses of William the Clerk that 

 before we know it we are laughing at the grotesque sub- 

 stitution of the supreme pontiff for the fair unknown of 

 the subsequently remorseful monk. 



Guyot begins by wishing that the Pope resembled the 

 Pole star, whereby the sailors guide their course, and 

 which, unlike other stars, is fixed and immovable; which, 

 of course, is entirely inoffensive, except, as a schoolman 

 of the time might remark, in so far as it inferentially 

 suggests that the successor of St. Peter has not that u Pe- 

 treity " which is the rock of his foundation. Still some 

 change had to be made in language originally designed to 

 celebrate the young woman whose brilliancy and attractive 

 allurements William intended the Pole star to typify. 

 But Guyot tamely follows the Clerk of Normandy, drag- 

 ging in identically the same description of the compass, 

 with the slight addition that in dark weather the needle 

 can be illuminated. After which he returns to the Pope, 

 and wishes him to be beautiful and clear like the star; but 

 as he leaves out the whole of the ingenious theory whereby 

 William connects the star with the lodestone, the precise 

 relation of the Pope to the compass is left as obscure as 

 Darwin's famous linkage of cats and red clover would have 

 been had the great naturalist never explained it. 1 



1 Guyot's poem has been so frequently published during the last cen- 

 tury that its bibliography is now quite voluminous. A carefully f dited 



