FOLQUET OF MARSEILLES.
The question remains to be asked,—which side did the troubadours take
in this struggle? Did they prove themselves to be men of mettle in a
contest in which their own literary existence was at stake no less than
the freedom of their country? Both these questions can, with a very few
exceptions, be answered in their favour; as a class, they stood to the
cause of their natural friend and protector; and it must be remembered
that that cause at the time was identical with religious toleration and
opposition to the tyranny of Rome. With the theological side of the
contest the troubadours, however, did not concern themselves much; it was
their duty and joy to lash the vices of the priests with their satire,
and to defend their country and their beautiful language against French
intrusion; the subtleties of dualism and doketism they wisely avoided.
It is true that the great Peire Cardinal once ventured to speak on the
mooted point of purgatory and eternal punishment; but we shall presently
see how untheological, or, which is the same, how purely human, was his
interest in the subject. It seems, indeed, doubtful whether many of the
troubadours espoused the opinions of their Albigeois countrymen. Of some
of the fiercest antagonists of the priests we know the contrary, and of
one troubadour only, Aimeric de Pegulhan, we are told parenthetically
that he died in Italy, ‘en eretgia segon c’om ditz’—‘a heretic, as people
say.’
Of the few troubadours prominently mentioned on the side of the Pope,
one, Uc de St. Cyr, lived chiefly in Italy; another, Perdigon, had to pay
dearly for his apostasy. When, after the battle of Muret, he rejoiced
in the misfortune of his benefactor, the noble Peter of Aragon, society
seems to have laid its interdict on him, and he had to hide his shame in
a convent, where he died. Of much greater importance than either is the
celebrated Folquet of Marseilles, whose name, as Bishop of Toulouse, and
as one of the most zealous persecutors of his heretical countrymen, has
more than once been mentioned in these pages. The life and character of
this man are a psychological problem of deepest interest; his career was
varied and inconsistent in itself—so inconsistent that the identity of
troubadour and bishop has been doubted. But there is no reason for such a
doubt, historical or psychological, as we shall presently see.
The birthplace of Folquet cannot be ascertained with absolute certainty.
Most likely he was a native of Marseilles, where his father possessed a
large amount of property. It had been acquired by mercantile pursuits,
continued for a time by the poet himself after his father’s death, if
we may believe an allusion in the Monk of Montaudon’s satire. Folquet,
however, did not follow his father’s calling for long. He lived amongst
the gay and fashionable at the courts of the great nobles, where his
graceful bearing and his poetical gift made him a welcome guest. One of
his protectors was Barral, Viscount of Marseilles, and it was his wife,
Azalais, who became the poet’s idol, and may be regarded as the final aim
and cause of all his further thoughts and deeds; including his ultimate
conversion, I do not hesitate to add. Their intercourse was not one of
the conventional flirtations so common between troubadours and high-born
ladies. Neither was it a mutual and guilty passion, such as existed
between Guillem de Cabestanh and Margarida. The old biographer lays
particular stress on the fact, that ‘neither by his prayers nor by his
songs could he ever move her to show him favour by right of love; and for
that reason he always complains of love in his songs.’
These songs fully bear out the statement of the manuscript. Their one
almost incessant theme is love’s disappointment. But this theme Folquet
treats like an artist. He avoids monotony by an ever new array of
striking similes and allegories in which he clothes his longing. What,
for instance, can indicate the hesitation of a timorous though passionate
lover better than the image of a man who has reached the middle of a
tree, and does not ascend further or regain the earth, for fear of losing
his chance or his life? Two stanzas of the poem in which it occurs
may follow here in the original. They are full of sweetness, and will
not offer serious difficulties to the reader, if he will consult the
subjoined translation, which I have tried to make as literal as possible.
The graceful intertwining of the rhymes bears witness to Folquet’s
consummate workmanship, and deserves the attention of modern poets.
CANZOS.
S’al cor plagues ben for’ ueimais sazos
De far canson per joia mantener;
Mas tan mi fai m’aventura doler,—
Quan bem cossir los bes els mals qu’ieu ai—
Que tug dizon que ricx sui e bem vai.
Mas cel qu’o ditz non sap ges ben lo ver:
Benenansa non pot negus aver
D’aquela re, mas d’aquo qu’al cor plai.
Per que n’a mais us paubres s’es joyos
Q’us ricx ses joy, qu’es tot l’an cossiros.
E s’ieu anc jorn fui gays ni amoros,
Er non ai joy d’amor ni non l’esper;
Ni autres bes nom pot al cor plazer,
Ans mi semblan tug autre joy esmai.
Pero d’amor lo ver vos en dirai:
Nom lais del tot ni no m’en puesc mover
Ni sus no vau, ni no puesc remaner;
Aissi cum sel qu’en mieg de l’arbr’estai,
Qu’es tan poiatz que non pot tornar jos
Ni sus no vai, tan li par temeros.
_Translation._
But for my heart, this would the season be
To sing of love and joy a joyous song;
But grievously I suffer from the wrong,—
Seeing the good and evil of my case—
Which all men do me when my fate they praise;
Who speaks suchwise is of the foolish throng,
Who know not that the joys of life belong
To none but who receives them with good grace.
Wherefore a joyous heart in poverty
Is better far than wealth and misery.
Maybe I once was happy for a space,
But joy and hope of love have passed away;
No other good can make me blithe and gay,
For all the world I hold in dire disdain.
Of love the full truth let me now explain:
I cannot leave it, nor yet on my way
Pass back or forward, neither can I stay;
Like one who mounts a tree mid-high, and fain
Would mount still higher, or downward move apace,
But fear and tremor bind him in his place.
His father’s wealth, it is evident, was of little use to poor Folquet,
and we can quite understand his chafing at the folly of men who would
insist on envying his brilliant misery. For all his early dreams of
happiness had been dispelled by the stern virtue of a woman.
It seems, however, that although unwilling to grant him any favour,
the fair Azalais was extremely jealous of the poet’s praise. This, at
least, would appear from an anecdote in the manuscript. Count Barral
had two sisters residing at his court, with whom Folquet lived on terms
of intimate friendship. But his mistress did not believe in Platonic
relations between troubadours and young ladies at court. Her jealousy
fixed on one of her sisters-in-law, the lady Laura, of whom she declared
Folquet to be enamoured. She refused to see her lover again, ‘and would
have no more of his prayers and fine words,’ as the biographer naïvely
adds. Folquet was in despair; ‘he left off singing and laughing, for
he had lost the lady whom he loved more than the whole world for one
with whom he had no connection beyond courtesy.’ This assertion of the
manuscript deserves our belief. It is quite possible, and indeed seems
indicated by a passage in one of his songs, that Folquet affected a
tender feeling for Laura in order to divert the attention of spies, but
his real passion was all for Azalais. His songs and his conduct leave no
doubt on the subject. It is an open question whether the intercession
of a noble lady sought by Folquet obtained him the full pardon of his
mistress. But certain it is that he remained invariably attached to
her through good and evil report. For misfortune was in store for the
countess. Barral, for some reason or other, got tired of his wife,
obtained an invalidation of his marriage, and wedded another lady.
Folquet’s position was difficult. The count was his oldest friend and
protector, whom he loved sincerely, as is proved by the beautiful elegy
on his death, which ensued soon afterwards. But no considerations of
worldly prospects or friendship could shake his allegiance to the lady of
his love. We possess songs dedicated to her subsequent to the separation,
in one of which, written the year after Barral’s decease, the praise of
the count is, curiously enough, addressed to his divorced widow. Perhaps
the great peacemaker Death had taken the sting from her resentment, and
the pair loved to linger over the memory of the departed.
From one of Folquet’s songs it has been concluded that, tired of his
purposeless endeavours, he at last broke off his relation with Azalais.
The poem is one of Folquet’s finest and most characteristic efforts,
containing a violent impeachment of Love himself. ‘Too late,’ the poet
says, ‘I have discovered Love’s falsehood. I am like one who swears
never to gamble again after he has lost his whole fortune.’ He further
complains that for more than ten years Love has been his bad debtor,
promising payment and never keeping the promise, and at last he solemnly
renounces his allegiance to the faithless god. The protest is forcible
and well expressed; but it is by no means proved that the poet acted
upon his wise resolution. On several previous occasions he had expressed
similar resolutions, but always with little or no effect either on
himself or on his cruel lady; and we find, indeed, not without a smile at
the incongruity of the poetic mind, that the identical song in question
is dedicated to Azalais.
At last the lady’s death relieved him from his thraldom, but only to
deliver him over to another still more fateful passion. The manuscript
relates how this event, together with the loss of some of his dearest
friends, preyed on the poet’s mind, and how in a fit of melancholy
he renounced the world, together with his wife and two sons, who are
mentioned for the first time on this occasion. Folquet joined the order
of Citeaux, and soon became abbot of a rich monastery, from which
position he not long afterwards was raised to the still more important
one of Bishop of Toulouse. To his new vocation he brought the same
zeal, the same perseverance, which marked his wooing of Azalais. It was
the same flood of passion turned into a different channel. So far there
is nothing to reproach in Folquet’s conduct, and we even can sympathise
with a man in whom all worldly desire dies with the one object of his
passion. But his zeal against the heretics, carried to the pitch of cruel
persecution, forms an unjustifiable complement to his asceticism. Neither
can we excuse Folquet’s violent hatred against Raimon VI. of Toulouse,
at whose father’s hands the troubadour had received much kindness.
Considered in this light, the scene at the Council of the Lateran, where
the glib-tongued poet is employed to compass the Count’s ruin, gains a
new and sinister meaning. Poetry itself Folquet seems to have abandoned
on his entering the monastery. We possess of him only one religious song,
a passionate expression of remorse and of terror at an impending eternal
punishment, which most likely belongs to the time of his conversion.
It is pleasant to think that his art at least remained undefiled by
fanaticism.