You may read elsewhere of the long feud that was between Guillaume de
Baux, afterward Prince of Orange, and his kinsman Raimbaut de
Vaquieras. They were not reconciled until their youth was dead. Then,
when Messire Raimbaut returned from battling against the Turks and the
Bulgarians, in the 1,210th year from man's salvation, the Archbishop of
Rheims made peace between the two cousins; and, attended by Makrisi, a
converted Saracen who had followed the knight's fortunes for well nigh
a quarter of a century, the Sire de Vaquieras rode homeward.
Many slain men were scattered along the highway when he came again into
Venaissin, in April, after an absence of thirty years. The crows whom
his passing disturbed were too sluggish for long flights and many of
them did not heed him at all. Guillaume de Baux was now undisputed
master of these parts, although, as this host of mute, hacked and
partially devoured witnesses attested, the contest had been dubious for
a while: but now Lovain of the Great-Tooth, Prince Guillaume's last
competitor, was captured; the forces of Lovain were scattered; and of
Lovain's lieutenants only Mahi de Vernoil was unsubdued.
Prince Guillaume laughed a little when he told his kinsman of the
posture of affairs, as more loudly did Guillaume's gross son, Sire
Philibert. But Madona Biatritz did not laugh. She was the widow of
Guillaume's dead brother--Prince Conrat, whom Guillaume succeeded--and
it was in her honor that Raimbaut had made those songs which won him
eminence as a practitioner of the Gay Science.