It would be in vain to search on a map for the dominions of Eleanora, under the title of dukedom of Aquitaine. In the eleventh century the counties of Guienne and Gascony were erected into this dukedom, after the ancient kingdom of Provence, established by a diet of Charlemagne,1 had been dismembered. Julius Cæsar calls the south of Gaul Aquitaine, from the numerous rivers and fine ports belonging to it; and the poetical population of this district adopted a name for their dukedom from the classics.

From the kingdom of Provence, the language which prevailed all over the south of France was called Provençal; it formed a bond of national union among the numerous independent sovereigns under whose feudal sway this beautiful country was divided. Throughout the whole tract of country from Navarre to the dominions of the Dauphin of Auvergne, and from sea to sea, the Provençal language was spoken-a language which combined the best points of French and Italian, and presented peculiar facilities for poetical composition. It was called the langue d'oc, the tongue of "yes" and "no;" because, instead of the "oui" and "non" of the rest of France, the affirmative and negative were "oc" and "no." The ancestors of Eleanor were called par excellence the Lords of "Oc" and "No." William IX., her grandfather, was one of the earliest professors and most liberal patrons of the art.

His

poems were models

of imitation for all the succeeding troubadours.

The descendants of this minstrel hero were Eleanora

1 Atlas Géographique.

2 Sismondi's Literature of the South.

and her sister Petronilla. They were the daughters of his son William Count de Poitou, by one of the daughters of Raymond of Thoulouse.1 He was a pious prince, which, together with his death in the Holy Land, caused his father's subjects to call him St. William. The mother of this prince was the great heiress Philippa of Thoulouse, Duchess of Guienne and Gascony, and Countess of Thoulouse in her own right. She married William, the ninth Count of Poitou and Saintonge, which united nearly the whole of the south of France in one family. After this great marriage, her husband assumed the title of William, the fourth Duke of Aquitaine, while he invested his son William with the county of Poitou, who was reckoned William the tenth of Poitou. The rich inheritance of Thoulouse, part of the dower of the Duchess Philippa, was pawned for a sum of money to the Count of St. Gilles, her cousin, which enabled her husband to undertake the expense of the crusade led by Robert of Normandy. This count took possession of Thoulouse, and withheld it as a forfeited mortgage from Eleanora, who finally inherited her grandmother's rights to this lovely province.

The father of Eleanora left Aquitaine in 1132, with his younger brother Raymond of Poitou, who was chosen by the princes of the crusade that year to receive the hand of the heiress of Conrad Prince of Antioch, and maintain that bulwark of the Holy Land against the assaults of pagans and infidels. William fell aiding his brother in this arduous contest, but Raymond succeeded in establishing himself as Prince of Antioch.

Rer. Script. de Franc.; likewise Suger.

The grandfather of Eleanora had been gay and even licentious in his youth, and now, at the age of sixty-eight, he wished to devote some time before his death to meditation and penitence for the sins of his youth. When his granddaughter had attained her fourteenth year, he commenced his career of self-denial, by summoning the baronage of Aquitaine, and communicating his intention of abdicating in favour of his granddaughter, to whom they all took the oath of allegiance.1 He then opened his grand project of uniting Aquitaine with France, by giving Eleanora in marriage to the heir of Louis le Gros.2 The barons agreed to this proposal, on condition that the laws and customs of Aquitaine should be held inviolate, and that the consent of the young princess should be obtained. Eleanora had an interview with her suitor, and professed herself pleased with the arrangement.

Louis and Eleanora were immediately married with great pomp at Bordeaux; and on the solemn resignation of Duke William, the youthful pair were crowned Duke and Duchess of Aquitaine, August 1, 1137.

On the conclusion of this grand ceremony, Duke William,3 grandsire of the bride, laid down his robes and insignia of sovereignty, and took up the hermit's cowl

'Suger. Ordericus Vitalis.

2 Called Le Jeune, to distinguish him from his father Louis VI.

3 Montaigne, who speaks from his own local traditions of the South, asserts that Duke William lived in his hermitage ten or twelve years, wearing, as a penance for his youthful sins, his armour under his hermit's weeds. It is said by others that he died as a hermit in a grotto at Florence, after having macerated his body by tremendous penances, and established the severe Order of the Guillemines.

and staff. He departed on a pilgrimage to St. James's of Compostenella in Spain, and died soon after, very penitent, in one of the cells of that rocky wilderness.1

At the time when Duke William resigned the dominions of the south to his granddaughter, he was the most powerful prince in Europe. His rich ports of Bordeaux and Saintonge supplied him with commercial wealth, his maritime power was immense, his court was the focus of learning and luxury; and it must be owned, that, at the accession of the fair Eleanora, this court had become not a little licentious.

Louis and his bride obtained immediate possession of Poitou, Gascony, Biscay, and a large territory extending beyond the Pyrenees. They repaired afterwards to Poictiers, where Louis was solemnly crowned Duke of Guienne. Scarcely was this ceremony concluded, when Eleanora and her husband were summoned to the deathbed of Louis VI., that admirable king and lawgiver of France. His dying words were,

"Remember, royalty is a public trust, for the exercise of which a rigorous account will be exacted by Him who has the sole disposal of crowns and sceptres."

To this great prince, the ancestor, through Eleanora of Aquitaine, of our royal line, may be traced armorial bearings, and a war-cry, whose origin has not a little perplexed the readers of English history. The patron saint of England, St. George, was adopted from the Aquitaine dukes, as we find from the MS. of the French herald Gilles de Bonnier, that the Duke of Aquitaine's mot, or war-cry, was, "St. George for the puissant duke." His crest was a leopard: and his descendants in Eng. land bore leopards on their shields till after the time of Edward I. Edward III. is called "valiant Pard" in his epitaphs; and the Emperor of Germany sent Henry III. a present of three leopards, expressly saying they were in compliment and allusion to his armorial bearings.

Suger, cited by Gifford.

So spoke the great legislator of France to the youthful pair, whose wedlock had united the north and south. of France.

On the conscientious mind of Louis VII. the words of his dying father were strongly impressed, but it was late in life before his thoughtless partner profited by them.

Eleanora was very beautiful; she had been reared in all the accomplishments of the south; she was a fine musician, and composed and sang the chansons and tensons of Provençal poetry. Her native troubadours expressly inform us that she could both read and write. The government of her dominions was in her own hands, and she frequently resided in her own capital of Bordeaux. She was perfectly adored by her southern subjects, who always welcomed her with joy, and bitterly mourned her absence when she was obliged to return to her court at Paris-a court whose morals were severe, where the rigid rule of St. Bernard was observed by the king her husband, as if his palace had been a convent. Far different was the rule of Eleanora in the cities of the south.

The political sovereignty of her native dominions was not the only authority exercised by Eleanora in "gay Guienne." She was, by hereditary right, chief reviewer and critic of the poets of Provence. At certain festivals held by her after the custom of her ancestors,1 called Courts of Love, all new sirventes and chansons were sung or recited before her by the troubadours. She then, assisted by a conclave of her ladies, sat in judgment and pro

1 Sismondi.