/ 

 
 H/
 
 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 JP 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNA ALICE CHAPIN 
 
 AUTHOR or "MASTERS OF Music," 
 "THE STORY or THE RHINEGOLD," ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 HUTCHINSON & CO. 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1904 
 BY DODI), MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 BURR PRINTING HOUSE 
 NEW YORK
 
 TO 
 
 Hillian IftorMca 
 
 WITH THE AUTHOR'S GRATEFUL REMEM- 
 BRANCE OF HER MANY AND 
 
 GRACIOUS KINDNESSES 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE SINGER OF LOVE 1 
 
 II. IN PRAISE OF THE LADY OF FAYEL 25 
 
 III. THE DREAMERS 49 
 
 IV. THE MONK OF READING ABBEY 65 
 V. KING THIBAULT, THE TROUBADOUR 83 
 
 VI. THE HUNCHBACK OF ARRAS 109 
 
 VII. WITH THE CASTANETS 181 
 
 VIII. A MAKER OF SONGS AND SHOES 155 
 IX. MAITRE GUEDRON, A TEACHER OF 
 
 KINGS 175 
 X. THE WANDERING PEOPLE 191 
 XL THE CASKET OF GRAPES 207 
 XII. THE SCULLION OF LA GRANDE MADE- 
 MOISELLE 229 
 XIII. THE RUNOS OF THE NORTHLAND 257 
 XIV. THE ROMANCE OF STRADELLA 277 
 XV. PURCELL : MASTER OF MUSICK 293 
 XVI. SONGS OF THE GREAT TERROR 315-- 
 AN AFTER-WORD 333
 
 THE SINGER OF LOVE
 
 LARK SONG 
 
 |-| | | ^^ | ! 1 ) ! 
 
 When I be- hold, on ea - ger wing, The sky-lark 
 
 9 
 
 soar - ing to the sun, Till, e'en with rap - ture 
 
 
 fal - ter - ing, He sinks in glad ob - liv - i - 
 
 I I I 
 
 - on: A - las 1 ... How fain to seek were I, The same ec - 
 
 - stat-ic fate of fire; Yea, of a truth I know not 
 
 why my heart melts not with ita de - airel
 
 THE SINGER OF LOVE 
 
 NOW the Castle of Ventadour, in Limousin, Provence, 
 was a goodly place and a fair. Indeed it would be 
 hard to fancy a more rarely perfect spot in which to 
 be born and to come to manhood, and its poetic loveli- 
 ness spurred the inspiration, as it filled the daily life, 
 of the boy Bernart. 
 
 The hamlet of Moustier Ventadour may still be seen. 
 A league and a half east of Egletons it is, and the 
 ruins of the Castle are a quarter of a mile farther on. 
 The ruins of Ventadour ! It is as sorrowful an image 
 as that of faded roses or dead youth: alas, that even 
 Ventadour should have known the destructive touch of 
 time ! 
 
 But at the period of which I write, the early half 
 of the twelfth century, it was a splendid pile set high 
 upon a hill, in a country of wild and picturesque 
 beauty. Crowding about the stone walls, every kind of 
 tree possible to Prove^al soil lifted its heavy leafage 
 to the warm blue sky, and afforded nesting-space to 
 the swallows and nightingales, the ring-doves and 
 larks, that made that region melodious.
 
 4 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 From his earliest childhood Bernart loved his lyri- 
 cal brothers, the birds. But of all the feathered things 
 that trilled and fluttered among the pines and larches 
 and silver birches, the one whose song awakened the 
 tenderest and most responsive chord in the boy's heart 
 was the skylark. Upon this same joyous bird was 
 written his most exquisite lyric, many years later, 
 the simple and graceful Lark Song known to every 
 lover of the Prove^als. 
 
 Imagine a garden where forget-me-nots and clover, 
 roses and hemp, grew wildly and sweetly together. 
 Fancy a fragrant luxuriance of blackthorn, ivy, ever- 
 greens, lilacs, and locust-trees. Picture mossy rocks, 
 and great tangles of wild-flowers and blackberry- 
 vines; and you may guess, albeit dimly, the 
 enchantment of Ventadour. Under a great chestnut- 
 tree stood a stone crucifix, hundreds of years old, 
 even then! And back of the Castle was the big deli- 
 cious garden. It was walled by parapets that crowned 
 sharp precipices and made the garden entirely inac- 
 cessible from without. 
 
 Shadowed by a tall blue-green pine-tree was the pa- 
 vilion, or summer-house, where my lady might sit at 
 her embroidery-frames, or, dreaming idly, watch the 
 misty distance from her lofty garden-space. Every- 
 where creeping vines abounded, overgrowing every- 
 thing, the pavilion, the parapets, and the walls of 
 the Castle. Everywhere flowers starred the green,
 
 THE SINGER OF LOVE 5 
 
 and the hosts of rapturous birds sang and darted 
 unendingly beneath the sun-gilded clouds. 
 
 In Ventadour, about the year 1125, was born he 
 whom the world hails as Bernart de Ventadorn. 
 
 A mystery shadows the birth of young Bernart de 
 Ventadorn. Even in his lifetime there were few 
 who knew, or at least avowed, the truth. There 
 are those who say that he was an unacknowledged 
 member of the Ventadorn family, the patrons whose 
 name he bore. These same persons declare that it 
 was this fact which made Ebles III. Vicomte de 
 Ventadorn so friendly in his favours to the boy. 
 Others state that his mother was a serving-wench 
 who gathered brushwood to feed the great bake- 
 ovens of the Castle, and his father one of the 
 lower servants, who marched as a common archer, 
 when the Vicomte's men were called to arms. 
 However this may have been, it seems a matter of 
 small import to-day. The greatness of Bernart sur- 
 named de Ventadorn, after his benefactor Ebles III., 
 Vicomte de Ventadorn, could not be made nor marred 
 by a mere accident of birth. Let us not trouble our 
 minds with the antecedents of this most wonderful 
 boy. It is enough that he was the favourite of 
 Ebles III., and that through his kindness the boy 
 was educated as befitted a gentleman of that period. 
 The Vicomte loved music, luckily, and Bernart's rare 
 gift of song was fostered and developed until he be-
 
 6 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 came known throughout Provence as Bernart le 
 Chanteur (Bernart the Singer). And he was most 
 grateful, and loved Ebles well ; and, as he grew pro- 
 ficient in the lyric art, he sang to him by the hour, 
 charming the Vicomte's ears with the melody of his 
 golden voice. 
 
 The Vicomte Ebles, we gather, was a fine and gen- 
 erous knight, of rare breadth and vigour of mind, and 
 graced with a heart that was clean alike of deception 
 and distrust. In people and things the quality which 
 pleased him best was energy. This trait was curiously 
 and quaintly expressed by the Prior of Vigeois, who 
 said of him: "Usque ad senectam carmina alacritatls 
 dilexit (He loved, even to his old age, the songs of 
 alacrity)." 
 
 Certain chroniclers tell us that our Bernart, 
 brought up in the accepted theory of his inferiority in 
 birth, suffered keenly from a sense of humiliation, and 
 grieved because he belonged to his gorgeous environ- 
 ment by privilege rather than right. According 
 to the conception of the boy's character based 
 upon his life and songs, it is difficult to believe 
 this. If he permitted himself any sentiments of sad- 
 ness on account of his obscure origin, assuredly 
 they were transient. Bernart was a son of the south, 
 and his griefs and annoyances, if poignant, were 
 fleeting. 
 
 He loved romance and beauty and joy as he loved
 
 THE SINGER OF LOVE 7 
 
 the air he breathed, and the mellow Prover^al sun be- 
 neath which he grew to manhood. With the pallid 
 ecstasies and sentimental woes affected by lesser Trou- 
 veres he would have nothing to do. He had no patience 
 with false melancholy, though his sensitive and poetic 
 heart could know the depths of genuine suffering. 
 His deepest fault was his headlong and unreasoning 
 impetuosity. What he wished he would have gone down 
 to Hades to claim ! 
 
 No one was ever born with the love of life so keenly 
 inherent; no one ever throbbed more vitally and re- 
 sponsively to the appeals of sentiment, poetry, and 
 passion. He was educated in a monastic school, but 
 the religious life neither attracted nor interested him. 
 He chafed within the austere walls, where the good 
 monks taught him such meagre rudiments of 
 knowledge as were accounted culture in those days. 
 Only one thing did he really care to study, and that 
 was music. Verse-making was as instinctive and spon- 
 taneous with him as singing is to birds ; but the use 
 of his own voice, and, above all, the correct manner of 
 playing the instruments of the period, these things 
 seemed to him worth learning. He accordingly ap- 
 plied himself to the study of minstrelsy. He learned 
 to touch the harp, vielle, and lute with a master hand, 
 and to sing like the skylark he adored. He learned 
 to put down his eager dreams and rapturous fancies in 
 notes as well as words. And the poems and melodies
 
 8 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 which he made have lost neither fire nor beauty after 
 nearly eight centuries. 
 
 From boyhood he had but one theme for all his 
 songs love. He cared nothing for warfare, nor the 
 church, nor politics, nor merry-making. Romance 
 was his dream, his inspiration, and his compelling 
 motive. And it is hardly too much to say that, among 
 all those poets who, consciously or unconsciously, have 
 followed in his footsteps, there is not one who has ever 
 surpassed his standard in love lyrics. 
 
 He sang of the tenderness and faith and fervour of 
 all lovers ; the adoration of the Troubadour for the fair 
 one who inspired his songs ; the devotion of the lady 
 to the knight who fought for her ; the loves of goat- 
 herds and shepherdesses; the wooing of birds and 
 flowers ; the mating of nature ; the passion of the ele- 
 ments; the eternal smile, sigh and sob of universal 
 love. So is he well called the Singer of Love. 
 
 Nowhere in the world was it easier to fashion love- 
 songs than in Limousin. If the speech of Picardy was 
 silver, the speech of Provence was of molten gold. 
 If the Chatelain de Coucy, whom we shall meet later, 
 sang of the white blossomed spring, Bernart de Venta- 
 dorn was not only the celebrator, but the incarnation, 
 of the rich Southern summer. Even in winter his tem- 
 perament and fancy created a poetical summer. 
 While the land was frozen and snow-encrusted he wrote 
 one of his most delicious songs :
 
 THE SINGER OF LOVE 9 
 
 '"So filled with happiness am I 
 
 Earth wears another face ; 
 Rich flowers of many a brilliant dye 
 
 For me the frost displace ; 
 When rains descend and tempests fly 
 
 My joy but gains in grace, 
 They only help my song rise high 
 
 My glory mount apace ; 
 For in my loving heart 
 
 So sweetly joy doth start, 
 Meseems the flowers make ice depart, 
 
 To verdure snow gives place!" 
 
 When Bernart was about twenty-three, and in the 
 first flush of his genius as of his youth, the Vicomte 
 Ebles took to wife the radiant Vicomtesse de Limoges. 
 As a girl, the name of Margarida de Turenne was 
 known far and wide as being significant of all beauty. 
 As the young wife of Aimar IV., of Limoges, Marga- 
 rida was considered even more marvellously lovely. 
 When the Vicomte de Limoges died and left her a 
 youthful and charming widow, she wasted no undue 
 time in regrets. Mock mourning was unpleasant to 
 her lightly emotional nature, and she had not loved her 
 husband so well as to have difficulty in finding consola- 
 tion. Within a year of his death she married Ebles 
 de Ventadorn. She was many years younger than he, 
 and as fascinating as she was weak and frivolous. 
 To Ventadour she came like a gorgeous flower, a re- 
 translation by Justin H. Smith.
 
 10 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 splendid jewel, or rare and many-hued bird. And 
 one and all bowed down before her brilliant, vanquish- 
 ing beauty, and adored the tips of her embroidered 
 shoes. 
 
 First and greatest among her conquests was the 
 young Troubadour of her husband's court, Bernart 
 the Singer. 
 
 In Margarida he found the ideal of all his songs and 
 all his dreams. He had sung of love, here was Love 
 personified of which to sing. He worshipped beauty, 
 where could a man find beauty such as this? He 
 adored romance, here was Romance come to earth in 
 the guise of a lovely woman. Margarida was not only 
 beautiful, she had wit of a valueless, sparkling order, 
 and, as her nature was easily stirred and superficially 
 poetic, it is small wonder that she captivated the young 
 minstrel. He made songs for her by day and night, 
 songs that were iridescent with sentiments and visions, 
 and charming with whimsical fancies, songs that 
 caused the Vicomte Ebles to applaud with frank de- 
 light, and that moved the heart of the lady with grati- 
 fied vanity and pleasurable excitement. 
 
 Her beauty, we are told, was of the sort to strike 
 men dumb. To Bernart, however, it gave a new and 
 more melodious utterance. He called her "Bel Vezer 
 (Fair-To-See)." So was she mentioned in his songs, 
 and so did he call her softly in speaking to his own 
 heart.
 
 THE SINGER OF LOVE 11 
 
 '"It is no wonder if I sing 
 A better song than all the rest, '* 
 
 he wrote one day: 
 
 "For Love is mightier in my breast, 
 My life a fitter offering ; 
 For heart and body, 
 Mind and sense, 
 
 Are given to Love, and all my might ; 
 Nor can I turn to left or right 
 The rein toward Love is drawn so tense!" 
 
 It was in the same song that he made jesting pro- 
 test against his lady's hard heart : 
 
 "You're neither bear nor lion quite, 
 To kill me, if I cease defence?" 
 
 Bernart, says Fauriel, possessed "a fine ear, a sweet 
 voice, a lively and delicate imagination." And one 
 historian declares that he had the three qualifications 
 for winning affection which are so explicitly stated 
 by Blondel the Minstrel: "Sincere love, generosity, 
 and a courtly speech." We also learn from many 
 sources that he was of goodly presence, though not 
 tall, and that he was graced with dark, penetrating and 
 very beautiful eyes, a charming smile and a magnetic 
 personality. He dressed with the extreme care and 
 the eye to the artistic which was affected by the great 
 Troubadours of the day, and had notably good man- 
 
 'Translated by Justin H. Smith.
 
 12 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 ners, even in that ceremonious period. Whatever he 
 attempted he did v^ell : he rode superbly, and acquitted 
 himself with grace and skill in passages of arms. 
 Nevertheless, while possessing ample courage and 
 manliness, and being an acknowledged favourite among 
 his fellows, he was, as he admitted frankly, happiest at 
 a lady's feet ! 
 
 It is not hard to picture Bernart and Margarida 
 together golden hour by golden hour ; the Troubadour 
 playing upon his harp and singing his wonderful love- 
 songs, as the heavy breath of crowding roses surged 
 in through the open casement, and the warm Provencal 
 winds caressed the hair and face of the Vicomtesse. 
 It was a beautiful dream to Bernart; and perhaps 
 Margarida herself, in all her gay and wilful life, had 
 never known such high and genuine feeling. But the 
 idyll was brief, as were most things in Provence. Pain 
 and joy, love and death, reached their bloom swiftly, 
 there in the South ; and nothing endured longer than 
 the roses. 
 
 One day, under that big pine-tree that shadowed 
 the garden of Ventadour, Bernart sank on his knee at 
 Margarida's feet, and began to sing. He was in- 
 spired as never before, and his melody was as exquisite 
 as it was new-born and fresh. So touched she was, so 
 stirred, so moved, so impressed by the loveliness of the 
 strain, that she bent above him as he knelt at her feet, 
 and kissed him without a word.
 
 THE SINGER OF LOVE 13 
 
 Whether or not the Vicomte Ebles saw the kiss, or 
 whether some prying servitor told him of it, is not re- 
 corded. But in some manner he knew of it, and, 
 shocked out of his honourable and generous confi- 
 dence, he decided to put an end to the musical and 
 poetical romance going on in Ventadour. 
 
 He led his Vicomtesse to her apartments in the don- 
 jon tower, left her there with her women, and locked 
 her in securely. "Then," says an ancient chronicler, 
 "he made himself a stranger to Bernart." That he 
 did not banish him from the Court is proof of his gen- 
 erous nature and the love he bore the young Trouba- 
 dour. 
 
 Bernart was profoundly miserable. His benefactor's 
 attitude was so bitter a reproach to his thought- 
 less, romantic nature, that he could hardly endure to 
 remain longer at Ventadour. But he was convinced 
 that his beautiful lady was grieving for his songs, and 
 so remained to write her countless poetical effusions, 
 which he sent her by a secret messenger, and even sang 
 to her softly in the shadow of the donjon tower. But 
 Margarida never even looked from her window to thank 
 him. Finally the secret messenger brought him a 
 message : 
 
 "The Lady Margarida desired that he should de- 
 part and go away from all that region, and come 
 not back to it any more." 
 
 This curt and unsympathetic response to his song-
 
 14 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 making opened Bernart's eyes at last, and he saw that 
 the Vicomtesse had simply cared for him and his songs 
 while they entertained and did not inconvenience her. 
 Moreover, rumours reached him that Margarida had 
 been much more interested in the Sieur de Beaucaire, 
 a distinguished noble who had visited the Castle, than 
 in him. 
 
 In a mood of keen, if transient, unhappiness, the 
 young Troubadour said good-bye to Ventadour, his 
 lord, and his boyhood, and went away. He took his 
 harp and his jongleurs, the men who sang his songs 
 when he was out of humour, and lived the life of a 
 wanderer for a time. 
 
 This is part of the song which he made out of his 
 departure : 
 
 1M In vain at Ventadour full many a friend 
 
 Will seek me, for my lady doth refuse me, 
 And thither small my wish my way to wend, 
 
 If ever thus despitefully she use me. 
 On me she frowningly her brow doth bend, 
 For why ? My love to her hath ne'er an end ; 
 But of no other crime she can accuse me." 
 
 This song has an artificial ring except for two lines, 
 wherein he seems to refer to his happiness in Venta- 
 dour: 
 
 "... I send unto Provence great love and joy, 
 And greater joy than ever tongue expresseth. ..." 
 
 'Translation by Ida FarnelL
 
 THE SINGER OF LOVE 15 
 
 So ends the first part of the story of Bernart de 
 Ventadorn, the part through which "Bel Vezer" 
 smiled, frowned and coquetted. The tale was set down 
 by the Trouvere Hugh (or "Uc") de Saint Circ, who 
 says: 
 
 ". . . And this that I, Hugh of Saint Circ, 
 have written of him, did the Viscount Ebles, of 
 Ventadour, relate to me; son of the Viscountess that 
 Sir Bernart loved." 
 
 Margarida and her husband never were reconciled. 
 She had small power of affection, either for him or for 
 their small son, the "Viscount Ebles," referred to by 
 Saint Circ. She was tired of her husband, and he 
 was bitterly disappointed in her, and a separation was 
 soon obtained. Margarida married Guilhelm IV., 
 Count of Angouleme, without the slightest delay, and 
 continued to be known as one of the most beautiful 
 women of her day. Her loveliness added lustre to 
 four ancient names : Turenne, Limoges, Ventadorn and 
 Angouleme. As one writer says, in all simplicity: 
 "She must have been very attractive !" 
 
 Ebles, whose nature was too deep to permit of con- 
 solation, and who had now lost not only his wife, but 
 Bernart, whom he loved as a brother, left Ventadour 
 forever. He, like Bernart, could no longer bear the 
 sad and sweet memories connected with the place, and 
 he travelled far and wide, striving to forget. But 
 while Bernart was comforted speedily by his two gods,
 
 16 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 Song and Love, the Vicomte failed to find f orgetf ulness 
 or consolation. So he journeyed to Monte Cassino, 
 in Italy, became a monk in an austere Order, and never 
 was heard of any more. 
 
 For three years Bernart wandered about, growing 
 older, but, it is to be feared, hardly wiser. At the end 
 of that time he found himself in that enchanting, bril- 
 liant and dangerous place, the Court of Normandy. 
 Says Rowbotham, the historian, "Normandy was an 
 ever-open asylum to the unfortunate in love and the 
 fortunate in war." 
 
 When Bernart arrived at Court his second patron 
 had just brought home his bride. This time both 
 patron and bride were of exalted station, no petty 
 count and countess but a future king and a divorced 
 queen! Henry of Anjou, later Henry II., of Eng- 
 land, was at that time Duke of Normandy, and reigned 
 over all the province. His son was one day to be 
 known by all the world as Coeur de Lion, but at the 
 time of which I speak, Henry was himself a mere boy 
 in years, younger as a matter of fact than our Ber- 
 nart. Yet he was not too young to be wayward and 
 obstinate and overbearing ; and so it happened that of 
 all the royal women of the world he chose Queen Elea- 
 nor for his wife ! 
 
 Born Duchess of Aquitaine, she had been for a 
 brief restless season Queen of France, and con- 
 sort of "the priestly king," Louis VII. She had
 
 THE SINGER OF LOVE 17 
 
 despised Louis and had married young Prince Henry 
 because, as she asserted, "she wanted a man, not a 
 monk, for a husband !" She it was who had gone with 
 the Crusaders into Palestine, making coats of mail the 
 fashion for great ladies. And she it was who presided 
 at the fantastic Courts of Love of the day. She kept 
 herself steadily before the public gaze, not from van- 
 ity, like Bel Vezer, but from a love of power and of 
 adventure. She was as imposing as Margarida was 
 appealing and charming, and of the two it is admitted 
 that the Queen was the more beautiful. In March 
 she bade farewell to her royal "Monk," and imme- 
 diately married Henry Plantagenet. He brought her 
 home to Normandy, his bride and Princess, soon to be 
 his Queen ; and great were the festivities in honour of 
 that bridal. 
 
 Eleanor flung herself heart and soul into the spirit 
 of gaiety. She was glad to be free from Louis, for, 
 while she did not love Henry overmuch, she loved him 
 better than the French King. And her passion for 
 power thrilled her with triumph in that it would be 
 but for a brief season, after all, that she would not 
 wear a crown. 
 
 To Bernart, still moodily though fitfully mourning 
 his lost Bel Vezer, came the vision of this magnificent 
 young Duchess, like the sun between clouds. When 
 he saw her, the last lingering flames of his foolish and 
 infatuated sentiment for Margarida paled before the
 
 18 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 clear light of a genuine admiration. He appointed 
 himself Knight and Troubadour to Her Highness with- 
 out delay, and set himself to compose a fresh and more 
 brilliant order of songs for her superior judgment. 
 
 Margarida had been lovely as a gay flower; this 
 woman had the beauty of the moon and stars ; or so he 
 thought. Margarida had possessed charm; Eleanor 
 had the magnetism of a deep and rare personality. 
 The Vicomtesse had had a gracious wit; the Duchess 
 had an intellect of unusual strength and keenness. Bel 
 Vezer had carried with her an atmosphere of artificial 
 romance and perfumed sentiment ; this woman, who 
 had been and would again be a Queen, seemed forever 
 surrounded by a grandeur of emotion which had in it 
 pride and wildness, dignity and abandon. Margari- 
 da's spirit was as small as her dainty frame ; Eleanor, 
 body and soul, was large, strong and beautiful. 
 
 Says the Prior of Vigeois: "The Duchess of Nor- 
 mandy was illustrious and much admired, and well 
 versed in matters of fame and honour, and knew how 
 to award praise." She had too much discernment not 
 to appreciate Bernart's gifts, and readily permitted 
 him to sing her praises before the world. So it came 
 about that Bernart took far more pains with his songs 
 than ever he had in the old days. Bel Vezer had only 
 recognised the sweet and entertaining quality of his 
 work. The Princess Eleanor had a fine knowledge of 
 music and letters, and her brain as well as her heart re-
 
 THE SINGER OF LOVE 19 
 
 sponded to her Troubadour's songs. It is to Eleanor, 
 therefore, that we owe Bernart's loveliest lyrics. To 
 her was written that chanson in which he managed to 
 breathe the spirit of the skylarks that had soared and 
 sung above the gardens of Ventadour through his 
 golden boyhood, which we call the Lark Song: 
 
 '"When I behold on eager wing 
 
 The skylark soaring to the sun 
 Till, e'en with rapture faltering, 
 
 He sinks in glad oblivion, 
 Alas, how fain to seek were I 
 
 The same ecstatic fate of fire ! 
 Yea, of a truth I know not why 
 
 My heart melts not with its desire ! . . . " 
 
 The Court of Love over which the Duchess Eleanor 
 presided was a strange institution, one of the strang- 
 est facts of mediaeval times. An "amorous legislature" 
 was established, and there were thirty-two Laws of 
 Love, which were carefully observed and strictly en- 
 forced! Most of these laws were the outcome of 
 judgment delivered in various cases before the Courts 
 of Love. 
 
 A number of ladies of Normandy, presided over by 
 Eleanor, sat in judgment and heard the pleas and de- 
 fences of all the lovers of the country-side. They 
 settled sentimental quarrels, brought persons together, 
 and parted those who were unsuited to one another. 
 Some of the cases strike modern minds as being particu- 
 
 'Translation by Harriet W. Preston.
 
 20 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 larly amusing. One lady brought against her lover 
 the complaint that he was careless as to dress, dis- 
 hevelled as to hair, and melancholy as to conversation. 
 The court decided against her, giving as a judgment 
 the unanimous statement that being in love always 
 affected men thus! 
 
 Out of the decrees of the Court were built up the 
 Thirty-two Laws of Love. The laws are of the order 
 of this sample: 
 
 "Every action of a lover must terminate with the thought 
 of the loved one." 
 
 And this: 
 
 "Nothing prevents one lady being loved by two gentle- 
 men, or one gentleman by two ladies. . . .!" 
 
 Certainly it was fitting that an era so given over to 
 the god Eros should have produced the greatest of all 
 Singers of Love. 
 
 The Princess was but little older than her Trouba- 
 dour, and their companionship was very perfect. Both 
 rarely gifted, they understood each other, and were ex- 
 cellent friends, all romance apart. In those days, as 
 we all know, every great lady had her minstrel, and 
 Eleanor was glad to have as a Trouvere so great a 
 master as Bernart de Ventadorn. "Azimar" and 
 "Conort" were the two names by which Eleanor is 
 called in Bernart's songs. The reason for this is 
 unknown save to their two ghosts wherever they 
 may be.
 
 THE SINGER OF LOVE 21 
 
 However, that brilliant period at the Norman 
 Court was but a short one. The year after his 
 marriage Henry succeeded to the throne of Eng- 
 land. He sailed away to claim his kingdom, and, 
 either by way of compliment or irony, took Ber- 
 nart with him! The Troubadour, however, did not 
 stay long. The first ship available carried him back 
 to Normandy and Eleanor. But she by this time was 
 more interested in her coming coronation than in min- 
 strelsy, and Bernart found himself of less importance 
 at Court than heretofore. At Christmas King Henry 
 returned for his Queen. The Court was broken up, 
 the ladies of the Tribunal of Love settled down in their 
 neighbouring castles, the royal effects were packed, 
 and the royal couple went their ways to rule over their 
 new kingdom. 
 
 Bernart was left behind. A whisper there was of 
 his being summoned later, but days, months, and years 
 passed without a message from England. Their new 
 duties filled the minds of the King and Queen, and if 
 Eleanor sometimes gave a thought to the Troubadour 
 Henry certainly did not. 
 
 One day Bernart sent the Queen a letter. In it he 
 said : "Across the sea before the coming winter will I 
 come from Normandy to England; for I am both a 
 Norman and an Englishman now." But he received 
 no answer from his lady. 
 
 Nevertheless, when, after four years of waiting,
 
 22 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 Bernart presented himself at the English Court, he 
 was most graciously received, and was installed as 
 Poet Laureate. 
 
 But though his adoration for the Queen had 
 prompted Bernart to declare that he was now 
 English since she had become so, he found the 
 British Court a strange, sad place, and hungered 
 for other and warmer lands. Moreover, the old sym- 
 pathy and understanding between himself and Eleanor 
 seemed to have failed and faded. So he bade his 
 patrons a respectful and rather sorrowful farewell, and 
 with his harp under his arm sailed away from Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Once more he became a wanderer. Wishing ex- 
 perience in warfare perhaps, he took service under 
 Raymond V., called "The Good Count of Toulouse," 
 perhaps because other Counts of Toulouse have been 
 so peculiarly wicked. At the Count's Castle he met 
 many of the most brilliant men of his day : Pierre Vi- 
 dal, that graceful jester in rhyme; Pierre Rogier, the 
 courtly scholar; Folquet of Marseilles, the melan- 
 choly and fanciful dreamer; the hot-blooded and de- 
 bonnair Raimon de Miraval, and many others. 
 
 Bernart distinguished himself in the play of wits and 
 in the use of arms, but as ever it was not war nor 
 laughter, but love which formed the burden of his 
 songs. He grew to know Ermengarde de Narbonne, 
 she to whom Pierre Rogier's finished and scholarly
 
 THE SINGER OF LOVE 23 
 
 poems were addressed. She was a noble and intellec- 
 tual lady, though utterly lacking in beauty, and a 
 power in the cultivated world. Indeed she was the 
 New Woman of the day. Bernart liked and admired 
 her, and wrote for her several songs. There were, 
 too, many other women to whom he devoted himself, 
 poetically speaking. But Bernart no longer gave 
 his devotion with his songs. That was over. His 
 heart had first been charmed by Margarida de Venta- 
 dorn. All the real love of his life had been given to 
 Queen Eleanor. Therein was comprised the romance 
 of Bernart the Singer. 
 
 He made charming love songs afterward, it is 
 true; but he no longer poured his life-blood into his 
 stanzas, no longer wrote his music in time to the 
 throbs of his heart. 
 
 He lived chiefly with his golden memories, and their 
 light served to inspire him in more glowing fashion 
 than any enchantments of newer loves. For many 
 years he sang, under radiant suns and mist-veiled 
 moons, mingling his rhymes with brooks and forest 
 whispers, and his music with the songs of larks and 
 nightingales. For many years he drank life as though 
 it were wine of a rare vintage, eagerly yet linger- 
 ingly. He drank each moment to the dregs, complain- 
 ing of no bitterness when he reached them, and front- 
 ing the morrow with the warm sweet cheer with which 
 he treasured the past. For many years he voiced the
 
 24 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 varied aspects and phases of romance in verse and 
 melody, uplifting the lyric strain of love above the 
 change of seasons and the clamour of wars. 
 
 And suddenly he was old, and began to feel the chill 
 of twilight creeping over the warm human sunshine of 
 his life. Whereupon he smiled, and put away his harp. 
 And he travelled back to Provence, and knocked on the 
 postern-door of the Monastery of Dalon. They took 
 him in, the good wise monks of that quiet Cistercian 
 Abbey, and he put on the robe of the Order, and mur- 
 mured Aves among the solemn shadows. As a boy he 
 had hated the monastic restrictions and seclusion ; in 
 his old age he found the life and the atmosphere most 
 restful and comforting. 
 
 Moreover, between Matins and Vespers there were a 
 thousand moments wherein one could remember one's 
 rose-red youth, and in one's secret soul make love- 
 songs, never to be sung ! 
 
 And finally, one summer day, smiling softly over his 
 crowding dreams, he slipped away into some Ghost 
 World where he could sing with the golden, forgotten 
 voice of his youth. 
 
 But alas ! This earth knows him no longer. Not 
 even in Provence, where the skylarks sing out their 
 souls against the sun, may one find him, Bernart le 
 Chanteur, the Singer of Love.
 
 IN PRAISE OF THE LADY OF 
 FAYEL
 
 NIGHTINGALE SONG 
 
 
 When the mag - ic night-in 
 
 gale, 
 
 -J-4V- 
 
 +^ *-r 
 
 Sings .... a - bo ve the sum - mer sheen, When . . the 
 
 $3= 
 
 Efr 
 
 ?^=M 
 
 
 1 ^ J 
 
 
 5* 
 
 
 
 
 33HE 
 
 
 rose and li - ly pale, 
 
 Shine with 
 
 ^ 
 
 f 
 
 S 
 
 dew a - - mid the green, 
 tr 
 
 sing my ten - der tale Of the bright love I have seen, 
 
 Bui my heart and lips do fail, I.... have 
 
 -fit - _ gi _ -= 
 
 ^-^- s *-^^r ^ 
 
 dreamed too high.. I ween! 
 
 Heights of song, Oh! dare I scale, 
 
 ^pi | | ^-^ . . . I - 
 
 :^J-?L,^ * [Jj 7~" S n J *\ ' ^ jr J^ W - 
 
 In the ser-vice of my Queen!
 
 II 
 
 IN PRAISE OF THE LADY OF 
 FAYEL 
 
 "Songs of leaves and budding flowers, 
 
 Dewy wood and shining plain, 
 Are but songs of idle hours, 
 
 If Love claim not each refrain. 
 He who seeks a tender strain, 
 
 Yet from her sweet praise abstain, 
 Gaineth not the Springtime's dowers, 
 
 Sighs with but a phantom pain." 
 
 Thus in the old-world days, in the fragrant lute- 
 haunted twilight of the twelfth century, sang one Reg- 
 nault de Coucy, Chatelain of the splendid old Castle 
 that bears his ancient and honoured name to this day. 
 It stands there, in sweet, romantic Picardy,not far from 
 Laon and from Noyon, its superb walls crumbling, 
 its spacious rooms bare and deserted, and glowers for- 
 biddingly across its moat at impertinent travellers. 
 Magnificent in its ruin, it has no part in the world of 
 to-day, but talks dumbly of feudal centuries that are 
 dead. 
 
 There is a village there, too, that bears the name 
 of the Castle. Were they vassals, they who lived 
 there in the days of Regnault, the Chatelain?
 
 28 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 Those were days the record whereof is so faintly, 
 delicately writ upon historic pages that the reader must 
 perforce turn away with dimmed and bewildered 
 eyes, able to grasp but little concerning what these 
 strangely pranked and panoplied people actually did, 
 but breathing deeply the indefinable, vaporous per- 
 fume of their mysteriously charming lines. In poring 
 over the old books something steals out across the 
 pages, the echo of a Troubadour's lute, or the scent 
 of the red rose the Lady of Fayel wore in her gold 
 hair, a tapestry-like colouring, a mailed shimmer, 
 a melody, quaint and sad, such as might have ac- 
 companied some weary jongleur from Court to 
 Court. 
 
 Doubtless they did not only live pictures and music, 
 those mediaeval folk, but certain it is that it is only the 
 pictures and music that have come down to us. The 
 vision and the dream remain, fresh and wonderful ; 
 the rest has slipped away into the kindly obscurity of 
 the dead years. 
 
 We read that Regnault de Coucy was a valorous and 
 accomplished knight, having a pretty skill with the 
 sword and lance in a tourney. And whether we will 
 or no, we see the glittering lists with the armoured war- 
 riors and eager dames, and our ears catch the clan- 
 gour of good steel soundly struck. 
 
 And when we read the verses of the courtly Chatelain 
 (those verses which dear Dr. Burney says are "some
 
 PRAISE OF THE LADY OF FAYEL 29 
 
 of the most elegant and afflicting songs in the French 
 language" !) and when we hum over to ourselves the 
 odd, sweet melodies to which they were set what then? 
 We see the Troubadour's handsome face bent above his 
 lute, and the fair, proud head of his Lady sunk upon 
 that wonderful white hand of which he has written so 
 tenderly, her gracious spirit given up to the dreams 
 evoked by his music. 
 
 "Nay !" writes the Chatelain de Coucy. "Never shall 
 mine eyes be satisfied with gazing upon her sweet and 
 tender face, her white hands, her long and slender 
 fingers of which the very sight lights the fires of adora- 
 tion, . . . the blonde brightness of her hair. 
 The variously beautiful things that shine separately 
 and fitly in other women are all united in her to ren- 
 der her completely perfect." 
 
 Somewhere between 1160 and 1180 Regnault de 
 Coucy was born. The old historians are of many 
 minds as to the exact dates both of his birth and his 
 death, but a compromise between disagreeing author- 
 ities suggests, approximately, 1170 for his birth, and 
 1200 for his death. This, according to compara- 
 tively authentic records, would necessitate his having 
 become Chatelain de Coucy at the tender age of six- 
 teen, 1186, but this is possible. He is said to have 
 taken part in the Third Crusade, which was in 1189- 
 91, but the Abbe de la Rue insists that he did not 
 reach Palestine until 1197. It is certain that he was
 
 30 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 killed about the time that the thirteenth century was 
 born. Of necessity the chronicles of that remote day 
 are something vague and contradictory, so let us 
 waive more complete exactitude, contenting ourselves 
 with noting the life too brief, and the songs, too 
 few, of that most courtly and gifted young Trouba- 
 dour, Regnault de Coucy. 
 
 The house of Coucy was an ancient and noble one. 
 The Sire Raoul, Regnault's uncle, has a prominent 
 place in twelfth century history, and there are those 
 who insist that he too was a Troubadour, if not, indeed, 
 the author of the famous Coucy chansons themselves ! 
 And other branches of the family were worthy of note. 
 A certain young cousin of Regnault's, Raoul de 
 Malvoisin, won renown as a Troubadour, and is spoken 
 of with honour in many books that make no mention 
 of our Chatelain. The Coucy house had long been 
 a power in the Kingdom. Not so very many years 
 before, King Louis the Fat had taken sides with one 
 of Regnault's ancestors against a kinsman, and the 
 traditions of the family were of high nobility. So we 
 see that our young hero grew up in an atmosphere of 
 greatness. It was almost a foregone conclusion that 
 he should do something of note in the world. He was a 
 feudal lord, King Philippe Auguste's faithful servant, 
 and Castellan of a great castle. In early youth he 
 was taught, in addition to the usual complement of 
 courtly and knightly accomplishments, the gentle art
 
 PRAISE OP THE LADY OF FAYEL 31 
 
 of the Troubadours. He had his own jongleurs and 
 gleemen to sing his melodies, and, moreover, possessed 
 a personal aptitude for singing and for instrumental 
 music, playing with ease and grace upon the various 
 instruments popular in the Courts of that day. 
 
 Just what those instruments were it is difficult to 
 say, but there are in existence old English manuscripts 
 in which certain professional minstrels enumerate the 
 instruments upon which they can play. Here is a 
 list of a few of those mentioned : The lute, the violin, 
 the pipe, the syrinx, the trumpet, the trumpet-marine, 
 the harp, the vielle, the bagpipe, the gigue, the gittern, 
 the symphony, the psaltery, the organistrum, the taber, 
 the rote, the flageolet, the sack-but, the rebeck, the re- 
 gal, and the set of bells. One picturesque jongleur 
 writes : "I can play the shawlm, the timbrel, the cym- 
 bales, the Spanish penola that is struck with a quill, 
 the organistrum that a wheel turns around, the wait 
 so delightful, the rebeck so enchanting, the little gigue 
 that chirps up high, and the great big hornlike 
 thunder !" 
 
 There was also an instrument called the chrotta, 
 but no one seems to have the slightest idea what it was 
 like. I decline to believe that Regnault ever played the 
 chrotta, or, indeed, most of the other strange things 
 just mentioned. They were reserved for professionals, 
 while the high-born Troubadours contented themselves 
 with the poetic lute, vielle and harp. You must know,
 
 32 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 by the bye, that a jongleur, or paid musician, held a 
 most unenviable position in those days. 
 
 Quoth a gay lady of her attendant knight, on some 
 brocade-carpeted, rose-scented terrace: "Which would 
 you rather be, a jongleur or a robber?" 
 
 To which he, splendid in satin and shining mail, re- 
 plied merrily : "A robber !" 
 
 And they laughed together, while the poor jongleur 
 who had given rise to the jest, sat before them, labour- 
 ing painstakingly to give them pleasure, with the aid 
 of his gigue, or his set of bells, or perhaps, who 
 knows ? his mysterious chrotta ! 
 
 Not only was Regnault de Coucy a great Trouba- 
 dour, one as it chanced beloved of the gods and 
 gifted with Apollo's own gift of song, but he was a 
 courtly knight, a radiantly handsome gallant, and an 
 iron-armed lance-bearer in the lists. He was also 
 eternally gay and eternally generous, although, in 
 spite of the grandeur of his name, he had but little 
 wealth. Perhaps the brave Sire Raoul had already 
 squandered it, or perhaps Regnault himself was one of 
 those with whom money likes not to abide too long; 
 certain it is that he was forever out of pocket, but 
 forever kindly, forever brave, and forever bursting 
 into song as irrepressible and as spontaneous as that of 
 a wood-bird. In an old English poem they call him 
 the "Knight of Courtesy," and all the historians have 
 a word of tribute. But there is one gracious old
 
 PRAISE OF THE LADY OF FAYEL 33 
 
 romancer whose pen seems to have been dipped in pure 
 love for and comprehension of the Chatelain. This de- 
 lightful poet has signed no name to his tale of the 
 Troubadour and his Lady, explaining in quaintest 
 French, that his identity would be of no interest to the 
 world at large, only to the "gracious and amiable lady" 
 for whom he has worked. "I shall be well recom- 
 pensed," he writes, "if she accept my homage. I con- 
 secrate myself to her service, for she makes all my 
 felicity, and I shall maintain myself in joy to serve 
 her so long as I may be alive." 
 
 To this charming unknown, who wrote in the thir- 
 teenth century, we owe the only coherent, if idealised, 
 account of the Chatelain's devotion to the Lady of 
 Fayel, and to him, too, this brief but sufficient tribute 
 to our hero's good qualities: 
 
 "He was handsome, lovable and gallant, and he was 
 full of wit. He had not great wealth, but for honour, 
 courage, and a ready skill with arms, not Gawain nor 
 Launcelot could surpass him." 
 
 The Castle where Regnault de Coucy lived was 
 noticeably splendid even in those days of impressive 
 feudal piles. It was perfectly constructed for war- 
 fare and defence, being accessible from but one side. 
 Its fortress was most imposing, its moat was deep and 
 broad, its walls were lofty, and its donjons all that 
 donjons should be. Four great towers rose sharp 
 against the blue sky of Picardy, and guarded the cen-
 
 34 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 tral donjon keep, which was two hundred and ten feet 
 high, and one hundred feet in diameter. The Castle 
 covered ten thousand square yards, and its walls were 
 thirty-four inches thick. This rough description 
 gives a vague idea of our Regnault's home. 
 
 Here he passed the lengthy and gloomy win- 
 ter months, practising feats of strength and exer- 
 cise in weapons, and, accompanied by his atten- 
 tive jongleurs, composing his delicate songs. Here, 
 among the dim shadows, shut in by the winter 
 cold and the great walls of his lonely Castle, his 
 fugitive rose and silver fancies came to him in 
 frailest but most exquisite shape, elusive melo- 
 dies and wonderful rhymes, to be moulded together in 
 fitting form, against the coming of the headlong 
 spring. This was in Northern France, where the 
 spring came later but more thrillingly than in lan- 
 gorous Provence. When the river Aisne tumbled with a 
 sharper cadence, and the first flowers speared the 
 melting and softening earth, the quicksilver of the 
 season would run through the veins of the young 
 Castellan. 
 
 Then he called his men-at-arms and musicians, and, 
 with head uplifted to catch the full tang and savour 
 of the new time, and pulses bounding even as last 
 year's leaves bounded beneath the riotious wind, he rode 
 abroad, singing the songs of his making. 
 
 "For the springtime," cried aloud the Chatelain de
 
 PRAISE OF THE LADY OF FAYEL 35 
 
 Coucy, "and the month of May, and the violet, 
 and the nightingale, all invite me to sing!" 
 
 From castle to castle rode the Knight-Troubadours 
 in spring. Everywhere they were greeted with an 
 eager welcome, for their art was dearly prized. 
 Everywhere there were festivities to do them honour, 
 for almost all were noble by rank and birth. And 
 when they wished to pay a particularly marked com- 
 pliment in return, they would push their jongleurs 
 aside, and, taking lute or harp, would sing their own 
 songs for the pleasure of the lord or lady they were 
 visiting. 
 
 As we know, it was the custom for every Trouba- 
 dour to single out some great lady for his special 
 allegiance. To her all his songs were addressed, and 
 her colours were carried by him in every tourney he 
 chanced to enter. But for many years Regnault sang 
 only to an imaginary Queen of Hearts, a lady 
 sketched in mist and moonbeams, but fairer, he vowed, 
 than ever mortal woman could be. Then, during one 
 of his early spring flights, he saw, suddenly and 
 briefly as one sees a star between fast-moving clouds, 
 a face. It was a fair and delicate face with smiling 
 lips, but with the pride of sadness in the deep blue 
 eyes, a face framed in a mist of sun-coloured hair. 
 From that moment his dream-lady was gone, or 
 rather his dream-lady had become real, and, with loy- 
 alty and good cheer, as became a brave knight and
 
 36 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 true, he henceforth sang the praise of the Lady of 
 Fayel. 
 
 Her name was Gabrielle, and she was a daughter of 
 the fine old family of De Vergy. As a very young 
 girl she had married the grim Chevalier Aubert de 
 Fayel, a neighbour of Regnault's. She lived there, 
 year by year, in the Castle of Fayel, a quiet, sweet 
 lady, most lovable and gentle, a faithful wife, and 
 a sedately merry companion ; a little staid, probably, 
 in all her moods, as though fearing to dare too careless 
 a joy, a little sad always, as though weighted down by 
 too many dreams and fancies. It is said that she was 
 so lovely that all eyes softened on beholding her. One 
 old poet declares that her "virtue, gentleness, chastity, 
 amiability, and beauty made her beloved of all men." 
 
 As to this beauty of hers, it is naturally from Coucy 
 himself that we have the most individual and vivid de- 
 scriptions of her. 
 
 ". . . Her face is charming, the face of a 
 young girl, . . . her mouth is fresh as a flower. 
 . . . Her arms are beautiful, her throat fair and 
 stately, her figure is supreme grace. . . . Her 
 wonderful blue eyes are clear and sparkling, yet my 
 Lady is all pride. ... In her cheeks bloom, day 
 by day, sweet roses and lilies. . . ." 
 
 In that beautiful and poetic letter into which the 
 old romancer put a distilled essence of all of Coucy's 
 loveliest songs we find:
 
 PRAISE OF THE LADY OF FAYEL 37 
 
 "Your heart, most sweet lady, is like the purest gold 
 without flaw. . . . You are a diamond, a sap- 
 phire, a red rose. . . . You are all that is 
 beautiful and good. . . . You lead man to glory, 
 and you are to him a fountain of divinest pity. Dear 
 and beautiful lady, most charming and most noble of 
 women, you have all my heart and my service." 
 
 Having seen Gabrielle de Fayel, Coucy most natu- 
 rally presented himself at her Castle before the spring 
 grew old. 
 
 The same old romancer-historian describes the first 
 meeting in flowery terms. We gather that the Lady 
 of Fayel stood among her women, dressed in a rose-red 
 gown "neither too gay in colour, nor yet too pale," 
 with a band of gold upon her fair hair, and that 
 she bowed with grace and gravity. The Chatelain 
 bent low before her, then, lifting his head, he cried 
 in ringing tones the wonderful old salutation: 
 "Dieu vous donne le bonjour! (God give you happi- 
 ness!)" 
 
 Near her perhaps stood the Demoiselle Isabelle, a 
 cousin of Gabrielle's, and her chief lady-in-waiting. A 
 fair maid and a loyal was Isabelle, who loved her kins- 
 woman and lady with her whole heart, and comforted 
 her much in the days of sorrow and anxiety which were 
 to come. And surely, on that spring day, the brave 
 esquire Gobert stood not far away. He was in Au- 
 bert de Fayel's service, but loved his gentle lady bet-
 
 38 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 ter than his grim lord, and, later, gave his whole alle- 
 giance to the Chatelain because he sang the praises of 
 Gabrielle, and brought pleasure into her life. 
 
 Coucy himself, according to the custom of the time, 
 must have been magnificent in the full armour and rich 
 cloak that became his rank. His horse, too, surely 
 the beast gleamed with golden trappings ! For, be it 
 known, in those days, whatever the size of his purse, 
 a high-born Troubadour must ride almost as finely 
 caparisoned as a king. 
 
 I think that it was among the first days of their new 
 friendship that Regnault composed his little master- 
 piece, his "Quaint li louseignolz" which will live 
 always among the gems of pure lyric song, despite 
 its quaint and mediaeval character : 
 
 "When the magic nightingale 
 
 Sings above the summer sheen, 
 When the rose and lily pale 
 
 Shine with dew amid the green, 
 I should sing my fervent tale 
 
 Of the bright love I have seen, 
 But mine eyes and lips do fail, 
 
 I have dreamed too high, I ween ! 
 Heights of song, ah ! dare I scale 
 
 In the service of my Queen ? 
 
 "Maddest tellers of a tale 
 
 Are my wilful eyes, I ween ! 
 I may strive without avail 
 To disguise the lovers' mien. 
 Ah ! so often have they seen
 
 PRAISE OF THE LADY OF FAYEL 39 
 
 You before whom sunsets pale 
 That the heights I dared not scale 
 
 They have leaped with love, my queen ! 
 Eyes, with moon-struck folly wild, 
 You are pardoned : for she smiled ! " 
 
 The Chevalier Aubert de Fay el was a silent, taciturn 
 man, just and brave in his own way, and not too narrow 
 in mind, but his heart lacked freedom and generosity, 
 and he had forgotten, if he had ever known, the ro- 
 mance and buoyancy of youth. From the beginning the 
 admiration which perforce he gave the young Trouba- 
 dour was of a grudging nature. He could not under- 
 stand the pure and idealistic adoration which Reg- 
 nault felt for Gabrielle, nor the gracious friendship 
 which she granted him, and his gentle songs irritated 
 the wingless soul which could neither fly to their poetic 
 heights, nor fathom their delicate sweetness. 
 
 When Regnault sang among the dewy garden- 
 spaces of Fayel, at twilight, and the Lady listened, her 
 heart moved to all manner of soft and gracious fancies ; 
 when Isabelle, too, dreamed, and the other women for- 
 got to chatter ; when Gobert stood spellbound, and the 
 birds ceased singing to listen, the Chevalier moved 
 apart, plunged in gloom. He hated the man whom 
 the gods had so lovingly dowered, and he was growing 
 more and more jealous of his poetic devotion to Ga- 
 brielle. 
 
 The Chatelain had a thousand quaint conceits and 
 whimsical ways, and his delight was to bring a smile
 
 40 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 into his Lady's deep eyes. Sometimes he played out 
 miniature dramas, pretending that he was a condemned 
 prisoner, and praying her to soften his sentence. At 
 such times he sang quickly improvised and lightly 
 wayward songs, as graceful as they were quaint, and 
 she listened with a happy pride in his skill, and a pleas- 
 ure in his gentle merriment. 
 
 "Ah, sweet it is to me to breathe the savour 
 Of these, the dear new days that waft the spring " 
 
 sang the Chatelain softly, as he touched his lute among 
 the garden shadows : 
 
 "The woods and fields with faint bright mists a-waver, 
 The fresh, green grass with rose-pink garnishing ! 
 But I, alas ! with all the season's favour 
 Still kneel before my lady proud and fair, 
 Whose word sweet death or sweeter life may bring, 
 And join my hands in broken, yearning prayer. 
 Give life give death ! I pray. Yet still I sing : 
 Since both in life and death song makes man braver ! " 
 
 He only visited Fayel occasionally. He had his 
 own gloomy Castle to heed, his own men-at-arms and 
 village-folk to care for, and plenty of tourneys in 
 which to defend the honour of the house of Coucy, and 
 to bear the colours of the Lady Gabrielle. Of his 
 visits to his Lady during the year we know little, but 
 certain it is that no spring ever blossomed without 
 finding him at her Castle gate, or without hearing new 
 songs in her honour. For until he died she was the
 
 PRAISE OF THE LADY OF FAYEL 41 
 
 star of whose brightness he sang without ceasing, with 
 all the tender sadness and rapturous pain of the born 
 poet. 
 
 But the Chevalier de Fayel, as time passed, grew 
 more and more bitter in his dislike of the Troubadour. 
 And at last his wife came to grieve because of this, 
 and found no more joy in the companionship of her 
 young Knight. So Regnault determined suddenly to 
 disappear from Picardy, and to continue his worship 
 of his Lady under distant skies. 
 
 In those days when Knights made a great success 
 or a great failure of life they took the cross and went 
 to fight the Saracens in Palestine. Regnault was 
 poorer than ever, and by this time even his marvellous 
 spirits were growing weary. There was nothing to 
 keep him in France, as his homage was a source of 
 sorrow to his beloved Lady, so, together with his uncle, 
 the Sire Raoul, and his young cousin, Raoul de Mal- 
 voisin, he took service under Richard Coeur de Lion, 
 during, probably, the Third Crusade. 
 
 He paid a farewell visit to Gabrielle, and promised 
 her his eternal devotion and service. And she was 
 filled with sadness at the thought of parting from her 
 poet. She said that he must wear her colours in 
 Palestine, and he assured her that he would always do 
 so. Had he not borne them with honour in many a 
 great tourney in France? But this was a different 
 occasion, and, dissatisfied with the simple scarf he
 
 42 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 treasured, she took a dagger and cut off great shining 
 lengths of her own golden hair. This she braided into 
 a bright net, and ornamented it with great pearls of 
 price, and she gave it to him with a prayer for his 
 safety, and her own sweet, fleeting, half-sorrowful 
 smile for his adoring memory. 
 
 Coucy fastened the golden net to his helmet, and 
 never again went into battle without its shimmering 
 glory for a plume. 
 
 With a gay word of courage and good cheer, he took 
 leave of his Lady, and rode gallantly away from 
 Fayel, from Picardy, and from France forever. 
 
 A poet of the Middle Ages once wrote a poem on 
 Gabrielle's thoughts of Coucy during the Wars of 
 the Cross. The following is an excerpt from it: 
 
 "And when the soft winds, ever faintly sighing, 
 
 Steal inward from that far and desolate place 
 Where he may now be fighting, even dying, 
 
 Unto that side I turn my eager face. 
 And then it seems, my fancy fired o'ermuch, 
 On my grey cloak I feel his passing touch. 
 Lord God ! when with the cross they cry, 'Make way ! ' 
 
 Succour one pilgrim in that bitter fight, 
 He for whose soul and life I purely pray : 
 
 God from the Saracens protect my Knight!" 
 
 Coucy dreamed much of Gabrielle during his travels 
 and battles, and cherished a secret hope that stories of 
 his brave deeds might drift back to Picardy, and in 
 time reach her ears. The old chroniclers make much
 
 PRAISE OF THE LADY OF FAYEL 43 
 
 of his exploits, and in their apparent pride in him, 
 and delight in his prowess, have piled fancy upon fact. 
 Among other achievements they mention, in all serious- 
 ness, his battle with a fierce and dangerous dragon, 
 and his easy conquest of that demoniac beast ! 
 
 But putting all legendary embellishment aside, it is 
 certain that Regnault de Coucy acquitted himself 
 superbly during the wars in the Holy Land. He 
 was well-loved by King Richard, and fought beside 
 him in many of his most violent battles. It was at 
 Acre, that memorable and historic carnage-time, 
 that all three kinsmen were killed by the Saracens : the 
 old Sire Raoul, young Malvoisin, and our Chatelain 
 Regnault. 
 
 A poisoned arrow pierced his side, and Gobert, 
 who had left the Chevalier de Fayel to follow his for- 
 tunes, and loved him better than all the world, was 
 forced to tell him that there was no hope for life. The 
 Chatelain lay under the hot Eastern sun, and thought 
 for a space, and then he called to him once more his 
 faithful attendants, Gobert and also Hideux, the hum- 
 blest of his servants, but not the least devoted, and 
 gave them his dying commands. 
 
 He bade them, when he should be dead, take out 
 his heart and place it, together with the net of golden 
 hair, in a jewelled casket. That casket, he declared, 
 they must carry back to France and place in the hands 
 of the Lady of Fayel.
 
 44 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 The old historians avow that he wrote a letter to go 
 with it, in which he said: 
 
 "Lady, I send you my heart, for it is yours, and 
 belongs to you by right. And, Lady, it is my joy 
 to have you know that I die as I have lived, your man, 
 your servant, and your Knight." 
 
 When he had finished his directions the Chatelain 
 whispered brokenly : "Gobert, carry my fare- 
 wells to my Lady ," and closed his eyes. The 
 hot blue sky of Palestine burned splendidly on, and all 
 around were the dead and dying Crusaders who had 
 carried the Cross in the Siege of Acre. 
 
 Gobert and Hideux, faithful to the least wish of their 
 dead master, carried out his instructions to tfie letter. 
 Regnault was buried in the Holy Land, but his heart 
 was carried home to Picardy, resting in the jewelled 
 casket with the net that was made of Gabrielle's yellow 
 hair. 
 
 Meanwhile the Chevalier de Fayel grew ever more 
 and more morose and suspicious. His wife's frank 
 sadness over the dangers to which the Troubadour was 
 exposed enraged him, and that most gentle lady led 
 a bitter life during the years of the Third Crusade. 
 Nevertheless, she was always loyal and courageous, 
 and tried to please her lord in all things. 
 
 Then came Gobert with worn and anxious face, 
 moving secretly about the Castle garden, waiting for 
 an opportunity to enter and present himself before the
 
 PRAISE OF THE LADY OF FAYEL 45 
 
 Lady. He carried a jewelled casket, and with as much 
 tenderness as though it were his own heart that lay 
 within it. 
 
 The Chevalier de Fayel saw him, recognised the 
 esquire who had left his service to enter that of the 
 hated Troubadour, and stopped him. Gobert did his 
 best to avert the Chevalier's suspicions, but was finally 
 forced to give him the casket, and confess his errand. 
 
 In a fury over this last appeal to his wife's sym- 
 pathies on the part of the dead Chatelain, Aubert de- 
 termined upon a hideous punishment for her interest 
 in the minstrel. He gave the casket to his cook, bid- 
 ding him serve the heart that night at supper. 
 
 The dish was placed before Gabrielle, who, suspect- 
 ing nothing, tasted it. Whereupon the Chevalier, un- 
 able to contain himself longer, cried out, with horrible 
 triumph, that it was the heart of Regnault de Coucy. 
 
 When she understood the full ghastly truth, Ga- 
 brielle, with a quiet solemnity that frightened her hus- 
 band, vowed that never again should food pass her lips. 
 
 She was helped to her apartments by her women, and 
 never left them again, for she kept her vow and slowly 
 starved herself to death. 
 
 She was so dearly loved that her women were in de- 
 spair, and after a space even the Chevalier came to her 
 side to beg her to live, and to earnestly pray her for- 
 giveness. 
 
 This last she granted freely, saying that death was
 
 46 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 too close to permit resentment, but no power could 
 sway her from her determination. She lay, becoming 
 ever paler, with the mystery of a new life growing in 
 the sparkling blue eyes of which Regnault had written 
 so adoringly. 
 
 And at last, with one of her Troubadour's songs 
 haunting her failing memory, and perhaps the night- 
 ingale he had loved so well singing his broken heart 
 out, among the dew-wet flowers of her garden, the 
 Lady of Fayel died. 
 
 She was widely mourned, and it is stated that Aubert, 
 the grim Chevalier, never smiled again in the few 
 years that he survived her. The fate of Isabelle, of 
 Gobert, and of Hideux we know not. It is certain that 
 their time of mourning ended only with their lives. 
 
 So lived and died that brave and gallant Knight, 
 Regnault, Chatelain de Coucy, and his high-born 
 Lady, Gabrielle de Fayel. 
 
 It is many years since they wandered among the 
 spring flowers, heard the passionate nightingale, and 
 dreamed day-dreams together, many years since 
 Regnault sang and Gabrielle listened, many years 
 since he fell asleep in Palestine and she in Picardy. 
 But some memory of them remains, sweet and fragrant 
 as meadows in May-time, or hedgerows under the moon. 
 It is not only in the tomes and records that the Chate- 
 lain lives still, it is in all the fresh growing things 
 that come again each spring. At that season, so
 
 PRAISE OF THE LADY OF FAYEL 47 
 
 beloved by him, his gentle and fearless ghost walks 
 abroad, among the white pear-blossoms and silvering 
 aspens, and sings again some chanson that came to 
 him in that old-world time in Picardy : 
 
 "The wild, sweet nightingale forever singing 
 
 Both day and night, outpouring his sad heart, 
 Sings to my soul, strange solace softly bringing, 
 
 Till I, too, yearn to voice the wild-wood art. 
 So must I do, since every joy or smart 
 
 Doth pleasure her when turned to music ringing ! 
 Bearing my lance, or my light lute new stringing, 
 
 I ask but to be of her life a part."
 
 THE DREAMERS
 
 AN AIR BY WALTHER VON DER 
 VOGELWEIDE 
 
 Stollen. 
 
 $= 
 
 I 
 
 Abgesang.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE DREAMERS 
 
 THEY did not live and laugh like the singers of the 
 South; they only dreamed, and touched their harp- 
 strings gently, and sang grave, soft songs. And all 
 their songs were in honour of pale, remote, lily-like 
 women, and a love that was scarcely more than a 
 graceful ghost of human passion. The grey-blue sky 
 that topped the hills was not quieter nor more free from 
 the fever-heats of this imperfect life than their music. 
 For these were the Dreamers, the Minnesinger of 
 Germany. 
 
 It was their pride that they had purified themselves 
 from all earthly desires or emotions, and that their 
 hearts were clean alike of the bewilderments of error, 
 and the turbulence of those world-calls that were prone 
 to devastate soul and body if one should hearken to 
 them. Not that they were monkish ascetics, nor un- 
 manly cowards afraid of themselves and life, nor yet 
 fanatics who mortified the flesh. They could tilt a 
 lance with the hottest-headed Prove^al or Spaniard 
 who ever flung down a glove; and, dawning upon 
 dawning, the woods echoed with the blast of their hunt-
 
 6 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 ing-horns. Nay, they were no weaklings, these 
 Minnesinger : only Dreamers. 
 
 A great struggle had been taking place in Ger- 
 many between Paganism and Christianity, between the 
 old material deities and the new spiritual God. Pagan- 
 ism, and evil, and yielding to the temptations of the 
 earth, had all become bracketed together in the public 
 mind. The Church stood for purity and honour and 
 clean living, a romance that could be impersonal, and 
 a chivalry that was far from gallantry. With the 
 triumph of Christianity the revulsion of feeling in 
 honest people's hearts caused a sudden convulsive ex- 
 aggeration of idealism ; all material elements were re- 
 garded with suspicion, and chivalry, knightliness, 
 honour and love came to mean bloodless shadows from 
 which the very life had been drained away. Such ex- 
 tremes are inevitable in all great movements for prog- 
 ress, and, following close upon the sensuous, warm-hued 
 Paganism which had so nearly demoralised the coun- 
 try, the wave of reformation was bound to bring upon 
 it an idealism as extravagant as the materialism which 
 had been conquered. Upon this wave floated the bark 
 of Song, a new and etherialised song, belonging in- 
 trinsically to the time and the spirit thereof ; and the 
 bark was manned by the Minnesinger. The new cult 
 demanded something better than honest humanity, 
 something as white as the snow, and as pure as the 
 stars. Which seems a strange and sad desire, since
 
 THE DREAMERS 53 
 
 man is made neither of chilled vapour nor starshine, 
 but of red blood, and firm fibres, and swift pulses. But 
 the Dreamers knew not that in their dreaming they 
 were forgetting how to live. 
 
 And if you believe all this to be but a fanciful way 
 of telling old tales, go you to the books that hold the 
 verses and the melodies of the Minnesinger. You will 
 find there many graceful lines and vague sweet airs, all 
 threaded and crossed by cobwebs and shadows and 
 trails of mist. For they were fashioned from visions 
 and phantasies, and their makers were the Dreamers of 
 Dreams. 
 
 Walther von der Vogelweide wrote a song on "Love" 
 one day. Never was poet or songster yet who could 
 keep away from the Universal Theme for long. We 
 have seen how the South treated it. Mark you now, the 
 way of the Dreamer: 
 
 "'Love is neither man nor woman, 
 Soul it hath not, nor yet body, 
 And no earthly sign nor token ; 
 Though the tongue of man hath named it, 
 Never mortal eye hath seen it. 
 Yet without it can no creature 
 Win Heaven's pitying grace and favour ; 
 Nor where Love is will there linger 
 Aught of fraud or baseness ever. 
 To the traitor, the false-hearted, 
 Love hath come not, cometh never." 
 
 The following poem by Heinrich von Morungen is 
 'Translation by Rev. Sir F. A. Gore Ousely.
 
 54 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 one of the simplest and loveliest of the Dream Songs ; 
 as well as one of the most typical : 
 
 '"Faithful ever my heart's true emotion, 
 
 Yet Love's reward to m^ was pain and sorrow. 
 Ever since my childhood have I worshipped 
 Thine image fair, in true love still adoring. 
 My heart's enshrined in bitter anguish, 
 Yet never cry from me has reached you ; 
 My heart's deep emotion have I stifled, 
 And every shadow of my sorrow hidden. 
 ***** 
 Blessed had I been, how far more blessed, 
 Had I but Heavenward turned my devotion !" 
 
 Among the Minnesinger was one who found a mo- 
 ment sufficiently warmed by the sunshine of summer to 
 write a really delicious song on a girl's tryst with her 
 lover. It closes in a manner quite out of the usual 
 Dreamer-style : 
 
 '"With foot hurrying and heart beating, 
 Swift I hastened to the meeting, 
 Found my lover waiting there ; 
 My true love was there before me, 
 And he clasped me and bent o'er me, 
 Till I thrilled with joy and fear. 
 Did my lover kiss, you said ? 
 
 Tra-lira-la ! 
 Nay, why are my lips so red?" 
 
 We do not even know the name of this Dreamer, 
 and cannot help feeling that he was a most inharmo- 
 'Translation by Rev. Sir F. A. Gore Ousely.
 
 THE DREAMERS 55 
 
 nious element among the pale exaltations of his fellow 
 singers. 
 
 Richard Wagner, that loyal German, has made for 
 us, in his "Tannhauser," a most wonderful tonal and 
 poetic picture of the Minnesinger. Even he, with 
 his warm humanity and splendid wealth of artistic 
 emotion, made no attempt to vitalise nor solidify the 
 aerial charm of the Dreamers. To Walther von der 
 Vogelweide, Wolfram von Eschenbach and the rest, 
 Wagner gave music as sweet, as pure and as unreal 
 as mountain mists. As living men who breathed, suf- 
 fered, and loved we can hardly picture them ; but as 
 Dreamers, ah, they dreamed most marvellously ! 
 
 The names of the best known Minnesinger are: 
 Frederick the Red (1152), Spervogel (1150), Hein- 
 rich von Beldeke (1184), Ulrich von Lichenstein 
 (1275),Hartmann von Ane, Dietmar von Aest, Kiiren- 
 burger, Nithart von Reunthal, Gottfried von Strass- 
 bourg, Konried von Wiirzburg, Friedebrandt, Rein- 
 mar Hagenau, Reinmar der Zweiter, Heinrich von 
 Morungen, Walther von der Vogelweide, and Wolfram 
 von Eschenbach. 
 
 The Minnesinger were less often of noble birth 
 than the Troubadours of the South. Serfs as well 
 as lords had been swept into the great idealistic 
 movement, religion and feudalism had joined hands, 
 and the long-neglected Folk-song in its sublimated 
 form drew all its exponents to a common lyrical level.
 
 56 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 The exercise of their art carried the Minnesinger into 
 court-life, whatever their birth, and their position was 
 always an honourable one, for music was still the chief 
 intellectual interest of the nobles. But many of the 
 Minnesinger were men whose only claim to recognition 
 was that they were singers of songs. 
 
 There were three forms of Minnesanger: the Lied 
 (Song), Lerch (Lay) and Dichtespruch (Proverb). 
 The Mirvnelied was a composition of three parts, the 
 first two being called the Stollen (Stanzas) or Aufge- 
 sang (Opening Song). These were exactly alike, 
 metrically and melodically. The third part was called 
 the Abgesang (After-song), and had no visible nor 
 audible connection with the first Stollen. It bears a 
 very faint and remote resemblance to our Refrain. 
 
 The Minnelerch was usually a careful development 
 or adaptation of a well-known air, sometimes a 
 church chant, and occasionally some very ancient 
 dance-melody. The character of the Minnelerch 
 seems a bit mysterious and obscure, as a matter of fact, 
 and appears to have changed its colour and form with 
 every variable wind of the Dreamers' fancies. 
 
 The Dichtespruch, or Proverb, was a fairly clear 
 form of composition, albeit not particularly interest- 
 ing. Its melody was definite and complete as a rule, 
 and not divided into separate parts like the Lied and 
 Lerch. It was repeated in its entirety for each stanza, 
 or Strophe, of the song, and if the composer had sub-
 
 THE DREAMERS 57 
 
 sequent poems to set to music, he went on using the 
 melody of his old Spruch, which was a fine and sim- 
 ple exhibition of musical economy ! The character of 
 the Spruch was usually intensely idealistic and deli- 
 cately austere. Spervogel's "Frauenschone (Wo- 
 man's Loveliness)" is a particularly charming Dichte- 
 spruch, both as to words and music : 
 
 "Comes a woman, pure of heart, in humble dress, 
 Gowned in simple cloth, yet decked in loveliness, 
 Flowers seem swaying in her grace, 
 Sunshine streams from out her face ! 
 
 And, as she passes, all the modest grace of May-time bearing, 
 What eye would seek the woman bold, fine stuffs and jewels 
 wearing?" 
 
 The air, which cannot be given entire, as it is rather 
 a long one, begins in this way : 
 
 Comes a woman pure of heart, In hum-hie dress,.... 
 
 The two greatest Minnesinger, without question, 
 were Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von 
 Eschenbach, both so familiar to the musical world 
 through Wagner. 
 
 May de Rudder, who writes with so much sympathy 
 and understanding of the period of the Minnegesdnge, 
 gives the following description of the great minstrel 
 Vogelweide as portrayed in an old Heidelberg manu- 
 script : 
 
 "His head gently drooping, and supported on his
 
 58 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 left hand, his right hand holding the viol used for ac- 
 companiments, his face framed in his short beard, and 
 in the long curling hair that falls upon his shoulders ; 
 with eyes that perpetually dream: so does he appear 
 before us, greeting us with the sweetest and frankest 
 expression, the most fascinating of all Minnesinger 
 and the greatest lyric poet before Goethe : Walther von 
 der Vogelweide. . . ." 
 
 He was born in the manor of the Vogelweide, near 
 Waidebruck, in Tyrol. The date of his birth is not 
 known, but it was between the middle and the end of the 
 twelfth century. His family was an old and noble 
 one, but exceedingly poor, and unable to live in a man- 
 ner suitable to their rank. The boy Walther spent 
 most of his youth out of doors, wandering in the woods, 
 and listening to the birds. His love for them has be- 
 come proverbial, and has served innumerable poets for 
 a theme. He was known to declare in after years that 
 his lyric gift had been learned from the birds in the 
 forest near the Vogelweide Castle. He had a great 
 longing to study the art of making Minnegesange, 
 to learn the "Singen und Sagen" (as it was called) 
 that constituted musical cultivation at that time. And 
 when he was not quite twenty years old he journeyed 
 to Vienna and began his education under the great 
 master, Reinmar, known as Reinmar der Alte (the 
 Elder), and termed by one enthusiast, "The nightin- 
 gale of Haguenau."
 
 THE DREAMERS 59 
 
 Walther loved his master dearly, and, on Reinmar's 
 death, wrote: "I am afflicted to know that thine elo- 
 quent speech and thy most sweet song have so quickly 
 left my life, and that I shall see thee not again upon 
 the earth. Most willingly would I go with thee; for 
 I have no will to sing longer here. . . ." 
 
 Frederick, Duke of Austria, who had been the 
 patron of Reinmar, befriended Walther after the older 
 master's death, but was killed in Palestine in 1198, 
 and the young singer was left to his own resources. 
 
 He became interested in political and religious ques- 
 tions, making patriotic Lieder and Dichtespruche y and 
 quite neglecting the gentler branches of his art. 
 
 "The German race surpasses all others," 
 
 he asserted, aggressively, in one Proverb : 
 
 "The men are all noble, 
 The women are all beautiful as the angels ; 
 Come to our country and you will find happiness. 
 May I dwell here long!" 
 
 This was Walther's most strenuous period. He 
 soon slipped into the graceful "chivalric verses" of 
 the day, and wrote exquisite poems on woods and 
 streams and choiring birds. In 1202 he went to the 
 Wartburg near Eisenach, and was graciously received 
 by Hermann, Landgraf of Thuringia. Hermann was 
 deeply interested in all art and culture, and made his 
 Court a meeting-ground for the most famous Minne-
 
 60 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 singer of his time. There Walther met fellow-poets, 
 and further perfected his own art. Wolfram von 
 Eschenbach made a deep impression upon him, and 
 the two Minnesinger became and remained close 
 friends. 
 
 Walther von der Vogelweide lived a gentle, peaceful, 
 and kindly life, but at heart he was deeply melancholy, 
 as all true Dreamers are apt to be. He it was who 
 wrote : 
 
 "He who seeks happiness here below loses it all." 
 And that intensely pessimistic poem : 
 
 "On the surface the world is beautiful, white, green, and red ; 
 At the bottom it is black, sombre even as death." 
 
 After a long sojourn among men, and the fashion- 
 ing of many songs, he died in the Monastery of Wiirz- 
 burg in 1230. 
 
 They say that before he died he begged the monks 
 to cover the stone above his grave with crumbs each 
 day, that his beloved birds might never be hungry. 
 Longfellow has written a poem in which he tells of the 
 Abbot's failure to comply with the request, from mo- 
 tives of frugality. 
 
 On the tomb where Walther von der Vogelweide lies 
 is this inscription: 
 
 "Der du die Vogel so gut, O, 
 Walther, zu Weiden, 
 
 Verstandest ! "
 
 THE DREAMERS 61 
 
 Gottfried von Strassbourg, in his preface to "Tris- 
 tan," has a word of tribute to pay to 
 
 "... Vogelweide, 
 He ! How clearly, across the meadows, 
 His vibrant tones resound ! 
 So marvellous was his song, 
 So delicate his voice, 
 So varied and beautiful his music!" 
 
 Wolfram von Eschenbach (sometimes called Eschel- 
 bach) was born in Switzerland, a little later than 
 Walther von der Vogelweide. His master in song was 
 Friedebrandt, a musician less well known than many 
 of the Minnesinger, but a man of ability notwith- 
 standing. Wolfram's musical gifts were much less 
 marked than Walther's, but he was a great poet. 
 
 After travelling all over Germany he finally, in 
 1200, made Hermann's Court his permanent head- 
 quarters. There he sang, and dreamed, and passed 
 long tranquil years. 
 
 There are records of a famous contest between Wol- 
 fram and a certain great singer, Klingsohr. The 
 Landgraf had offered a prize to the winner, and it was 
 believed that Wolfram would easily gain it. He sang 
 a number of really beautiful religious and idealistic 
 songs, but Klingsohr, who seems to have been less of 
 a Dreamer than his rival, far surpassed him in romantic 
 lyrics. The Landgraf was obliged, albeit regretfully, 
 to give the prize to Klingsohr.
 
 62 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 Wolfram excelled in poetry which demanded an 
 exalted spiritual vein of inspiration. His noblest 
 work that, indeed, through which he has a fixed and 
 unapproachable place in artistic history, was the 
 epic poem "Parzifal." 
 
 "Not only," says Fetis, "was he one of the great 
 song-writers of his day, but, by virtue of the wealth 
 of his imagination, the high character of his ideas, and 
 the expression and elegance of his style, he is recog- 
 nised as one of the genuine Epic Poets." 
 
 He was made Chevalier, as a tribute to his achieve- 
 ments, and spent much of the latter part of his life 
 in travel. His very last days were passed in the Swiss 
 castle where his ancestors had lived and died. 
 
 All who knew Wolfram von Eschenbach had a word 
 for his sweet and lovable personality, the charm of 
 which was not affected by a certain exaggerated so- 
 briety and dreaminess. 
 
 It is hard to say which of these two was the most 
 typical Dreamer, Walther von der Vogelweide, or 
 Wolfram von Eschenbach. Both lived in a mystic, 
 cloud-shadowed world, where music flowed in faintest 
 and most elusive harp-tones, and a radiance of other 
 worlds stole in through walls of glowing mist. The 
 sadness, the beauty, the mystery of things touched 
 them both profoundly, but of bitter and unreasoning 
 human suffering it is doubtful if they understood very 
 much. For they were Dreamers ; not sorely tried and
 
 63 
 
 wofully striving men, whose tragic glory it was to 
 laugh over their own defeats, and struggle on the more 
 stoutly for the laughter, but merely Dreamers. 
 "Alas ! where have vanished all my years?" 
 
 asked Walther von der Vogelweide, in one of his songs : 
 "Has all my life, then, been but a dream ? . . . "
 
 THE MONK OF READING ABBEY
 
 THE READING ROTA 
 
 m 
 
 Su - mer la i - cu - men in, Lhu - de 
 
 
 Cuc - cu. Grow -eth sed, and blow - eth med, And 
 
 
 springth the w - de Nu, Sing Cue - cu, Aw - e 
 
 
 blet - eth at - ter Tomb, Lhouth at - ter Cal - ve 
 
 1 
 
 cu, Bull - oc stert - eth, Buck - e vert - eth, mu - rie 
 
 sing Cue - cu, Cue - cu, Cue - cu, Wei song 
 
 - es thy Cue - cu; Nu swik thu nav - er nu.
 
 IV 
 
 THE MONK OF READING ABBEY 
 
 THE Monk's name was John of Fornsete, but beyond 
 this the modern world knows little of his personality 
 and private life. To us he is, first and foremost, the 
 man who wrote "Sumer is icumen in," the earliest 
 piece of harmonic music, and one of the loveliest of 
 all melodies, somewhere about the year 1226. So 
 little indeed is known authentically about John of 
 Fornsete that we may let our imaginations have a free 
 rein concerning him, and, whatever we may determine 
 as to his life or his individuality, no man shall rise up 
 and call us inaccurate nor misinformed. 
 
 The date of his birth is very uncertain and proble- 
 matical, but it could hardly have been later than 
 1190. Even this would make him but thirty-six when 
 he wrote his Canon, and the monastic records show 
 that at that time he was already a man of learn- 
 ing and achievements. The truth concerning his 
 antecedents will probably be forever wrapped in equal 
 mystery. A few writers insist upon calling him John 
 Farnset, an error for which it is difficult to account
 
 68 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 in the light of the many existing records and authori- 
 ties, but it is conclusively proved that his correct 
 title was John of Fornsete. The little word "of" is 
 our only clue as to his station or circumstances, and 
 though that might mean several different things, we 
 will assume the most probable explanation of its pres- 
 ence. 
 
 "Of Fornsete," might mean that he was born in 
 some lonely hamlet of Berkshire named Fornsete, or 
 that he grew up under the protection of some great 
 feudal lord, some Earl of Fornsete, of an extinct 
 nobility, whose serfs and vassals went by his name. 
 Reasoning thus from a purely hypothetical basis, we 
 may include the former under the latter supposition, 
 and fancy our hero as coming from the feudal village 
 Fornsete, where a great lord held sway, levied taxes, 
 and, perhaps, in a sporadically generous mood, singled 
 out some one of the more gifted of his young serfs to 
 be educated. In England, as in France, the Bene- 
 dictine and Augustine monasteries were the only 
 schools, and so it happened that the boy John was 
 sent to the Abbey of Reading. 
 
 One cannot help having an idea that he was not a 
 typical monk, for we know that he had a sympathetic 
 ear for melodies that over-reached the ascetic limits of 
 the Church music of the day, and that he had a whole- 
 some love of the brown earth and all the fresh green- 
 ness of out-of-door England. It is probable that he
 
 THE MONK OF READING ABBEY 69 
 
 was a very normal English boy, and it is not improbable 
 that his novitiate was a long and much broken one. 
 Perhaps he like a certain French youth of whom you 
 will hear later, broke the rules occasionally, and ran 
 away. I think he must have known what it was to 
 dance on the grass with some clear-eyed village girl, 
 to the sound of the bagpipes and lusty country voices ; 
 and it is certain that he rambled in the woods at dawn- 
 ing time, when the world was wet with dew and green 
 with spring. But however this may have been, in time 
 he pulled his cowl closer over his eyes, and turned his 
 back on the good, gay world forever. 
 
 Originally Reading, or Reding, meant the home of 
 the descendants of Red, a man's name. Some 
 "prehistoric Briton," we must suppose, founded the 
 little Berkshire town, and so it became permanently 
 known by his name. It lies twenty-nine miles south- 
 west of London, on the river Kennet, just before it 
 enters the Thames. Reading was the headquarters of 
 the Danes at the time of their famous inroad on Wes- 
 sex in the year 871, and the scene of certain of their 
 subsequent defeats. It was burned by them in 1006, 
 and taken by the Earl of Essex, under a Parliamentary 
 decision in 1643. So it is clear that Reading has 
 played its part in history, and it seems a pity that it 
 should be chiefly celebrated to-day for its manufac- 
 tories, and for the fine hunting possibilities of its sur- 
 rounding country! But there are certain wonderful
 
 70 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 old ruins to be seen there still, the ruins of the great 
 Benedictine Monastery, Reading Abbey, the home of 
 John of Fornsete. 
 
 In the monasteries of those mediseval times were cen- 
 tred all the embryo beginnings of learning. The 
 seeds of art, music and literature were sown and cher- 
 ished within the cloister walls, and the "Men of God" 
 held in their hands the first feeble shoots of all that we 
 now term culture and education. 
 
 While the Church has never been swift to welcome 
 the progress that comes with the changing of old 
 orders, she has unwaveringly protected such institu- 
 tions as were tested and proven worthy of her support. 
 She has never encouraged the step forward, but she 
 has always prevented the step backward. So, a re- 
 straining but a sustaining power, she has been almost 
 the greatest of all factors in the development of the 
 most liberal and unconventional forms of art. 
 
 A knowledge of the science of counterpoint, the 
 mathematics, rhetoric, and even spelling of music, 
 was confined entirely to the religious orders. Only the 
 Folk-song, fresh, spontaneous but usually ephemeral, 
 existed outside monastic boundaries. All the endur- 
 ing elements of music were fostered and preserved by 
 the learned brothers, of whom John of Fornsete was 
 one. 
 
 These faithful, scholarly, patient men of Reading 
 Abbey ! One's heart goes out to them as one studies
 
 THE MONK OF READING ABBEY 71 
 
 the narrowness of their lives, the sternness of their dis- 
 cipline, the frugality of their comforts. Yet they 
 seem to have been genial souls for the most part, de- 
 spite much fasting, more silence, and so little sleep 
 that one becomes sympathetically drowsy in thinking 
 of them! 
 
 "Let Monks praise God seven times a day," was 
 the unvarying rule and command of all the Orders. 
 This meant no perfunctory devotions, slipped in be- 
 tween worldly duties, but definite and rather lengthy 
 services, performed with care and reverence, and al- 
 ways promptly upon the prescribed moment. The 
 first service was "at cock-crowing." The second was 
 Matins (or Mattins, as the old books have it) at six 
 o'clock in the morning, the third at nine, the fourth at 
 noon, the fifth at three, the sixth, Vespers, at six, 
 and the last at seven, when the Completory was sung, 
 and the monks were permitted to think of slumber. 
 They counted time somewhat differently, by the bye, 
 six in the morning being "First hour," and six at 
 night "Twelfth hour." The hours of the night, being 
 spent in sleep, were not counted at all. There are, 
 however, records that show that "early prayer unto 
 God in the Highest" began at two in the morning. 
 For special seasons and occasions there were all-night 
 vigils to be observed, so, though the monks went to bed 
 soon after sundown, they were never permitted in all 
 their religious lives one full night's sleep.
 
 72 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 They always fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays 
 until three in the afternoon, and in Lent no mouthful 
 of food was permitted to pass their lips until after six 
 each night. An exception to the rules of fasting was 
 made from Easter until Whitsuntide, when they were 
 moderately well fed. Truly there was wisdom in the 
 old monastic rule : "Let the Cellarer be a discreet man, 
 to give all their meat in due season!" Discretion 
 would indeed seem to be an essential qualification for 
 the holder of this office. The meagre allowances of 
 food doled out by the "discreet" Cellarer were taken 
 "in company but without speech." Indeed silence was 
 one of the most all-pervading requirements of the 
 monasteries, both as a gurantee of decorum and as 
 an inspiration to devout meditation. 
 
 Sometimes, to be sure, some merry brother would 
 whisper a joke or a funny tale, and the grim Refec- 
 tory would thrill with repressed laughter. Some- 
 times the rule making it unseemly that the Prior or 
 Abbot sit alone at meat, gave opportunities for a gay 
 interchange of worldly amenities between the Reverend 
 Father and some favoured one of the Brethren. 
 And sometimes the quietly shadowed old monastery 
 gardens heard the stories of dead days, softly told by 
 the monks who paced there during recreation hours. 
 
 But for the most part the monastic world was a 
 dumb one, a lake of stillness, landlocked from the 
 beating waves of the big world-sea outside. There
 
 THE MONK OF READING ABBEY 73 
 
 among the dark blue shadows, the incense clouds, as 
 faintly mauve as twilight mists, and the cold, grave 
 measures of the church chants, the Men of God lived 
 out their lives. There they worked silently upon the 
 wonderful missal-pages one day to be treasured as 
 relics of ancient art, or set down blue and crimson 
 notes laboriously, immortalising some quaint old psalm- 
 tune, or merely prayed, in dingy robes growing ever 
 dingier about the knees from over-much kneeling on 
 the rough stones of the chapel. 
 
 Now the early Britons, report and common belief 
 to the contrary, were intensely musical. One mediaeval 
 writer declares: "There lived good singers in Eng- 
 land, and they sang sweetly ; such as Masters Johannes 
 Filius Dei, Maklevit of Winchester, and Blakesmit at 
 the Court of Henry II." Frederic Louis Ritter, after 
 quoting the above, adds that John of Fornsete be- 
 longed to the same epoch and category. So we see 
 that he was a famous musician in a land which boasted 
 many excellent exponents of music, and in a day when 
 it held a rarely high place in the appreciation of the 
 public. 
 
 The British people sang with the spontaneity and 
 instinct of birds, as the Welsh people, those insistent 
 remnants of the old race, do to-day. And, curiously 
 enough, they always sang in harmony. Instead of 
 singing their folk-songs as single and simple melodies, 
 they made rounds, catches and chorals out of them.
 
 74 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 They struck the chords by ear of course, not knowl- 
 edge, and loved the gracious combinations of notes. 
 Even the children tried to sing contrapuntally and 
 sometimes succeeded, too ! 
 
 Giraldus Cambrensis, or Gerald Barry, the fa- 
 mous Archbishop, made an elaborate Latin record of 
 this custom of the British people, to this effect : 
 
 "The Britons do not sing their tunes in unison like 
 the inhabitants of other countries, but in different 
 parts. So that when a company of singers meets to 
 sing, as is usual in this country, as many different 
 parts are heard as there are singers, who all finally 
 unite in consonance and organic melody, under the 
 softness of B flat." 
 
 Just what the learned Archbishop meant by "the 
 softness of B flat" the author (with many regrets for 
 the admission ) frankly does not know ! 
 
 "In the northern parts of Britain," he continues, 
 ". . . the people there inhabiting make use of a 
 kind of symphonic harmony in singing. 
 This they do not so much by art as by a habit which 
 long practice has rendered almost natural ; and this 
 method of singing is become so prevalent amongst 
 these people that hardly any melody is accustomed to 
 be uttered simply or otherwise than variously, or in 
 this twofold manner. . . ." 
 
 Where this instinct for correct harmony was born 
 so naturally in the hearts, as well as on the lips, of the
 
 THE MONK OF READING ABBEY 75 
 
 people, it is not strange that we should find the first 
 recorded piece of polyphonic or harmonic music in all 
 history. Scattered folk-songs we have from other 
 lands; plaintive airs from Picardy and Provence, 
 melodies gay, amorous and mournful, sad and merry 
 echoes from the heart-music of many lands ; but, so far 
 as recorded notation may testify, the Cradle of Har- 
 mony seems to have been England. 
 
 "Sumer is icumen in" bears the test of modern 
 fineness of ear. Its harmonies are full and round, 
 never stiff, and rarely even archaic. A song of to- 
 day, simply harmonised without elaboration or tonal 
 decoration, would be a brilliant achievement, if it 
 reached the point of musical excellence attained by 
 this quaint old English Canon. Even the consecutive 
 fifths, bugbears of benighted Harmony-students, 
 are used here with the splendid frankness of a modern 
 master who wishes to show his superiority to the terrors 
 of all such musical hobgoblins. 
 
 But the fact of the harmonic value of the "Reading 
 Rota," as it is called, is too well established to require 
 reiteration. The real purpose of this fragmentary 
 commentary is to record a plea for its recognition as a 
 great step in the growth of melody, a monument in 
 the history of Song. 
 
 "Sumer is icumen in" is most definitely and dis- 
 tinctly lyric. Its singing and singable quality is 
 much more patent to the casual hearer than its har-
 
 76 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 monic or contrapuntal ingenuity. It is first and fore- 
 most a song, and a delicious one. 
 
 Moreover, as we have seen that the early English 
 folk sang all their songs in Canon-form, it has a 
 doubly emphasised right to be accepted as one of the 
 great representative or typical songs of the Middle 
 Ages. And the man who either composed it, or 
 merely wrote it down, deserves to be called a Maker of 
 Song, even though we have no more of his recorded 
 work to substantiate the title. 
 
 Hitter says that "the melody of the Rota Is in the 
 form of a ballad, and is pleasing and easily flowing." 
 Emil Naumann declares : "The character of the melody 
 is sweet and pastoral, and well adapted to the words." 
 W. S. Rockstro, after speaking of the naive and de- 
 lightful old folk-songs, says: "We believe the melody 
 of the Rota to be an inspiration of this kind, a Folk- 
 Song, pur et simple. . . ." Indeed most of the 
 learned men who have commemorated the importance 
 of the Rota as a harmonic record, wax enthusiastic 
 over its melody. And Mr. Rockstro makes the fol- 
 lowing charming suggestion as to its possible origin: 
 
 ". . . What more probable, then, than that a 
 light-hearted young Postulant should troll it forth on 
 some bright May morning, during the hour of recre- 
 ation? That a second voice should chime in a little 
 later? That the effect of the Canon should be noticed, 
 admired, and experimented upon, until the Brethren
 
 THE MONK OF READING ABBEY 77 
 
 found that four of them could sing the tune, one after 
 the other, in very pleasant harmony? . . ." 
 
 The music is written in queer square notes of red 
 and black upon blue lines, and the entire piece of work 
 is done with the care and skill which we should expect 
 from a learned Ecclesiastic of John of Fornsete's high 
 place in the monastic chronicles. 1 In the beautiful 
 old manuscript there is, directly following the "Six 
 Men's Song" (as a Canon like "Sumer" was called) a 
 quaint Antiphon in praise of Thomas a Becket. 
 
 Of course they turned the Rota into a piece of 
 church music, the good monks ! Nothing so rio- 
 tously secular as a brazen song of summertide could 
 be recognised or recorded in the Monastery without its 
 due appendage of religious phrases. 
 
 The old English words are as follows: 
 
 "Sumer is icumen in, 
 
 Lhude sing cuccu. 
 Groweth sed, and bloweth med, 
 And springth the wde nu, 
 
 Sing cuccu. 
 
 Awe bleteth after lomb, 
 Lhouth after calve cu ; 
 
 Bulluc sterteth, 
 
 Bucke verteth, 
 Murie sing cuccu, 
 
 Cuccu, cuccu, 
 Wei songes tha cuccu ; 
 Ne swik thu naver nu." 
 
 J A fac-simile of the original manuscript can be seen in Grove's 
 Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vol. IV. (new edition). The
 
 78 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 Or translated into modern phraseology: 
 
 Groweth seed, and blowrth mead, 
 And springeta the woodland now. 
 
 SfaM&Cnckoo. 
 
 The ewe Ueatethfer her lamb, 
 For her calf lowcth the cow ; 
 
 The bock .rerteth, 
 Muif sing 1 * Cuckoo. 
 
 J tlMt CT^C^tMl. 
 
 Well sung is thy Cckoo, 
 Cemse them never now!" 
 
 Under these delightful old fines the good monks 
 of Reading hare written in with painstaking care the 
 following devout Latin stanzas : 
 
 Qucdignatio 
 Coefins agrioola 
 IVubiLns Titkx. 
 Kfioi 
 
 complete in all its purtr, *"^ i^BUMlfff*^ in 
 
 JP be seen wi Tfa^ mostou JUSCORCS or 
 Bmej,an
 
 THE MONK OF READING ABBEY 79 
 
 There are appended, also, some Latin directions as 
 to the correct singing of the Canon. Somehow the 
 churchl v Latin has an odd effect when set to the buoy- 
 ant air of that sweet old Round. Will some inquisi- 
 tive reader please hum over to the melody a line or two 
 of the Latin text? In doing so, I think he will be 
 filled with a desire to chuckle, even as many an irrev- 
 erent and irrepressible young chorister chuckled, 
 doubtless, when the monks sang the Canon at Haas, 
 and even as the good Monk John chuckled, albeit very 
 softly, over its devout rendering. 
 
 For the Rota had no place nor right in ecclesiastical 
 music. So rigid were the rules controlling the re- 
 ligious composition in those days, rules buflt upon 
 the noble but uncompromising work of the great Guido 
 d* Arezzo, that it was not permissible to write Church 
 music outside of what was known as the Ecclesiastical 
 Scale. All music which overstepped this strict and 
 monotonous limit was considered inspired by the Devil, 
 and was accounted written in It modo lascmo, the 
 Wanton Key. And let it here be whispered: "Sumer 
 is icumen in* 9 was written in the Wanton Key! 
 The Wanton Key, wherein the evil player-folk 
 sang, while their women danced and twirled about 
 the market-place, and the ungodly went to gape 
 and listen! Tke Wanton Key, wherein the un- 
 shriven vagabonds of the highroads carolled their 
 drinking-catches, as they stopped for a flagon of mead
 
 80 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 when the dusk chilled the air! The Wanton Key, 
 wherein young men and maidens sang love songs in 
 secret wood ways under the green and silver sickle- 
 moon! The Wanton Key, wherein mother-birds and 
 mother-women trilled lullabies, when mating-time was 
 over and the young had come. 
 
 Moreover the "Pes," or ground-bass, of the Canon 
 bears a suspicious resemblance, as more than one 
 musical savant has pointed out, to the droning bag- 
 pipe dearly beloved by the rustics of those days. Is 
 it possible that our John of Fornsete, laughing in the 
 shabby sleeve of his Order, wrote in that drone-bass 
 to imitate the instrument so popular over all the coun- 
 try side? If so, one can picture the merry-eyed boys, 
 sent to the Monastery for education and safe-keeping, 
 nudging each other as they hummed and buzzed away 
 at the long sustained Pes, and trying to catch the 
 eye of the gentle, grave-faced, humorous Monk who 
 was responsible for it! 
 
 What manner of man was he, this John of Forn- 
 sete? It is a baffling query, which the curious mind 
 puts to the unyielding past. He was a learned man, 
 called a Descanter among his Brethren, and skilled in 
 the setting down of notes, in tints that should out- 
 last the centuries, and in combinations that should 
 stir the pulses of unborn cycles of musicians. He was 
 a man very young in heart, of a surety, since he could 
 put the summer-call of all England and all the world
 
 THE MONK OF READING ABBEY 81 
 
 into a few square-shaped notes of red and black on bars 
 of blue. And, perhaps, he was a man with a sense 
 of humour if he suffered the Brethren to sing in the 
 Wanton Key, and imitate the village bagpipes at High 
 Mass! 
 
 Berkshire was a wide-sweeping level country, and 
 the flat, clean spaces stretched off to the sky-line, 
 broken here and there by woodlands, and dappled 
 with sun-flecks and cloud-shadows. The winds blew 
 keen and cool from the wholesome north, and there 
 was a freshness, a tang, and a grip in the free air, 
 fit to breed sound hearts and rich blood and the fine 
 fruition of a fine race. 
 
 Yet in the Monastery it was as though a stone cup 
 had been pressed, rim downward, upon the green earth ; 
 and in the vacuum within dwelt the monks of Read- 
 ing, and John of Fornsete among them. I think 
 he was given to dreaming a bit, oftener than the 
 other Brethren, oftener perhaps than were quite wise 
 in the godly servant of a strict Order. Surely he had 
 visions and memories, that came thronging and flutter- 
 ing like butterflies through the chapel nave, with 
 iridescent hues that blurred the brightness of the altar- 
 lights, and a faint soft whirr of wings that, in tremu- 
 lous music, dulled the sound even of his own sweet 
 Canon. Surely there were twilights, when the Com- 
 pletory was yet to sing, through the purple dusk, when 
 life cried to him with elfin voices from beyond the
 
 82 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 Monastery walls; and chill white dawns, when, as he 
 chanted the first service, he shivered yearningly, hear- 
 ing, above the monotone of the Latin prayers, the com- 
 fortable din of crowing cocks in neighbouring, alien 
 hamlets. 
 
 It is all there in his song, the blithe and tender sym- 
 pathy with quickening nature and the warming earth, 
 with love, and longing, and the rapture of fulfilment. 
 The bird's call and the heart's leap, they are both 
 to be found in that first and sweetest of English songs, 
 that fragrant, opalescent fragment of a dream of the 
 young Summer, dreamed over seven hundred years 
 ago. 
 
 Among the mists of the dead centuries he passes, 
 John of Fornsete, a cowled and habited figure, with 
 averted eyes. We may not see his face } we may not 
 know of his birth, nor of his death, least of all of his 
 cloistered life. We can only smile with him in spirit, 
 as we sing the melody of his Rita softly to our own 
 hearts, and, in the singing, smell the warm, dew-wet 
 grass, and hear the cuckoo singing through the wak- 
 ing woods.
 
 KIXG THIBAULT, THE 
 TROUBADOUR
 
 THE SONG OF THE KING 
 
 -t I 
 
 As I rode ere dawn was wing - ing, 
 
 l i 
 
 'Twixt an or - chard and a grove, I a shepherd 
 
 - ess heard sinz - ing, And her song was all of love. 
 
 i i i 
 
 Thus be - gan the maid en's lay: "Love doth bind me 
 
 ten- der - ly!" All my heart beat high and free 
 
 f r 
 
 And I cried, by hope made gay,... From my horse's 
 
 back swift springing, "Pret - ty one, good - day to thee !"
 
 KING THIBAULT, THE 
 TROUBADOUR 
 
 ONCE upon a time there lived a beautiful and bril- 
 liant lady for whom the Troubadours of the Midi sang 
 their songs, and to whom all men paid homage ; and she 
 was called Blanche of Navarre. Her father was 
 Sancho the Strong, King of Navarre, and her hus- 
 band was Thibault III., the great and good Count of 
 Champagne and Brie. And she was the mother of 
 that Thibault whom the world knows as the greatest of 
 Troubadours. Now the Comte de Champagne, Thi- 
 bault III., died soon after his son was born, and the 
 boy became, in his turn, Count of the great estates of 
 Champagne and of Brie. And the Comtesse, his lady- 
 mother, betook herself to the Court of King Philippe 
 Auguste, and there dwelt for the years of her widow- 
 hood. So it happened that our Thibault spent his 
 childhood at the French Court, was educated there, 
 and there while still a child met the woman whose in- 
 fluence was later to colour his whole life. 
 
 Philippe Auguste's son, the Dauphin Louis, was a 
 brave and stalwart prince, and it was fitting that he
 
 86 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 should wed a great lady, since he must some day rule 
 over France. So from France went forth envoys in 
 search of the Dauphin's bride and the future queen of 
 France. And one day a great treaty was made be- 
 tween the kingdoms of France and of Castille, and a 
 state wedding was solemnised : between Louis, Dauphin 
 of France, and the little Princess Blanche, of Castille. 
 She was the daughter of King Alfonso the Good, and 
 that Princess Eleanor of England, who is known as 
 the "Damsel of Brittany," and at the time of her mar- 
 riage she was a yellow-haired slender thing, but little 
 more than thirteen years old. 
 
 Now in due time the great Philippe Auguste joined 
 the other kings of France, and the Dauphin became 
 Louis VIII., and for his courage and his daring per- 
 sonality they called him Louis the Lion, and so he is 
 known in history. And when he was crowned King of 
 France his child-wife was crowned Queen. And he 
 brought her home to his French Court, and the people, 
 seeing her child face and fair hair, loved her, and 
 said: "Long live our young Queen, Blanche of 
 Castille." 
 
 Thibault IV. de Champagne was born in Troyes, 
 France, in 1201, a year after the royal marriage. As 
 has been said, his father died but a short time after- 
 ward. When Blanche of Castille came to France, the 
 Comtesse de Champagne was a widow, whose chief 
 thought was for her baby ; to this absorbing interest
 
 KING THIBAULT 87 
 
 she added an almost motherly affection for the lonely 
 little Queen, whose youth and shyness made her a 
 pathetic figure at the brilliant French Court. 
 
 Many years younger than Blanche of Navarre, 
 Comtesse de Champagne, she, nevertheless, became that 
 lady's dear friend. As a matter of fact, they were dis- 
 tant kinswomen, and of natures well accorded to one 
 another. So the two Blanches, the gracious and beau- 
 tiful Comtesse and the golden-haired young Queen, be- 
 came inseparable. And it came to pass that during 
 Thibault's babyhood, Queen Blanche's fair face was as 
 familiar to him as his own mother's. 
 
 The death of the Comtesse while he was still very 
 young left him to the tender mercies of a world that 
 was at the time very busy with large state affairs, 
 among which a small boy had but little place or use. 
 But the boy's brave and merry spirit and brilliant wit 
 brought him safely, even triumphantly, through the 
 brief, uneasy childhood of the French youth at that 
 day, and at an early age he began to take part in the 
 big political movements which were convulsing France, 
 as well as to apply himself enthusiastically to the arts 
 and sciences so far as they were then understood and 
 developed. 
 
 When Thibault was fourteen the Queen's eldest son 
 was born, he who was some day to be St. Louis, of 
 high place in history. It seems to have been soon 
 after this important event that Thibault left the Court
 
 88 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 and went to his own possessions. As he grew older 
 he found that the administration of these vast estates 
 filled his time and thought. He was a feudal lord of 
 great importance, and had a wide influence with the 
 petty barons whose sporadic uprisings disquieted the 
 country. Thibault's allegiance, unconditional and 
 whole-hearted, belonged to the Crown, and he wor- 
 shipped his mother's friend, the golden-haired Reine 
 Blanche, as utterly as though she were not only his 
 Queen but his patron saint. Nevertheless, he spent 
 little time at Court during the latter years of his boy- 
 hood, and occupied himself chiefly with his own affairs, 
 the management of his lands and vassals, and the 
 perfection of his education. His name grew to be a 
 famous one in that early world of letters, sciences and 
 arts, and he was well known then as he is well known 
 to-day : as a great noble, a charming and courtly man, 
 a brilliant student, and the greatest of the Trou- 
 badours. None of these mediaeval minstrels ever put 
 so fitly the varying notes of a man's life into robust 
 yet graceful song. For manliness, wholesome, 
 vital, and of widely ranging interests, was the pre- 
 dominating attribute in the make-up of Thibault de 
 Champagne. He was, says an old account, a man 
 of "un courage mouvant (a moving courage)." He 
 was versatile, impulsive, brilliant, inconstant, and pos- 
 sessed to a degree of perfection the quality of personal 
 charm. He was an enormous man, so broad and tall
 
 KING THIBAULT 89 
 
 and strong that he was called "Le Gros" by some per- 
 sons. "His figure, tall and well proportioned," says 
 Fetis, "his courage, his address in the exercise of arms, 
 his magnificence and his liberality, his taste for letters 
 and his talent for poetry and music, rendered him an 
 accomplished cavalier." 
 
 People loved him wherever he went, and in spite of 
 his changeable, impulsive nature, there was not in all 
 his being one shadow that was dishonourable, cowardly 
 or unkind. The mistakes he made were those of im- 
 pulse. He loved the King, and, against his own 
 wishes, rode with him in an attack upon one of the 
 Counts of Toulouse, a kinsman of his own. But after 
 the siege had continued for several days, and the 
 miseries of war had grown more conspicuous than its 
 glories, the young Count experienced a sudden revul- 
 sion of feeling. He gathered together his men and 
 rode away, leaving his enemies to say what they chose 
 about his courage ! Subsequently he persuaded Tou- 
 louse to submit to France. 
 
 This constant yielding to the spur of the moment 
 won for him an unenviable reputation, though his 
 friends found in all his vagaries no fault that they 
 could not readily forgive. 
 
 Thibault loved gaiety, and many were the great 
 banquets which he gave in the Chateau de Brie, ban- 
 quets such as only a Troubadour and important feudal 
 lord of that day could dream of giving. One of the
 
 90 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 chroniclers of these mediaeval feasts gives us this 
 amazing menu : a stag roasted whole, with hot pepper 
 sauce ; wild boar with peppers and cloves ; peacocks, 
 swans and chickens fried in lard; roast capons with 
 clove sauce ; pies of deer, pigeon and pheasant. From 
 the pheasant pies live birds escaped, and after a time 
 falcons were loosed, and between courses the guests 
 watched the incidental sport and laid wagers on vari- 
 ous birds ! Then came eel-pies, cakes, tarts, dates, 
 figs, pomegranates, and other sweets ; finally the spices : 
 ginger, cloves, nutmeg and pepper. These were 
 served as a course by themselves, and their purpose 
 was to create an unendurable thirst. Throughout the 
 meal wines of different sorts flowed ceaselessly, wines 
 mixed with perfumes, spices, honey, and great quan- 
 tities of pepper. The latter flavouring was chiefly in 
 favour, as it prolonged the excessive artificial thirst. 
 At the end of the meal the table was cleared of all save 
 the flagons, and the jongleurs were summoned to play 
 and sing while the guests spent a few additional hours 
 over their peppered wine. 
 
 Truly, the old Romans would have had difficulty in 
 surpassing feasts such as these ! 
 
 Yet in one old book we find, surprising paradox ! 
 that the Troubadour's rule of life was as follows : 
 
 "By eating well and sleeping softly a man may 
 lead an easy life. But he who wishes to rise to emi- 
 nence of worth, must needs subject himself to roughest
 
 KING THIBAULT 91 
 
 hardship. He must exert his utmost, here and there, 
 must take away and give according to the exigency of 
 the time and place !" 
 
 It might be pleasant to feel that our Thibault was 
 of the type who might have subscribed to the preced- 
 ing exemplary sentiments, but alas! it seems fairly 
 certain that his was rather the life-loving soul which 
 would have found delight in the Lucullan banquets re- 
 cently described. 
 
 As to dress, a Troubadour was forced to dress 
 richly, and be sure Thibault went with the times, in 
 apparel as in manners and customs. According to the 
 strange symbolic fashions of the day, red, yellow, 
 green, purple, gold, silver and sky blue were under- 
 stood, by an unwritten law, to denote a spirit of good 
 cheer, courage and other pleasant qualities. A man 
 who donned garments of brown, grey or any tint too 
 subdued, confessed and proclaimed himself a coward, 
 dullard and misanthrope! Therefore we must pic- 
 ture Thibault as clothed in rainbow fabrics. Indeed 
 we have one significant and authentic description of 
 him, as he sat at the King's table one day many years 
 later, when he was something more than Thibault, 
 Comte de Champagne. ". . . And next our Thibault, 
 King of Navarre," says the ancient Navarrese his- 
 torian. "He was very richly accoutred in a tunic 
 and mantel of cloth of gold, a silver belt, and a hat 
 of fine gold."
 
 92 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 Ah, yes ! Thibault loved the goodly things of this 
 life, whether represented by spices and perfumed wine, 
 and roasted deer, or by a "hat of fine gold," by the 
 emotional loveliness of lute-music, or by the favour of 
 the Throne. Not for him was the tender simplicity 
 of Regnault in his lonely Castle, or the careless gaiety 
 of the romantic Bernart, wandering about the earth, 
 vagrant-like, and singing love-songs. And yet he 
 had a brave and genial spirit, with fine poetic heights 
 therein, and a heart fully fitted with the capacity 
 to love most generously and nobly. 
 
 The year in which Thibault became twenty-five was 
 the real beginning of his life ; and a strange, exciting 
 and rather terrible beginning it was. In the Novem- 
 ber of that year, 1226, Louis the Lion died suddenly 
 and mysteriously in Montpensier, Auvergne. And 
 thereupon arose a great clamour of voices throughout 
 the provinces of France, murmuring, shouting, 
 whispering, proclaiming, hinting one suspicion: that 
 Thibault de Champagne, for love of Queen Blanche, 
 had poisoned the King ! 
 
 Thibault's knowledge of medicine, among other 
 sciences, counted against him, and his intimacy at the 
 French Court gave a seeming foundation for the evil 
 minds in the kingdom. Moreover, the Queen was at 
 the height of her wonderful beauty, and it is certain 
 that Thibault had adored her, albeit humbly, from his 
 babyhood. The coarse-grained nobles who disliked
 
 KING THIBAULT 93 
 
 Thibault and envied him his influence and power could 
 hardly be expected to distinguish or differentiate, and 
 altogether the young Count found himself in a most 
 enraging position. No open accusations were made, 
 either officially or to his face, but the air rang with 
 the reiterated rumours until he felt as though he were 
 inundated in a wave of gnats and tiny wasps. His 
 mood of resentment was one which only needed a 
 breath of wind to be turned against those whom he 
 loved best. This breath of wind was not lacking. 
 
 At this time there was a league of barons ranged 
 against the Throne, the latter being now occupied by 
 Blanche, who was Regent during the minority of 
 Louis IX. These barons and feudal lords were headed 
 by Pierre de Drieux, Count of Brittany. He was a 
 curious man, fierce and taciturn, the sworn enemy 
 of law and order, and possessed of a supreme hatred 
 for the Church. The priests had given him the nick- 
 name "Mauclerc" or "Bad Scholar," and so he was 
 known everywhere. He and his league of conspirators 
 against the Queen Regent longed to have the name of 
 Thibault de Champagne added to their lists. And, 
 unknown to themselves, they had a powerful ally, 
 very close to the Throne, one who was as anxious as 
 they that the young Count should be estranged from 
 Louis and his mother. This was the Prince Philippe, 
 son of Philippe Auguste by Marie de Meran, and 
 brother of the late King. He was a scoundrel of the
 
 94 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 first water, and had won renown for his brutal treat- 
 ment of his wife. This unfortunate lady, the daugh- 
 ter of Count Renard of Boulogne, was kept shut up 
 in prison, that her lord might do as he willed without 
 incumbrance or interference. Philippe hated Thi- 
 bault, either because of his influence at Court, or 
 for some private reason, and was determined to harm 
 him in some way. 
 
 Young Louis IX. was to be crowned at Rheims, and 
 Blanche sent out a royal command that all loyal lords 
 of France should be present to acknowledge and pay 
 homage to their new King. When Thibault, still 
 smarting from the whispered accusations made against 
 him, presented himself and his retinue at the gates of 
 Rheims, the soldiers of the Commune met him with in- 
 solence. And then, unspeakable indignity and out- 
 rage! the city gates crashed loudly shut in his very 
 face. The Count of Champagne and Brie was for- 
 mally refused admittance to Rheims. This insult, of 
 course, was by the order of Prince Philippe, and it was 
 effectual. Thibault believed that the Queen had sub- 
 jected him to the humiliation, and his rage now was 
 beyond all bounds. His loyalty to the Crown had 
 brought him only shame and suspicion, and he vowed 
 to have no more to do with royalty. He rode straight 
 to the Castle of Brie and sent out a messenger to seek 
 Mauclerc. In another day he was a member of the 
 League of Barons, one of the revolutionists and
 
 KING THIBAULT 95 
 
 conspirators against Queen Blanche and the boy- 
 king. 
 
 Poor Thibault ! We may guess what his unhappi- 
 ness must have been. The habit of thought of a life- 
 time overturned in a single day ! It was quite in 
 keeping with his nature that, in spite of a probable 
 lack of enthusiasm in his own heart, he should remain 
 savagely loyal to his new cause during revolt after re- 
 volt, and defeat after defeat! The Queen, as his- 
 tory has shown, was one of the rare master minds of 
 statesmanship. She managed the repeated insurrec- 
 tions and conspiracies which disturbed her son's king- 
 dom with wit, tact, and justice, and succeeded in win- 
 ning countless concessions from the rebels. One of her 
 great strokes of diplomacy was the arrangement of a 
 marriage between her young son, Prince John, and 
 Yolande, the daughter of Mauclerc himself ! 
 
 By intellect, strength of character, graciousness 
 and beauty, she controlled and conquered the hostile 
 barons, and slowly made her strong, sweet influence 
 felt and recognised by the last and least of her sub- 
 jects. From afar Thibault felt her power and her 
 charm, but he was not yet ready to swing back from 
 the red light of rebellion to the peaceful sunshine of 
 royal favour. 
 
 Suddenly in the middle of these stirring times, in 
 1234, his grandfather, old Sancho the Strong, died; 
 and Thibault found himself King of Navarre. Per-
 
 96 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 haps the new dignity and responsibility sobered his 
 defiant spirit. At all events it was almost imme- 
 diately after this change in his estate that he consented 
 to an interview with Blanche. The end was inevitable. 
 Though well beyond forty, the Queen was as beautiful 
 as she had ever been, for hers was a loveliness that grew 
 and softened with years. And never had her fascina- 
 tion been more potent. The little yellow-haired girl 
 whom Thibault's mother had loved, the dignified gra- 
 cious Queen whom he had adored from afw and de- 
 lighted to serve throughout his boyhood, the devoted 
 wife and mother who was justly renowned over the 
 whole kingdom for her good and sweet qualities, 
 these different persons, while remaining faintly visible 
 in the woman before him, seemed but as shadows. What 
 he really saw, as he looked up at her, for he had 
 dropped on one knee at her feet, was a new, brilliant, 
 beautiful being, with the wisdom and gentleness of 
 maturity in her eyes, and hair as golden as the golden 
 sun for her crown. "Then," says the very ancient 
 French history, "he rose up and spoke to her, saying, 
 'By my faith, Madame, my heart and my body and 
 all my lands are at your commands. Nor could you 
 ask of me a thing that I would not do with good 
 wOL Never, God please, against you or yours may I 
 live?" 
 
 When Thibault left Blanche he knew in his own 
 heart that not only did he stand ready to die for her as
 
 KING THIBAULT 97 
 
 his Queen, but that he loved her as his lady. Thi- 
 bault was no longer a boy, but a man thirty-five years 
 old. Further, he was now a King, albeit a petty 
 one, and so he permitted himself to love her. Never- 
 theless, he knew that his love must be quite without 
 hope. Says the historian: "He often held in remem- 
 brance the sweet regard of the Queen and her beau- 
 tiful face. His heart was filled with much fervent 
 tenderness and love ; but when he recalled how high a 
 lady she was, of how great a name, and of how good a 
 life and an upright, he could not hope ; but remained 
 in loving thoughts and great sadne 
 
 So melancholy and miserable and lovesick did he 
 finally become that he went to a gathering of Wise 
 Men of the day, seers whose life it was to peer 
 into the soul's mysteries and provide advice for the 
 sickest brains. And they recommended an extensive 
 study of the arts, which he had been wont to love as a 
 boy. 
 
 ". . . And for that profound thought aids 
 melancholy, to him it was declared by certain Wise 
 Men that he should study the art of sweet songs and 
 the fine sounds of instruments. And so did he." 
 
 Naturally, he sang chiefly of Blanche, or for her, 
 as all Troubadours have sung of and for their ladies 
 since time began. He rang the changes on her fair- 
 ness; he described her in every metaphor and figure 
 which his fertile imagination could suggest. He said
 
 98 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 that she "made all his deepest sighs," and of her name 
 he cried: 
 
 "He ! Blanche ! Name brilliant and silvery!" 
 
 Sometimes he grew whimsical, likened her to a snow- 
 white deer, plunging courageously through the thick- 
 ets, and sighed that if he might but capture that mar- 
 vellous deer 
 
 "Who then so glad, so joyous, as Thibault?" 
 
 He sang of her wonderful golden hair with the 
 adoration of a sun-worshipper; and all the while, as 
 we read his outpourings, we find a completeness of 
 humility, tenderness and respect which appears vastly 
 to his credit when we consider the manners and morals 
 of his time. 
 
 "I love whom I may never dare implore," he writes. 
 "And mine eyes are not brave enough to lift themselves 
 unto her. She whom I love is of a great rank . 
 and her beauty hath rendered me presumptuous." 
 
 He worried greatly over the remaining delinquents 
 in the League of Barons. "The White Deer stands 
 among wolves," he said, in one of his poems. "How 
 to be certain that they will not rend her ?" 
 
 By this time his enemies were at work again spread- 
 ing slanderous stories, and reviving in the public mind 
 the old doubts as to Louis VIII.'s mode of death. 
 Hugues de la Fierte wrote a Servante (political song),
 
 KING THIBAULT 99 
 
 which was repeated all over France. Parts of this are 
 too malevolent to be of interest, but the passage most 
 extensively quoted ran something as follows: 
 
 "Count Thibault is more apt at medicine than at 
 chivalry! . . . Well is France defended, my 
 lords and barons, now that a woman rules over her, 
 and such a woman as you know ! He and she, side by 
 side, governing the country together! He had no 
 need to get a crown for himself, since already he is 
 crowned otherwise !" 
 
 But now neither Thibault nor the Queen cared for 
 the slanders of their enemies. Thibault was much at 
 Court, and much with his lady and Queen, whose fine 
 mind and rare charm attracted him even more than her 
 beauty. Though he had taken up the study of song 
 as a cure for love he had no sooner acquired proficiency 
 in the art than he hastened to his Queen's feet to sing 
 his love-songs to her! 
 
 ^'Love is endowed with all-surpassing might," 
 
 sang Thibault, the Troubadour, 
 
 "And good or ill bestows in wanton jest. 
 To me too long he portions only spite, 
 And reason bids me drive him from my breast. 
 But heart like mine ne'er yet was made of clay, 
 And Love ! Love ! Love ! it cries with ne'er a stay; 
 No other reason from it can you wrest; 
 So I shall love, and naught can say me nay!" 
 
 "Translation by Henry Carrington, Dean of Bocking.
 
 100 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 In a more despondent and less defiant mood he 
 wrote : 
 
 '"I thought I'd vanquished mighty love, 
 
 But find myself deceived ; 
 For every hour, alas ! I prove 
 
 The conquest unachieved. 
 By day I seek for ease in vain, 
 
 Or call on sleep by night; 
 Sighs, tears, complaints, increase my pain, 
 Nor does a hope, ye powers ! remain 
 
 That she will e'er my love requite!" 
 
 Whether or not the royal widow ever did "requite 
 the love" of the man who had been born a year after 
 her own marriage, no one will ever know unless those 
 two picturesque and delightful ghosts should come 
 back and vouchsafe the information. But she was 
 most gracious, consulted him often in state affairs, and 
 permitted him the intimacy of a close and trusted 
 friend, thereby showing the breadth and under- 
 standing of her rare nature. Reformed traitors are 
 seldom accepted with so much magnanimity ; but in this 
 case the attitude was a wise one. 
 
 Several times during trivial battles the royal troops 
 were in danger of defeat, and in each case Thibault's 
 forces, arriving at a timely hour, saved the day. So 
 he grew more and more a ruling factor in the French 
 Government, and the League of Barons almost de- 
 spaired of ever winning him back to their rebellious 
 ranks. 
 
 'Translation by Dr. Charles Burney.
 
 KING THIBAULT 101 
 
 Meanwhile Blanche's long regency came to an end, 
 and the young King, St. Louis, took her place, nomi- 
 nally. She was still the ruling power, however, and 
 when Louis went to Palestine, in 1248, she regained 
 full control. Thibault went with his young King, and 
 was in the great Gay a defeat. When he returned to 
 France there were several fresh complications to meet. 
 Before the marriage between Prince John and Yolande 
 de Bretagne could be solemnised the Prince died. Yo- 
 lande's father, Mauclerc, had now no incentive to keep 
 on friendly terms with the King and the Queen Mother, 
 and he was working harder than ever, though with 
 more subtlety and diplomacy, to overthrow the Throne. 
 To win Thibault away, he offered him Yolande's hand. 
 She was a fair maid, it is said, and had a great name, 
 and a marriage of convenience being quite a matter of 
 course in those days, Thibault agreed. (Indeed there 
 are historians who insist that our hero's exalted devo- 
 tion to Blanche did not prevent him from marrying 
 three times altogether!) Perhaps he had found the 
 Queen less gracious and more preoccupied on his re- 
 turn from Palestine, and realised the incontrovertible 
 truth, that she was a stateswoman first, and a gentle 
 lady afterward. In fact it is possible that she may 
 have grown tired of his rather exacting adoration ; 
 and it required but little, as we have seen, to pique our 
 wilful King, Count and Troubadour, Thibault of 
 Navarre !
 
 102 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 The day was set for his marriage with Yolande de 
 Bretagne. 
 
 Suddenly a letter arrived from the King. Even one 
 less familiar with the royal methods than Thibault 
 could not have failed to see that it had been dictated by 
 Blanche. The letter begged him to break off his ap- 
 proaching marriage, "for the love of those dear to 
 him in France." 
 
 Thibault bade farewell to Yolande, and departed for 
 the French Court. 
 
 It is hard not to feel sorry for Yolande. Her youth 
 seemed to be spent in preparations for bridals that 
 never occurred. 
 
 From the foregoing incident it may be inferred that 
 La Heine Blanche was something of what we might 
 term to-day, in vulgar parlance, a "dog in the 
 manger." She did not wish to wed the King of 
 Navarre herself, but she would not dream of permit- 
 ting him to wed Yolande de Bretagne. 
 
 Though nearly all of Thibault's songs were written 
 for Blanche, they were not all written about her. The 
 most famous of all his chansons, perhaps one of the 
 most famous songs of its kind ever written, has but the 
 most slight and frivolous connection with love. It is 
 the great "Chanson du Roy," or "Song of the King," 
 and is written on the typical "pastourelle" model of 
 the Troubadours. In simplicity and spontaneity,
 
 KING THIBAULT 103 
 
 both of words and music, it probably reaches the high- 
 water mark of mediaeval minstrelsy. 
 It begins in this fashion: 
 
 "As I rode ere dawn was winging, 
 'Twixt an orchard and a grove, 
 I a shepherdess heard singing, 
 And her song was all of love. 
 Thus began the maiden's lay: 
 ' Love doth bind me tenderly!' 
 All my heart beat high and free, 
 And I cried, by hope made gay, 
 From my horse's back swift springing, 
 ' Pretty one, good day to thee!' " 
 
 The song continues to portray the flirtation be- 
 tween the King and the pretty shepherdess. Finally 
 he becomes impertinent, and she calls for her shepherd 
 lover, Perrin. Perrin arrives, quite ready to thrash 
 the royal lover, who hastily mounts his palfrey and 
 rides away. The shepherdess calls after his flying 
 figure tauntingly: "Cavaliers should never be so 
 bold!" 
 
 There is a certain genial sarcasm in the original 
 which it is almost impossible to translate. The music 
 is too well known and well loved to need comment. 
 
 Thibault's last years passed less eventfully than 
 his early ones. He studied a little, sang a little, rode, 
 feasted and made merry a little, and spent a due por- 
 tion of his time with his beloved lady, Queen Blanche.
 
 104 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 As both grew older, the Troubadour's ardent songs 
 gave place to occasional religious outbursts, as be- 
 came a good Catholic King. He wrote hymns to the 
 Blessed Virgin instead of love-songs to Blanche of 
 Castille, and was happier in discussing with her the 
 broad questions of the day than in pouring forth a 
 ceaseless tide of passionate protestations. 
 
 With her head crowned with silver instead of gold, 
 and looking more than ever a Reine Blanche, a white 
 queen, the great and clever lady who had ruled 
 France and inspired a genius, slipped softly and easily 
 down the slanting roadway of years. When she was 
 sixty-five, and before extreme old age had claimed or 
 chained her indomitable personality, she died. Her 
 death was in December, when the snow lay on the land. 
 In the white time of the year La Reine Blanche was 
 laid in state among the Kings and Queens of France. 
 
 A little over a year later Thibault followed her. 
 Surely it was happiest for him. He would never have 
 loved the sunset-time, and would have had small pa- 
 tience with the world when the lustiness of youth, the 
 splendour of romance, and the savour of action had 
 left it. He had been essentially a part of the world, 
 a part of its joys and its miseries, its excitements, dis- 
 appointments, and great deeds. And to have grown 
 old, with only memory to give him back the lost, robust 
 delights of his young manhood, the absorbing game 
 of conspiracies and thrones, and the inspiring influence
 
 KING THIBAULT 105 
 
 of his royal Lady, this indeed would have been a 
 lot most pitiful and out of harmony with his song of 
 life. 
 
 But the big dumb Fate whom we are wont to 
 revile has an ear for chords and discords. And so it 
 happened that when the cup was barely drained, the 
 lute hardly out of tune, the flowers just withered, and 
 the Queen but a year dead, he closed his eyes upon a 
 smiling sky and went to sleep. And the chronicler of 
 old said of him, with a rare tenderness: "He made 
 the most beautiful songs, and the most delectable and 
 melodious, that ever were made for singing, or fash- 
 ioned for instruments by any man." 
 
 The histories have much to say of the King of 
 Navarre. But for us he is something much better 
 than a mere king : he is Thibault, the Troubadour.
 
 THE HUNCHBACK OF ARRAS
 
 ROBIN M'AIME 
 
 Rob - in loves me, loves but me; 
 
 Rob - in's asked me if his love I'll tru - ly 
 
 be. Rob - 
 
 n I 
 
 Rob - in's bought me daint - y things in 
 
 lov - er's fash - ion, Sung me ma - ny ten - der 
 
 songs to prove his faith - ful pas - - sion. 
 
 Rob -in loves me, loves but me; 
 
 Rob - in's 
 
 -f 
 asked me if his love I'll tru ly be!
 
 VI 
 THE HUNCHBACK OF ARRAS 
 
 HE himself denied the suitability of his nickname "Li 
 Bochu" or "Le Bossu," but his biographers insist that, 
 if not actually a hunchback, he was at least some- 
 what malformed. To be sure "Bossu" was a title 
 often applied to minstrels of the Middle Ages ; never- 
 theless it is safe to assume that Adam de la Halle was 
 physically one of Nature's mistakes. Mentally, he 
 was all that could be desired. He said, in writing of 
 himself, after his own odd fashion of speaking in the 
 third person : 
 
 "Personal beauty nor grace had he not, 
 But he had beauty of wit 
 And knew most gracefully all manners of song." 
 
 Gifted, sneering, poetical, sparkling little Bossu! 
 You were out of place in the century which gave you 
 birth. To-day we should hail you as a wit and rever- 
 ence you as a master. Your caustic and sometimes 
 audacious jests would be swallowed with avidity, and 
 your deformity would add piquancy to your personal- 
 ity, instead of opening the mouths of your contem- 
 poraries for the issue of sneers and derision.
 
 110 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 A poet, a dramatist, a wit, a composer, a singer, a 
 mocker, a reformer, a libertine, a gallant, a revolu- 
 tionist, a lover, a student, even, sporadically, a reli- 
 gleux, how could the thirteenth century be expected to 
 understand him? 
 
 Adam de la Halle was born in 1240, according to the 
 best authorities. Coussemaker, indeed, insists that the 
 date was nearer 1220, but the consensus of opinion in- 
 clines to 1240, so let us accept the latter date with- 
 out further debate. 
 
 Of his mother we know nothing, but his father's per- 
 sonality seems fairly accurately preserved in history. 
 Maitre Henri de la Halle was a well-to-do burgher of 
 the town of Arras, capital of Artois in Picardy. In- 
 deed he was a man of decided importance and held a 
 social position rather unusual among the bourgeoisie. 
 He was a burgher with definite aspirations and de- 
 sires one of which was that his son Adam should 
 have every opportunity to distinguish himself and take 
 a prominent place in the great world. He had a suffi- 
 ciency of material goods and he cheerfully invested 
 them in the education and bringing up of this delicate, 
 brilliant and perverse boy. 
 
 Arras was a peculiarly vicious town, even in a day 
 when laxity was the rule of life. The government and 
 the people were continually at odds, and the air was 
 hot with malice and fetid with scandal and immorality.
 
 THE HUNCHBACK OF ARRAS 111 
 
 In later years, Adam, on the eve of departure, wrote 
 as follows of his home and birthplace: 
 
 1M Arras, Arras! Town full of strife; 
 With calumnies and hatred rife; 
 You were a noble town of yore; 
 Your fame, 'tis said, they will restore; 
 But unless God your manners mend 
 I see not who'll effect this end. 
 Gambling is all that you pursue, 
 So fifty thousand times adieu!" 
 
 But although the day was to come when he could 
 write thus scathingly of the delinquencies of Arras, 
 he was part and parcel of them in his boyhood. "He 
 was received," says one historian, "by the richest and 
 most noble Seigneurs of Arras. They opened to him 
 both house and purse, and admired him at their tables." 
 It is evident that Adam must have been remarkably 
 brilliant and witty even in his extreme youth, for cer- 
 tainly they could not have admired his poor bent form, 
 and the record of the homage paid him by these great 
 men of his town is testimony to his marvellous and 
 precociously developed mentality. 
 
 Throughout his youth Adam plunged deeply and 
 constantly into dissipation, and it is to this fact, doubt- 
 less, that we owe his subsequent bitter and brilliant de- 
 nunciations of vice. He had gauged the depth or the 
 shallowness of this mad life of pleasure to which Arras 
 translation by Henry Carrington, Dean of Bocking.
 
 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 was given up, and could, therefore, excoriate it as an 
 outsider could never have done. 
 
 There was no banquet but young Adam de la Halle 
 was present, no great gambling bout but his purse 
 was upon the table. Where wine was drunk, quips ex- 
 changed, women wooed or fortunes lost, Adam was 
 always to be seen. He could not fight duels nor ride 
 hunting, but when a brain could serve he was never 
 missing. In the wildest scenes of revelry that made 
 Arras notorious his twisted shoulders, pallid face and 
 blazing eyes formed the most dominant note of the pic- 
 ture. His swift biting speech threaded the coarse 
 jests of his companions like a whip of steel. It was 
 'said that the magnetism of his vivid eyes and the spell 
 of his wonderful voice could woo a woman's heart 
 away from the handsomest giant that ever wore a 
 sword or sat a horse. 
 
 Maitre Henri began to grow disturbed. That his 
 son should have due experience in the great world was 
 one thing, but that he should be supreme Master of 
 the Revels in a town renowned for its lawlessness was 
 quite another, and most alarming to a parental soul. 
 So he began to speak seriously to Adam, began to 
 speak of art, letters, and music, and the mental train- 
 ing which might be obtained at the great monasteries, 
 began to speak of the future which was as strong as 
 it was remorseless. He reminded the young man that, 
 while youth was brief, life was sometimes known to
 
 THE HUNCHBACK OF ARRAS 113 
 
 last a good while, and it was as well to look ahead and 
 prepare one's self against the day when riotous living 
 should have lost its first savour, and pleasure came to a 
 man along less strenuous lines. 
 
 Change was the guiding motive-power of Le Bossu's 
 life, so, as he was becoming weary of gambling and 
 drinking, and had an insatiable love of novelty, he 
 agreed to go to the Monastery of Vauxcelles, near 
 Cambrai, and to cultivate his sparkling and erratic in- 
 tellect in the sobering atmosphere of the cloister. 
 
 He had but one regret in leaving Arras. He should 
 be separated from Marie. For Adam was almost on 
 the verge of falling in love, as much in love, that is, 
 as one of his temperament could be. Neither Marie's 
 surname nor her antecedents are on record. We only 
 know from an old chronicle that she was "a beautiful 
 person, richer in charms than in worldly advantages or 
 fortune." She is spoken of by more than one historian 
 as "La jolie demoiselle Marie," and Adam has enu- 
 merated her mental, spiritual and personal attrac- 
 tions in many poems both sentimental and satirical. 
 Being poor in "worldly advantages and fortune," 
 Marie did not please Maitre Henri, and the course of 
 true love bade fair to run rather roughly for the 
 lovers, if so they can be termed. It is more than 
 probable that, up to the time of Adam's departure for 
 Vauxcelles, he had paid but tentative and cursory 
 tribute of attention to Marie. Doubtless, however, he
 
 114 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 had succeeded in fascinating her with his wit and his 
 personality, as he fascinated all women, in spite of 
 being the Hunchback of Arras. 
 
 At about this time an unusual humility seems to 
 have taken possession of Adam. Apparently he felt 
 ashamed of the unquiet and unseemly life he had led 
 since childhood, and recognised in the daring and ma- 
 licious witticisms which his companions had praised so 
 highly the elements of ill breeding, and an inherent 
 lack of delicacy of thought. 
 
 In the "Farewell to Arras," a stanza from which 
 was quoted a few pages back, he says : 
 
 *". . . Rude and empty was my mind, 
 Discourteous, base and unrefined. 
 My tender friend, much-loved and dear, 
 I feel and show but little cheer. 
 Deeply on your account I grieve, 
 Whom I am forced behind to leave. 
 You will be treasurer of my heart, 
 Although my body must depart, 
 Learning and science to attain, 
 And be more worth, so you shall gain!" 
 
 Alas ! Adam was forever turning over new leaves, 
 but some of his new leaves were more discreditable than 
 the old. Good or bad, however, he never kept to them 
 long. 
 
 He left Arras filled with a deep distaste for the 
 town and his erstwhile boon companions, and a pleas- 
 translation by Dean Carrington.
 
 THE HUNCHBACK OF ARRAS 115 
 
 antly depressed affection for Marie. Doubtless his 
 intention was to remain in the Monastery long enough 
 to complete his education, then return to Arras, wed 
 Marie, and settle down into a self-respecting burgher 
 with a taste for versifying. He was, however, to pass 
 through several phases before even approaching the 
 beatific monotony which he contemplated so hope- 
 fully. 
 
 In the first place the monks made him warmly wel- 
 come in Vauxcelles. His fine mind and rare aptitude 
 in all manner of studies delighted them, and the most 
 learned of the Brethren gave him of the best their 
 brains could yield, filling his impressionable soul with 
 that knowledge-thirst which strengthens with appease- 
 ment. Then his quick and appreciative imagination 
 began to see and seize the picturesque elements of his 
 monastic life. His interest in his work gave place to 
 the intuitive response of the poet and dramatist to 
 fine theatrical effects. He took what the old book calls 
 "The large course of study, composed of the Seven 
 Arts," but it soon became an incidental feature of ex- 
 istence; the religious side of his life attracted him 
 much more profoundly. 
 
 The beauty of the cloistered days appealed to the 
 artist within him, and so wholly did he lose the memory 
 of the warmer and sweeter world outside that he be- 
 came a clerk in the Monastery, and finally entered upon 
 the novitiate preparatory to taking Holy Orders.
 
 116 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 It is much more than possible, however, that Adam 
 at no single moment intended to become a monk. 
 Probably his subtle, secret and analytical brain ac- 
 cepted even created this new situation from his 
 usual motive of enthusiastic but well-balanced curios- 
 ity. Doubtless he began his novitiate with the knowl- 
 edge that it would mean for him some new and valuable 
 experiences and impressions. He was a dramatist 
 preeminently, and as such had rare appreciation of the 
 laws of contrast. 
 
 So behold him, kneeling piously in Vauxcelles, mur- 
 muring prayers in his beautiful voice, gazing upward 
 with his marvellous eyes, and perhaps registering an 
 impression now and then on the tablets of his sly and 
 clever brain. Picture, likewise, the amiable and sym- 
 pathetic monks, glancing with compassionate eyes to- 
 ward the deformed shoulders under the dull-coloured 
 habit of the neophyte. 
 
 For a time this new phase of life delighted him. 
 He out-religioned the most religious of the Brethren, 
 flung into his Aves and Misereres an enthusiasm new 
 to the unimaginative monks, and took an artistic joy 
 in silver dawns and crimson sunsets as filtered through 
 monastic gratings. When the chill of the stones cut in- 
 to his knees he knew the delight of the super-sensitive 
 sensualist ; he sniffed the incense with the appreciation 
 of the intellectual poet. All this sounds paradoxical, 
 but throughout his days it was the will and pleasure
 
 THE HUNCHBACK OF ARRAS 117 
 
 of Le Bossu to live paradoxes. With his soul he re- 
 membered the world ; with his keenly strung nerves he 
 responded to the appeal of the cloister. 
 
 But soon he had exhausted the possibilities of Vaux- 
 celles. He had lived his life there with ardour and 
 completeness, absorbed the atmosphere of the Church, 
 and penetrated the somewhat unvaried individualities 
 of the monks. He was tired of it. 
 
 Sin and Virtue, the World and Religion, had alike 
 cloyed. He must have something new to inspire him 
 now, thrill his blood, and beckon his adventurous spirit. 
 But what ? The answer sprang into his brain together 
 with the question: Romance! The witch and priest- 
 ess, elf and gypsy, the queen of the big round world, 
 and the enchantress of the hearts of men! Romance 
 should be his goddess henceforward he vowed, and he 
 turned a critical and frigid eye upon the shadow- 
 crowded corridor and the silent courtyard. Yester- 
 day he had found the one mysterious and the other 
 peaceful to-day they both were uninteresting. 
 
 His elusive sentiment for Marie was now taken out 
 of his elastic and retentive inner-consciousness, and 
 elaborated upon with the skill of the mechanic. A bit 
 added here and there, and behold ! Adam found him- 
 self successfully luxuriating in a splendid passion for 
 "La jolie demoiselle" in Arras. He discovered quite 
 suddenly that life was an empty and worthless affair 
 without love, and decided almost as suddenly that he
 
 118 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 must see Marie at once, and protest to her the extraor- 
 dinary and deathless ardour of his devotion. 
 
 His vows ? Adam placed his vows at scarcely higher 
 value than do his historians. The monastic Bond ? It 
 only remained to be broken. Doubtless he worked him- 
 self up to an affectation of emotion very satisfactory 
 to himself, during some solemn Vesper service. Or do 
 we wrong him? Was there indeed some fugitive spark 
 of the ineffable flame called Love kindling slowly in 
 his cold heart ? It may be. And for the good of his 
 soul, now jesting ironically somewhere in the Place 
 of Departed Spirits, we will hope that, for a brief 
 space at least, Adam le Bossu sang the Love Song of 
 the World. 
 
 Once determined upon his course nothing could pre- 
 vail against him. The monkish habit was discarded; 
 the garments in which he came to Vauxcelles were 
 hastily donned by the light of the moon, pallidly re- 
 flected on the wall of his cell. In the hush of mid- 
 night, two hours before the first service, he stole down 
 the still corridor. Perhaps a Brother stirred in his 
 tired sleep, and murmured, "Who passes?" but some 
 scampering rat or shivering whisper of wind answered 
 the question, and the Hunchback crept on: past the 
 entrance to the Chapel, for which in his new mood he 
 had a laugh probably instead of a genuflexion ; past 
 the Refectory, with a retrospective grimace for the 
 coarse and meagre fare which had so often been doled
 
 THE HUNCHBACK OF ARRAS 119 
 
 out to him by the Cellarer ; out by the great door and 
 across the courtyard. . . . The trees stirred 
 faintly, like a lisping of many hushed voices ; the wind 
 touched his face with a wordless welcome that brought 
 a thrill. A minute later he was out on the highroad. 
 The sleeping Monastery was behind him, a great 
 exultation was in his heart, and his face was turned 
 toward Arras. 
 
 Now, just at this time Arras was in a sad state, had 
 Adam but known it. A wild confusion reigned there, 
 made up of dissension and discontent, tyranny and in- 
 subordination, a chaotic condition in which the 
 Mayor and the citizens, the priests and the students 
 alike were involved. Pamphlets were written bristling 
 with invective against the government, influential 
 citizens were banished under suspicion of complicity 
 with these verbal revolutionists, and the air teemed 
 with discord. 
 
 When Adam returned to his native town he found 
 these conditions in existence, and his welcome but a 
 wintry one, cold, stormy and depressing. His 
 father was not only amazed by his son's summary de- 
 parture from Vauxcelles, but he was greatly exercised 
 over the constant anxieties of every-day life. Every- 
 day life in Arras just then was far from monotonous, 
 and Maitre Henri was growing too old to enjoy the 
 smoke even of a bloodless battle. 
 
 Adam sought out Marie with dispatch, and told his
 
 120 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 tale. He played his new role with his old skill and 
 ardour. He convinced "La jolie demoiselle" that she 
 was essential to his happiness, if not to his actual life ! 
 He made love with his brain, voice, eyes and soul. Of 
 course Marie was conquered, and consented to become 
 his wife. 
 
 This fact assured and her promise given, Adam, 
 excited even beyond his usual high pitch, began to 
 interest himself in the political conditions of his home. 
 For the first time an opportunity offered itself for tak- 
 ing part in public affairs. He began to write pamph- 
 lets himself, brilliant, daring pieces of work, the fore- 
 runners of some modern editorials. Neither God nor 
 man escaped the searing red-hot points of his intellect- 
 ual weapons. He reviled the Pope no less than he at- 
 tacked the Government of Arras. And, not content 
 with the introduction of human personages for the bet- 
 ter dramatic development of his tirades, he called the 
 figure of the Almighty into his pages to point by 
 Divine concurrence the theories which he himself had 
 evolved. 
 
 The result of all this was that he and his father 
 were forced to fly from Arras to Douai, to escape be- 
 ing made public examples by the outraged and irate 
 Mayor and his governing officials. 
 
 Adam decided to give up politics temporarily, hav- 
 ing immensely enjoyed his first flight among them, 
 nevertheless. He wrote to Marie, calling her "Bele
 
 THE HUNCHBACK OF ARRAS 121 
 
 tres douche amie chere (Beautiful, dear and very sweet 
 love)" and being in a genial humour, did his best to 
 pacify and cheer poor Maitre Henri, who was as ill- 
 tempered just then as his son was amiable. 
 
 They remained away but a short time. The storm 
 was soon lulled, and by the time they ventured back 
 Arras was no worse and no better than usual. 
 Promptly after this return Adam and Marie were mar- 
 ried. 
 
 For a space Adam revelled in a dream of the con- 
 sistency and hue of a sunset cloud. He lived in love, 
 and looked on life through a shining web that was 
 woven half of sunshine, half of Marie's bright hair. 
 He saw the world reflected in her eyes, and her voice 
 drowned for him the clamour of the tongues of men. 
 He found the beating of her heart more inspiring than 
 shouts of revelry, the sight of her tender face more 
 wonderful than incense-clouded altars, the touch of 
 her hand or lips more thrilling than the ebb and flow 
 of revolutions. 
 
 Marie must have been a rarely sweet and fascinat- 
 ing woman, for she held her erratic husband for sev- 
 eral years, much longer than any one could reason- 
 ably have believed possible. Children came to them, 
 and their life seemed tranquil and complete. 
 
 Suddenly, one day, Adam le Bossu walked out of his 
 house and never came back. 
 
 Love and Marriage, like Dissipation, Religion and
 
 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 Politics, had palled upon him. He had gone to Paris 
 to devote himself to music and literature ! 
 
 At this time his brain was acutely active, and he 
 composed song after song, satire after satire, and 
 drama after drama, with never-flagging inspiration. 
 He wrote of himself in the third person, and intro- 
 duced fanciful characters (like his famous "Fee 
 Maglore," the evil genius) to typify the good and 
 bad elements in his life. But despite these whimsical- 
 ities all his work of this period was frankly, too 
 frankly, autobiographical. 
 
 In the treatise on Marriage, which appears in the 
 guise of a dialogue in his "Play of Adam," he told the 
 story of his love for Marie, holding it up to ridicule 
 as only he had the skill and wit to do, exposing her to 
 the jests of the public, and himself to the horror and 
 disgust of posterity. 
 
 There are passages in this clever but unpardonable 
 bit of work which rend our sympathies into a tattered 
 web that is inadequate to cover the physical and moral 
 malformations of the Hunchback of Arras. 
 
 Yet he could write charmingly, tenderly. We feel 
 our kindly feelings being bought back grudgingly by 
 the simplicity and grace of such lines as these: 
 "Thanks, Love, for all the sorrows soft and sweet, 
 
 That, mastering my heart, you wake in me, 
 
 For her, the best and the most beautiful 
 
 A man could ever love or ever serve 
 
 Without deserving her. . . ."
 
 THE HUNCHBACK OF ARRAS 123 
 
 To the lady of his heart (whoever she was at the 
 time) he sings: 
 
 "Ah! I could never bring to you 
 The gracious, fair and gentle things 
 That you have caused to come to me; 
 For I have loved, yea! and desired. ..." 
 
 He wrote delightful music, too; not only, states 
 one writer, composing some of the most delicious 
 chansons of mediaeval times, but anticipating the spon- 
 taneous character of latter-day lyrics, and sowing the 
 seeds both of Vaudeville and Opera Comique. 
 
 Such brilliant work did he do that the Count of 
 Artois (Robert II., nephew of St. Louis) installed him 
 as his Court Composer and Singer. It was a great 
 position, and Adam made great use of it. He was 
 soon as efficient a courtier as he was a Master of Music 
 and of Literature, and, with his slender bent frame 
 sumptuously dressed, he was a conspicuous figure at 
 all the great festivals and entertainments of the Artois 
 Court. 
 
 From this time until his death Adam de la Halle 
 worked unceasingly. He was one who, while seldom 
 living deeply, always lived vividly. His loves, if brief, 
 were ardent ; his work, if superficial, was brilliant. He 
 was a bad friend and a worse lover, but he had the 
 gift of magnetism which held both friendship and 
 affection long after he had ceased to wish for it. 
 Through all the changes of his life, his dramatic
 
 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 sense was paramount. He turned his poems and his 
 political essays into miniature plays, and he lived even 
 more theatrically than he wrote. But he possessed the 
 ability and the will to work; dowered with almost 
 all faults, human and otherwise, he yet lacked one 
 laziness. He never shirked, seldom rested, and burned 
 up the fuel of his insufficient bodily strength in forty- 
 six glittering years. 
 
 In 1282, by command of Philippe the Bold, the 
 Comte d'Artois went with the Due d'Alen9on to 
 Naples, to aid the Due d'Anjou in avenging the 
 Vepres Siciliennes. Most of the Court of Artois 
 went too, and, of course, Adam le Bossu. In the two 
 Sicilies the Court was bored, for there was much time 
 to wile away and not enough fighting to be really ex- 
 citing. So Adam set himself the task of amusing and 
 entertaining these gay beings, one of whom he now 
 accounted himself. And so it came about that he 
 wrote his masterpiece, the drama "Robin et Marion." 
 
 It was modelled on the theme of the ancient pas- 
 torale, but bears to it the relation which the finished 
 orchestral suite has to its opening motif. "Robin" 
 is a delightful achievement, even judging it apart from 
 the day in which it was written. Of many mediaeval 
 works it is possible to say : "How wonderful for the 
 Middle Ages!" But to be able to say: "How won- 
 derful! When was it written?" is the only test and 
 the only tribute. "Robin et Marion" is a great work
 
 THE HUNCHBACK OF ARRAS 125 
 
 to-day, even as it was a great work in 1282. It is as 
 ageless as romance, and as cosmopolitan as comedy. 
 Its dialogue reads almost as naturally as the scenes in 
 a modern play, yet its old-world flavour is delicately 
 and surely maintained throughout. Its lyrics are 
 graceful, its melodies spontaneous, its dramatic action 
 sufficiently swift to excuse the slender plot, and its 
 humour as genuine as it is subtle. 
 
 The opening of the play discovers the pretty 
 shepherdess, Marion or Marote, singing softly to her- 
 self the song, "Robin M'aime," of which the following 
 is rather too free an adaptation to be called a transla- 
 tion: 
 
 "Robin loves me, loves but me; 
 Robin's asked me if his love I'll truly be. 
 Robin's bought me dainty things in lover's fashion, 
 Sung me many tender songs to prove his faithful passion, 
 True lovers we! 
 He, Robin! If thou lovest me, 
 For love's sake come to me ! 
 Robin loves me, loves but me, 
 Robin's asked me if his love I'll truly be!" 
 
 A Chevalier appears upon the scene, riding a fine 
 palfrey, and recalling to our minds Thibault's "Chan- 
 son du Roy !" The dialogue runs as follows : 
 
 "Chevalier: Shepherdess, God give you good-day. 
 "Marion: God keep you, my Lord. 
 
 "Chev.: For love's sake, sweet maid, tell me for whom do 
 you sing with such good- will:
 
 126 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 "'He, Robin! If thou lovest me, 
 For love's sake, come to me !' 
 
 "Mar.: Fair sir, it is simply told: I love Robinet and he 
 me. . . . Lord, suffer me to know what manner of beast 
 you carry on your hand. 
 
 "Chev.: A falcon. 
 
 "Mar.: Will it eat bread? 
 
 "Chev.: No, only good flesh. 
 
 "Mar.: That beast! Truly? 
 
 "Chev.: Careful! It would not mind proving it. . . . 
 Tell me, sweet shepherdess, have you ever loved a cavalier? 
 
 "Mar.: Fair sir, before you came, I knew not what cavaliers 
 might be. Of all the men on earth I have only loved Robin. 
 He comes night and morning, by long custom; he brings me 
 cheese and milk, and even now I carry next my heart a big 
 piece of bread which he brought me to-day. 
 
 "Chev.: Say, then, sweet shepherdess, would you come with 
 me, mount my fair palfrey and ride away with me from the 
 wood and the valley? 
 
 "Mar.: My Lord, mount your horse. He is not for me. 
 . . . Your name? 
 
 "Chev.: Aubert. 
 
 "Mar.: My Lord Aubert, you waste your time. I shall love 
 none but Robinet. 
 
 u Chev.: None, Shepherdess? 
 
 "Mar.: None, by my faith! 
 
 "Chev.: I a cavalier, and you a shepherdess! Must I en- 
 treat you? 
 
 "Mar.: I shall never love you. Shepherdess am I, in good 
 truth, but I have a lover who is handsome, good, merry and 
 brave. What more could you offer? 
 
 "Chev.: Shepherdess, God give you joy." 
 
 He rides away, Marion singing "Tirili, tirila" after 
 him, varying it with snatches from "Robin M'aime."
 
 THE HUNCHBACK OF ARRAS 127 
 
 Later on in the play the Chevalier appears once 
 more at a village gathering. He seeks a quarrel with 
 Robin, knocks him down, and makes violent love to 
 Marion, hoping that her lover's defeat will have shaken 
 her loyalty. She, however, is more than ever violently 
 opposed to his wooing, and he finally departs after 
 a very good comedy scene. Marion flies to Robin's 
 arms, scolding him furiously for his cowardice, but 
 evidently loving him too well to even transiently re- 
 gret the Chevalier. 
 
 The climax of the little play is the dance "La 
 Tresque," which is led by Robin and Marion, and in 
 which all the villagers join. La Tresque or "La 
 Danse de Robin," as it has come to be called, is a dance 
 without end. One may dance it forever, or at least 
 as long as one has breath or strength. So a great 
 many years ago they made a proverb, which is still 
 common in Artois and Flanders : 
 
 "Ch'est sans fin 
 Com' P danse Robin, 
 (It is without an end 
 Like Robin's dance)." 
 
 An old English account of the play (written 1632) 
 describes it as being "a merrie and extemporall song, 
 or fashion of singing, whereto one is ever adding some- 
 what, or may at pleasure add what he list." Evi- 
 dently Adam left much to the judgment of his singers, 
 which after all showed his intelligence. From that
 
 128 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 broad "ad libitum" was born a freshness and spon- 
 taneity which was quite essential both to the musical 
 and dramatic success of the work. 
 
 "Robin et Marion" was Adam's climax in life. In 
 it he laid the corner-stone of a future music-drama, 
 besides rounding out and developing the embryo 
 song of the Middle Ages. After "Robin" he wrote 
 very little. When he was forty-six he died in Naples, 
 and was buried with immense pomp, and all the honours 
 of the great, by his patron, Robert d'Artois. 
 
 What became of his father, the excellent Maitre 
 Henri, or his wife, "la jolie Marie," and her children, 
 we know not. Jehan Mados, a jongleur and the son 
 of Adam's sister, speaks adoringly of "Maistre Adam 
 li Bochu." But for that matter they all adored him, 
 even while they distrusted his heart and feared his 
 brain. Those who had least cause to love him cher- 
 ished a secret worship for him through every compli- 
 cation. We may be certain that Marie inculcated in 
 the hearts of her babies a loving reverence for their 
 gifted father, while he, doubtless, was whispering 
 suave and witty speeches in the ears of Court ladies. 
 
 Ah, Adam de la Halle, Adam le Bossu! What 
 was your secret? Your ability might have won their 
 admiration, and your achievements their respect; 
 but what won their love? Was there indeed some 
 masked and muffled tenderness about you that the few 
 had power to recognise ? Or did Marie's love spring,
 
 THE HUNCHBACK OF ARRAS 129 
 
 full grown, irrational and divine, from an over-faith- 
 ful soul? No man shall ever answer the riddle; yet 
 all men, even after these many years, can feel your 
 spell and bow to it, Adam le Bossu, Hunchback of 
 Arras.
 
 WITH THE CASTANETS
 
 OLD SPANISH AIR 
 
 ~TT * *-*
 
 VII 
 WITH THE CASTANETS 
 
 SONG is not the product of cultivation but of in- 
 spiration, and the elements which make for lyrical 
 excellence are such spontaneous qualities as may be 
 noted in the street ballads of a nation oftener than in 
 the works of her masters. So, in every land, the cor- 
 ner-stone of vocal melody has been laid by the Folk- 
 Song. Not only has this peculiar branch of music a 
 charm and freshness quite its own, but it is not seldom 
 a gold-mine of real value, showing us a freedom of 
 melody and an elasticity of development which it has 
 taken the various schools of composition many hun- 
 dreds of years to achieve. The folk-songs of the most 
 ancient days have the infectious quality of the best 
 class of modern popular music. In an age when Har- 
 mony was still an unexplored country, and learned 
 Descanters and students were framing laborious airs 
 as a mason builds an important and imposing structure 
 of well-measured stone blocks, the gypsies and the 
 ballad-mongers, the jongleurs and the careless coun- 
 try-folk were creating the Melody of the Future the 
 Folk-Song.
 
 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 Song would seem to be one of the most universally 
 instinctive ways of expressing joy or sorrow that the 
 world knows or has ever known. From the beginning 
 of time, men and women have sung, without knowl- 
 edge or teaching, and guided only by their hearts. 
 And the songs that they have sung have been good 
 songs, and such as no composer has ever learned how 
 to copy, though many have tried. For Song, as dis- 
 tinct from Music in general, is emotional, purely, 
 utterly, supremely elemental. It is, in its inherent 
 essentials, as primitive as passion or self-preservation. 
 And therefore it is universal, simple, and not to be 
 counterfeited. 
 
 The serenades and love-songs of the world were 
 born from the ardour of lovers, grew to fullness of be- 
 ing in the warmth of languorous days and the magic of 
 silver nights, and died on the lips of the beloved. 
 The lullabies grew in the hearts of mothers, with the 
 growth of the new life, and found their crown of 
 honour when they were crooned, in tremulous proud 
 murmurs, above the mystery of drowsy baby eyes. The 
 dirges were first the broken laments of mourners, 
 swelling, in time, to a wailing protest, and celebrating 
 the unvarying tragedy of loss, the inconsolable ache 
 in the souls of those who had been forgotten by the 
 grim, shadowy Visitor. 
 
 Such things required no harmonic knowledge, nor 
 yet any great genius in the art of making melodies.
 
 WITH THE CASTANETS 135 
 
 One had no need to be a musician ; it was only neces- 
 sary to have lived. 
 
 A few tears, a few kisses, a few heart-throbs, a few 
 ripples of laughter ; a few sighs, and sobs, and solemn 
 farewells, and love- whispers ; a few pauses full of pain 
 or rapture ; the heavy tread of mourners bearing a 
 white Mystery to Mother Earth ; the feverish hurry- 
 ing steps of dancers, keeping time to their own restless 
 pulses ; a prayer, broken by a blush or a hope, a 
 dream hushed by a memory. . . . And the Folk- 
 Song was made. 
 
 Among all the ancient folk-songs that sprang into 
 vivid growth all over the speaking earth in the early 
 ages, there probably was no national lyric music which 
 was so truly great as that of Spain. George Ticknor 
 declares that the Minnesinger and Troubadours were 
 over-refined, and in their extreme precision of nota- 
 tion and delicacy of musical art missed the fire and 
 vitality necessary for really great songs. He insists 
 that the Spanish Folk-Song of the twelfth, thirteenth, 
 and fourteenth centuries reached points which neither 
 Trouvere nor Minnesanger ever imagined. In no 
 sense does he extol the Spanish Art-Form beyond that 
 of other lands, but he says that the music of the people 
 is more innately vigorous and spontaneous, ". . . 
 Embodying the excited poetical feeling that filled the 
 whole nation during that period when the Moorish
 
 136 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 power was gradually broken down by an enthusiasm 
 that became at last irresistible." 
 
 The bitter struggle between the Spanish and Moor- 
 ish elements during the Oriental invasion and habita- 
 tion is a subject which has been drained dry by his- 
 torians, essayists, poets, and the makers of plays. It 
 is unnecessary for us to dwell upon it here, since the 
 matter concerns us only in so much as it may have 
 influenced the songs of Castille and Galicia. Very 
 slight was the Oriental colouring given to the national 
 music of Spain, for the hostility between the two peo- 
 ples was so strong as to repel the possibility of any 
 inter-racial influence whatever. But the effect of the 
 Mohammedans' presence on Spanish soil was felt in 
 the seething revolt and passion of the Spanish people 
 and thus in their lyrics. 
 
 The times were fiery and unquiet. One great 
 national crisis followed another, and the impressionable 
 hearts all over the country beat at top speed year after 
 year. There seemed no cessation in the whirl of blood- 
 shed, tyranny, struggle, rebellion, treachery and pain. 
 And this turbulence and unrest, this danger and mad- 
 ness eddied through the current of their music, creat- 
 ing a wild, strange trick of melody, and a rhythm as 
 uneven as waves driven upon the shore by storm winds. 
 
 Yet through all the restless and even violent meas- 
 ures ran the blood of Spain which is warm blood, and 
 sensuous, with a separate pulse for love, and another
 
 WITH THE CASTANETS 137 
 
 for inconsequent delight. So, however fiery and wild 
 the melody, it nevertheless carries its sub-current of 
 languorous Southern passion. It is as though beneath 
 the turbid, seething rush of wind-lashed waters one 
 could catch glimpses of a great gorgeous sea-serpent 
 painted in many glimmering hues, and moving slow, 
 shining coils far below the tempest's reach. 
 
 To Spain pre-eminently belongs the Dance Song. 
 This wonderful type of folk-song combined music, 
 poetry, motion, and sometimes pantomimic action as 
 well. The latter are called "Danzas habladas," and 
 are less popular than the simple Dance Song. 
 
 There were, in the years of which we are writing, 
 countless dances in Spain, all seductive and beauti- 
 ful, all accompanied by the intoxicating castanet-em- 
 phasis, and "all," says Guevara, "invented by the 
 Devil." There was the Zarabanda, named, we learn 
 from Mariarea, "for La Zarabanda, a devil in wo- 
 man's shape that lived in Seville." There was the Fan- 
 dango, in which the castanet or crotola (a kind of 
 castanet) was peculiarly prominent; the Xacara, a 
 sort of drinking-song, with incidental dancing, recited, 
 in what was called the Rogue's Dialect, and by that 
 class of roysterers known also as the Xacaras ; the 
 Rondena, the Malaguena, the Cachua, the Gitana, the 
 Bolero, the Gambeta, the Caballero, the Alemana, the 
 Zapateta, the Jota, the Bayle, and a dozen others. 
 Some of these dances received their names from the
 
 138 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 places where they originated, others from the favour- 
 ites who danced them. But most characteristic of all 
 was the Seguidilla, that magical delirium of music 
 and motion which shall typify Spain to the end of 
 time as it has from the beginning. 
 
 An old book by Zamacola describes the Seguidilla 
 in this way: 
 
 "So soon as two young people of the opposite sexes 
 present themselves, standing face to face at a distance 
 of about two varas" (that is, sixty-eight inches) "the 
 ritornelo or prelude to the music begins; then the 
 Seguidilla is insinuated by the voice. . . . The 
 guitar follows, playing a pasacalle" (popular street- 
 song) "and at the fourth bar the Seguidilla begins 
 to be sung. Then the dance breaks out with casta- 
 nets or crotolas, running on for a space of nine bars, 
 with which the first part concludes. The guitar con- 
 tinues playing the pasacalle. ... At the close, the 
 voice, the instruments and the castanets cease all at 
 once, and, as if impromptu, the room remaining in 
 silence, and the dancers standing immovable in various 
 beautiful attitudes, which is what we call bien parado 
 (well-stopped). ..." 
 
 The words of the Dance Songs were sung in a sort 
 of sing-song recitative, that occasionally broke into 
 sudden melody. These words were called the Coplas, 
 and there are many coplas which are both beautiful 
 and witty. Most of the colour and character of the
 
 WITH THE CASTANETS 139 
 
 melodies was given by the dancers and the dance- 
 music, always most rich and full of fire and poetry. 
 
 Out in the woods the Homeless Folk loved the Dance 
 Songs as well as did the gay people of Seville and 
 Madrid. The country people sang and danced them 
 at twilight, the villages swayed to their measures, the 
 whole air of Spain quivered with the magical, wonder- 
 ful infection of the Seguidilla. Then there was the 
 Chacona (Chaconne) a dance which was very popu- 
 lar at one time, and was used as an accompaniment to 
 some of the best known and best loved of the street 
 ballads. Some authorities contend that its name is de- 
 rived from the Basque word chocuna, which means 
 "pretty" or "charming." Othero declare that it comes 
 from Cieco, the blind. This latter supposition is the 
 more interesting for the following curious reason: 
 The ballads and folk-songs of Spain, never having 
 been written down, have been preserved in their entire 
 and accurate form only by the blind beggars of the 
 city streets. What fancy, chance or superstition 
 originally was at the root of this immutable tradition 
 we do not know, but it is one of the accepted facts of 
 musical history and of Spanish custom. 
 
 And to this day, if one wishes to hear the old folk- 
 songs sung in the form in which they were sung six 
 hundred years ago, one must go to the blind beggars 
 of Madrid and Seville. 
 
 With the melodies and words entrusted to the mem-
 
 140 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 cries of these sightless ones, and the dance-steps imi- 
 tated by every child as soon as he or she could toddle, 
 the national folk-music of Spain was preserved cen- 
 tury after century. And no other music probably, 
 save possibly that of the Magyar people, has altered so 
 little with the development and changes of the years. 
 
 But besides the Dance-Songs, there were two other 
 characteristic manifestations of lyrical sentiment. One 
 was the Patriotic Song, usually eulogising "the 
 Cid," the national hero, and the other was the Ballad. 
 And these also were preserved and guarded by the blind 
 wanderers of the streets. 
 
 Who shall dare attempt to do justice to the Ballads 
 of Spain without a pen dipped in enchanted fluid? 
 Never were folk-songs so simple, and never were any 
 so delicious. They have a twist of easy colloquial 
 humour very surprising when one considers their an- 
 tiquity, and their romance is invariably of the pierc- 
 ingly human quality so rare in Proven9al literature. 
 They are direct in idea and in expression. Though the 
 thought may be a delicate and subtle one there is never 
 a waste of good words in an attempt to reproduce un- 
 important gradations of meaning. And they are 
 original, definitely, poignantly, vitally original. 
 Here, for instance, is the famous ballad "Fonte frida, 
 Fonte frida." It represents some half -savage and be- 
 reaved woman, violently repulsing the love that is 
 secretly tempting her heart:
 
 WITH THE CASTANETS 141 
 
 ^'Cooling fountain, cooling fountain, 
 
 Cooling fountain full of love, 
 When the little birds all gather 
 
 Thy refreshing power to prove, 
 All except the widowed turtle 
 
 Full of grief, the turtle dove. 
 
 "There the traitor nightingale 
 
 All by chance once passed along, 
 
 Uttering words of basest falsehood 
 
 In his guilty treacherous song: 
 
 "'If it please thee, gentle lady, 
 I thy servant-love would be.' 
 
 'Hence, begone, ungracious traitor! 
 Base deceiver, hence from me! 
 
 " 'I nor rest upon green branches, 
 
 Nor amid the meadow's flowers; 
 The very wave my thirst that quenches 
 Seek I where it turbid pours. 
 
 "'No wedded love my soul shall know, 
 
 Lest children's hearts my heart should win, 
 No pleasure would I seek for, no! 
 No consolation feel within. 
 
 " 'So leave me sad, thou enemy, 
 
 Thou foul and base deceiver go! 
 For I thy love will never be, 
 Nor ever, false one, wed thee; no!'" 
 
 And here is a charming dialogue between two 
 translation by George Ticknor.
 
 142 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 lovers who have been separated through treachery, and 
 are just beginning to find it out. In the original it is 
 known as "Rosa fresca, Rosa fresca," and may have 
 served as a model for the "Fonte frida" just quoted. 
 The man begins: 
 
 ia< Rose fresh and fair, Rose fresh and fair, 
 
 That with love so bright doth glow, 
 When within my arms I held thee, 
 
 I could never serve thee, no! 
 And now that I would gladly serve thee, 
 I can no more see thee, noP 
 
 "The fault, my friend, the fault was thine, 
 
 Thy fault alone, and not mine, no ! 
 A message came, the words you sent, 
 
 Your servant brought it, well you know. 
 And nought of love or loving bands 
 
 But other words indeed it said: 
 That you, my friend, in Leon's lands 
 
 A noble dame had long since wed; 
 A lady fair as fair could be, 
 Her children bright as flowers to see.' 
 
 *"Who told that tale, who spoke those words, 
 
 No truth he spoke, my lady, no! 
 For Castille's lands I never saw, 
 
 Of Leon's mountains nothing know, 
 Save as a little child, I ween, 
 Too young to know what love should mean.' " 
 
 As has been said already, the chief hero of the 
 mediaeval patriotic songs of Spain was the "Cid," and 
 translation by George Ticknor.
 
 WITH THE CASTANETS 143 
 
 since it was so we should pause for a brief moment to 
 consider this curious and picturesque figure of an- 
 cient days. 
 
 Roderigo, or Ruy, Diez de Bivar was born in Bivar, 
 near Burgos, in 1040, and died in Valencia in 1099, 
 after a sufficiently exciting career. He held sway 
 over large numbers of vassals, both Christian and 
 Mohammedan, and from them received the title "Mio 
 Cid." The word is derived from the Seyyid of Arra- 
 gon, which means "Master," and the phrase Mio Cid 
 means literally Monseigneur, and is merely a pic- 
 turesque way of indicating that he was an over-lord of 
 power. He began to show a predilection for battle, 
 murder, and sudden death while he was still very 
 young, and at the outset of his career received great 
 happiness from killing a foreign champion in a tour- 
 ney. To follow the steps of his long and blood-stained 
 life would require much space and a love for horrors ; 
 suffice it to say that his prowess in repulsing the Moors 
 and his many other valiant deeds won for him the title 
 not only of "Cid," but of "El Campeador," which 
 may mean either Challenger, or Champion, or both. 
 In the war between Sancho and Alfonso, the sons of 
 Fernando I., the Cid gave his allegiance to the former. 
 When Sancho came to the throne, Roderigo defended 
 and browbeat him in a loyal but characteristic manner. 
 At the Siege of Zamora Sancho was stabbed in the 
 back, and Alfonso was made King, faute de mieux,
 
 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 though his people were far from enthusiastic. When 
 he was crowned, it was the Cid who made him swear 
 publicly that he had had no hand in his brother's mur- 
 der! The implied suspicion hurt Alfonso in the eyes 
 of his subjects, and he never forgave Roderigo. 
 Nevertheless, he made for him a match which came 
 close to being royal, wedding him to Ximena, the 
 brave and beautiful daughter of the Count of Oviedo. 
 The semi-barbaric sentiment of the Middle Ages is 
 voiced in one old ballad which makes Ximena ask the 
 King to give her as wife to El Campeador because he 
 has had the courage and the strength to kill her 
 redoubtable father! 
 
 Ximena is described by the old historians and 
 romancers alike as being "fit, in body as in mind, to 
 mate with El Campeador." High praise, for the Cid 
 was a man whose robust mentality and great physical 
 strength were far beyond the standards even of that 
 period of universal superlatives. The Cid and Ximena 
 were a model pair of lovers, inasmuch as their years 
 of wedded life amid precarious days and imminently 
 dangerous nights, seemed but to strengthen the firm- 
 fibred cord which bound them in mutual love and 
 understanding. 
 
 After an exciting record the day came when the 
 Cid could not go to battle with his men. He lay ill 
 in Valencia, with the Moors outside the city gates. 
 He sent his troops out to meet them, but the whole
 
 WITH THE CASTANETS 145 
 
 army was cut to pieces near the city walls. The 
 Moors the Almorabides they were, spared but a 
 crushed handful who stumbled back into Valencia to 
 pant the news. When their master heard it he rose to 
 his feet in his agony, and then fell, stark dead. 
 Ximena held the city for a time, while the Cid lay 
 dead, and his few remaining followers shivered and 
 whimpered under her stern directions. But at last she 
 determined to make no further attempt, and prepared 
 to escape from the city. 
 
 Then the little band, all that was left of what had 
 once been the army of the Challenger, left Valencia, 
 presenting a strange and terrible picture. For they 
 led a great war-horse, and on him was sitting the body 
 of El Campeador, straight and stiff, in full armour, 
 with his great sword Tinoz laid across the horse's neck 
 before him. And the Moors, seeing this wonderful 
 thing, cried out, "The dead hath come to life!" and 
 fled wildly away in all directions. And the men 
 passed on, leading the great war-horse with the dead 
 body of their master. 
 
 Pool, in his "Story of the Moors," successfully ex- 
 plodes the romancers' theories concerning the ideal and 
 heroic qualities of the Cid. He pictures him as a 
 plunderer and a blackguard, a lover of carnage and a 
 despoiler of cities. But he admits the genuine if brutal 
 generosity and courage of the man, and no one has ever 
 denied his value as a picturesque historical figure. 
 
 ^
 
 146 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 One can readily understand how such a person and 
 such a career should have appealed to the emotional 
 natures of the Spanish people, and how dearly they 
 must have rejoiced in its theatrical elements. For, 
 beyond all else a love for things dramatic was a ruling 
 power in the lives of these mediaeval Spaniards. 
 
 Every one, whether he could or not, made plays, and 
 even acted in them. One sheep-shearer became quite 
 famous for his skill in dramatic effects, and a tailor in 
 Madrid, who cut the long mantles for the Spanish 
 gallants, also won a decided reputation as a dramatist. 
 
 Lope de Vega, a playwright of old-world renown, 
 wrote in his "Gran Sultana" : 
 
 "There ne'er was a Spanish woman yet 
 But she was born to dance!" 
 
 He might have added that there never was and 
 never would be a Spanish man or woman who was not 
 born to act. It is in their blood, and comes only 
 second to their love-making and their dare-devil 
 bravery. Of many and strange sorts were the dra- 
 matic concoctions of that day. There Avas one ghastly 
 affair called the "Dance of Death," in which Death, 
 as a festive skeleton, invited the world to his revels. 
 Gay music accompanied this cheerful invention, mak- 
 ing the effect, says the chronicler, "most impressive 
 and dreadful." 
 
 There was a certain merry prelate called Juan Ruiz,
 
 WITH THE CASTANETS 147 
 
 who lived and died in the first half of the fourteenth 
 century. He was the Archpriest of Hita, near 
 Guadalajara, and he wrote a rather lengthy dramatic 
 effusion, purporting to be a devout work, but only too 
 evidently the resume of a gay though somewhat disil- 
 lusioned life. The theme was not new even then, the 
 eternal struggle between earthly and divine love, 
 and though he made for it a pious ending, "the work," 
 says the historian, "is a book of buen amor." It is 
 chiefly interesting from the fact that lyrical music 
 played a prominent part in its production. The 
 chronicle says that the action and text were often in- 
 terrupted by Cantigas, or songs ; notably "The Song 
 of Scholars," and "The Song of the Blind." Juan 
 Riano in his "Notes on Ancient Spain," says that the 
 Archpriest introduced, both by reference and indicated 
 use, great numbers of mediaeval musical instruments as 
 well. 
 
 Even when they were not ostensibly acting, these 
 children of Arragon and Castille managed to be 
 theatrical. Whether a lover was touching the 
 mediaeval equivalent for a guitar beneath his lady's 
 window, or a black-eyed girl was dancing in the mar- 
 ket-place ; whether a man was stabbing another, or 
 marching away in gay costume to the wars ; whether 
 they were burning people at the stake or besieging the 
 laboratory of such an innocent alchemist as Don 
 Enrique, Marquis of Villena, Spain always con- 
 
 ^
 
 148 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 trived to be spectacular and picturesque. Sun or 
 moon, stars or the torches in the street, served for foot- 
 lights. Give them a melody, something to stir the 
 soul and the pulses, and a sympathetic audience, and 
 they could win the heart from the coldest breast, and 
 play a drama which thrilled and astounded themselves 
 most of all. 
 
 All that they did was artistic and effective. Even 
 the watchmen going about the streets at night had 
 such quaint and musical calls as the following : 
 
 'A - ve Ma - ri - a, pu - ria - si - ma ! " 
 
 When in 1323, in Toulouse, on the Garonne, the 
 City Magistrates decided to found a Music Guild, how 
 did they go about it? Being keenly alive to the 
 charm of humour they made a pretty comedy out of 
 it, christened themselves : "Sobregayer Companhia dies 
 Sept Trobadors de Tolosa (the Very Gay Company 
 of the Seven Troubadours of Toulouse) !" They sent 
 forth a letter to the world at large summoning all 
 poets and singers to come to Toulouse on May-day in 
 1324, "there to contest with joy of heart for the prize 
 of a golden violet." 
 
 Raimon Vidal, the Trouvere, won the prize, with a 
 Hymn to the Madonna, and, most appropriately, they 
 made him a "Doctor of the Gay Saber," whatever 
 that may mean!
 
 WITH THE CASTANETS 149 
 
 The episode was very Spanish; as Spanish as the 
 following folk-song : 
 
 *"Her sister, Miguela, 
 
 Once chid little Jane, 
 And the words that she spoke 
 Gave a great deal of pain: 
 
 '"You went yesterday playing, 
 
 A child like the rest, 
 And now you come out 
 More like other girls dressed. 
 
 "'You take pleasure in sighs, 
 
 In sad music delight, 
 With the dawning you rise, 
 And sit up half the night. 
 
 "'When you take up your work 
 You look vacant and stare, 
 And gaze on your sampler 
 But miss the stitch there. 
 
 " 'You're in love, people say, 
 
 Your actions all show it. 
 New ways we shall have 
 When mother shall know it! 
 
 " 'She'll nail up the windows 
 
 And lock up the door; 
 Leave to frolic and dance 
 She will give us no more. 
 
 ^Translation by George Ticknor. 
 
 ^
 
 150 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 "'Old aunt will be sent 
 To take us to Mass, 
 And stop all our talk 
 With the girls as we pass. 
 
 "'And when we walk out 
 
 She will bid the old shrew 
 Keep a faithful account 
 Of all our eyes do; 
 
 "'And mark who goes by, 
 
 If I peep through the blind, 
 And be sure and detect us 
 In looking behind. 
 
 " 'Thus for your idle follies 
 
 Must I suffer too, 
 And, though nothing I've done, 
 Be punished like you!' 
 
 "'Oh, Sister Miguela, 
 
 Your chiding pray spare, 
 That I've troubles you guess, 
 But not what they are. 
 
 "'Young Pedro it is, 
 
 Old Juan's fair youth, 
 But he's gone to the wars, 
 And where is his truth? 
 
 "'I loved him sincerely, 
 I loved all he said, 
 But I fear he is fickle, 
 I fear he is fled.
 
 WITH THE CASTANETS 151 
 
 "'He is gone of free choice, 
 Without summons or call, 
 And 'tis foolish to love him 
 Or like him at all!' 
 
 "'Nay, rather do thou 
 
 To God pray above, 
 Lest Pedro return, 
 And again you should love,' 
 
 "Said Miguela in jest, 
 
 As she answered poor Jane, 
 'For when love has been bought 
 
 At the cost of such pain, 
 
 " 'What hope is there, sister, 
 
 Unless the soul part, 
 That the passion you cherish 
 Should yield up your heart? 
 
 *' Tour years will increase, 
 
 And so will your pain, 
 
 And this you may learn 
 
 From the proverb's old strain: 
 
 " ' "If, when but a child, 
 
 Love's power you own, 
 Pray what will you do 
 When you older are grown?"'" 
 
 They really were a charming people. When one 
 reads of their burning all Don Enrique's valuable 
 books "because they related to Magic and unlawful 
 Arts," one feels somewhat out of sympathy with their 
 methods. The same is true of the chronicles of the 
 
 ^
 
 152 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 peculiar practices of the Inquisition, in which the 
 Troubadours suffered seriously. But gleams of light 
 like the romance of Macias El Enamorado reconcile 
 one to all or anything. 
 
 If he had any other name no man knows it to-day ; 
 Macias the Lover he is called in Spanish history and 
 Spanish literature. He is a very popular figure; 
 though all that he ever did, so far as the records tell 
 us, was to sing. He sang steadily and ceaselessly 
 and contentedly, celebrating the loveliness of his chosen 
 lady. His master was the Marquis de Villena. The 
 Marquis had not yet fallen in disrepute with the 
 Church on account of suspected necromancy. And 
 the lady whom Macias loved was of the princely house- 
 hold. Of course Macias, being only an esquire, 
 though a Galician gentleman, could not be permitted 
 to wed the lady, but he went on singing to her in- 
 def atigably. Meanwhile they married her to a Knight 
 of Porcuna. But still Macias kept on singing about 
 her, singing to her, singing at her. The Knight of 
 Porcuna appealed to Don Enrique, who, in his turn, 
 appealed to Macias. The Marquis remonstrated, 
 threatened, commanded and requested. Macias bent a 
 respectful knee before his master. But he went on 
 singing. Finally, as the Knight of Porcuna was be- 
 coming unbalanced from rage Don Enrique was forced 
 to exercise his right as Grand Master of the Order of 
 Calatrava, and put Macias in prison. But Macias
 
 WITH THE CASTANETS 153 
 
 kept on singing even in prison. To the bare walls 
 of his donjon-cell he warbled his melodious praises of 
 his lady all day long, and part of the night. 
 
 One day the Knight of Porcuna wandered along 
 outside the prison window and peered in. Macias was 
 sitting with a beatific smile upon his lips, singing a 
 soft and very pretty love-song about the Knight of 
 Porcuna's wife. He sang on and on in an ecstasy of 
 emotion till the Knight could bear it no longer. So 
 he threw a dart at him through the bars of the prison 
 window, and killed him in the middle of a note. Such 
 was the life and death of Macias the Lover, whose one 
 fault seemed to be that he lacked temperance in song. 
 
 That story is intensely Spanish, from first to last! 
 It is true that Macias was rather a wonderful figure 
 in the annals of his time, inasmuch as he was loyal. 
 Constancy was not a shining nor conspicuous virtue 
 among the gallants of those fierce, gay, wonderful old 
 days. Love came and went with the speed of the 
 flying hours. In a land and a time when neither man 
 nor woman could be certain of to-morrow, it was best 
 to drink, eat, dance and love while it was possible. In 
 those days every parting was apt to be the last, and it 
 was well not to leave one's sword too far away at any 
 time. Women laughed and danced the Seguidilla 
 with men that they might never be permitted to see 
 again. Men drank deep and blundered boisterously 
 through the Xacara, with the prospect of death or 
 
 ^
 
 154 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 torture on the morrow. There was the light echo of 
 dance-music mingling with the clanking tramp of 
 armed men. There were kisses snatched with bravado 
 on the very threshold of the Tribunal of the Inquisi- 
 tion. 
 
 They lived fast in those days, and but a short time. 
 And somehow into their Dance-Songs and their Ballads 
 they managed to put the spirit of their race, the 
 reckless, lavish squandering of to-day, the careless, 
 laughing defiance of to-morrow; the superstition, the 
 humour, the artificiality, and the passionate tenderness 
 of the people's soul. In the coplas which have been 
 preserved we find a wonderful versatility and freshness 
 of imagery and sentiment, but, as an example, there 
 is one which is preeminently significant. It is very 
 brief, and holds not a particularly admirable senti- 
 ment, but it is essentially Spanish. And you must 
 think of it as being recited by a laughing, dark-eyed 
 youth of Seville, while his newest love laughs in return, 
 and flashes her reckless sympathy in a glance. And 
 you must fancy it punctuated by the stirring, mad- 
 dening, irresistible, restless click of the castanets : 
 
 "On Monday I fall in love, 
 On Tuesday I say so, 
 On Wednesday I declare my suit, 
 On Thursday I win my sweetheart, 
 On Friday I make her jealous, 
 And on Saturday and Sunday 
 I hunt for a new love!"
 
 A MAKER OF SONGS AND SHOES 
 
 ^
 
 ANCIENT MAY SONG 
 
 4-4 f- 
 
 The May - time, the May - time ! It 
 
 -r | 
 
 fills the world With flowers!. 
 
 God 
 
 see - eth what I yearn for, With all my quickening 
 
 powers, With all my quickening powers.
 
 VIII 
 A MAKER OF SONGS AND SHOES 
 
 THAT the old order is bound to change is a tolerably 
 well-established fact; but from the Troubadours, the 
 singers of folk-songs, the makers of plaintive melodies 
 and love-verses, and the rest of the romantic lyricists 
 of the Southern world, it is a very far cry indeed to 
 the Meistersinger of Germany. And between the 
 chansons of the Troubadours, and the Mastersongs 
 which grew to be accepted standards, the gulf seems 
 even greater. Yet the history of Songs shows us that, 
 after the era of minstrels, the treasure of song passed 
 next into the guardianship of the Masters ingers. 
 
 The Minnesanger ("Love-Singer"), a sober Teu- 
 tonic copy of the Troubadour, Trouvere, Trobadore, 
 Trovatore, Bard and Minstrel of other lands, had held 
 gentle sway in the petty courts of the feudal lords of 
 ancient Germany, for his allotted number of years. 
 Then his delicate art, never meant for endurance nor 
 strain, began to fail before the turbulent times which 
 seized upon Northern Europe. With the nobles at 
 war one against the other, and the great feudal castles 
 the scenes of dissension, siege and bloodshed instead of 
 
 >
 
 158 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 courtly Song-Contests, the Minnesinger disappeared. 
 Art, the erstwhile patron of princes and frequenter 
 of Courts, came to the safe and peaceful towns which 
 were not peopled with men sufficiently exalted for 
 savagery, and took shelter under the somewhat pom- 
 pous protection of the burgher class. 
 
 In 1380 one Heinrich von Meissen died in Maenz. 
 He it was whose gracious and lovely songs in honour 
 of woman had won for him the title of "Frauenlob 
 (Praise of Women)." And as Heinrich Frauenlob is 
 he known to-day. He was the last of the Minnesinger 
 of Germany, and the founder of the Meistersinger, or 
 Mastersingers. He is the recognised connecting link 
 between the old order and the new, and as such is a 
 figure of great interest and importance in musical 
 history. 
 
 When he died he was borne to his grave by women 
 only. All the wives and maidens of Maenz followed 
 weeping, and, according to the ancient custom, a 
 frank survival of Paganism, great quantities of rare 
 and costly wines were poured upon the sod that covered 
 him. 
 
 Born in Meissen, he had made Maen/ his home, and 
 there founded a Guild of Singers. They had under- 
 taken the reformation of lyrical music then repre- 
 sented by the comparatively free and inspirational 
 Folk-Songs sung by the Minnesinger, and its de- 
 velopment into a fine art and an exact science.
 
 A MAKER OF SONGS AND SHOES 159 
 
 They called themselves Mastersingers, and any man 
 daring to aspire to membership was forced to undergo 
 the strictest sort of examination in music, poetry, and 
 vocalisation. Accuracy, industry, and painstaking 
 care seemed to be the main features of the Master- 
 singer's art. What they accomplished was of ines- 
 timable value to the world at large, undoubtedly, but 
 alas for the spontaneous, variable, ever-changing and, 
 therefore, utterly inaccurate lyrics of the world which 
 had been stormed by this relentless pedantry ! They 
 flew away like birds and butterflies, hid in remote pas- 
 toral places, and eluded the ears of music-lovers for 
 centuries. 
 
 The Goddess of Song, deserting these vagrants and 
 fugitives, had bent her neck to the yoke of Rules and 
 Laws. Kunst (Art) at an early date replaced in- 
 spiration, and though the result of the care and toil 
 of these mediaeval pedants is the finest Art Song in the 
 world, they themselves, with rare exceptions, seem un- 
 sympathetic and even exasperating. 
 
 The new order of Song flourished more or less suc- 
 cessfully for four centuries, one branch remaining 
 active until 1839 ! Various men won eminence in its 
 exercise, notably Rosenbliit, Heinrich von Mugeln, 
 Adam Puschmann (Hans Sachs's pupil), Hadlaub, 
 Behaim, Brandt, Folz, Muscatbliit, Fischart and Till 
 Eulenspiegel. But only one made for himself a name 
 that was quite immortal : Hans Sachs, of Nuremberg. 
 
 ^
 
 160 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 He was a cobbler, and he wrote over 6,050 works 
 4,275 of which were Meisterlieder! 
 
 Without such vitalising principles as came from the 
 work of men like Hans Sachs, the Meistersinger could 
 have lived and laboured but a few decades. The art 
 which is made to endure must be a living art, and the 
 Melstersang was in itself but little better than a 
 skeleton, the skeleton of the dead Folk-Song. But 
 Genius, the one great creative factor in all forms of 
 art, made a brain for the skeleton, and then a heart, 
 and finally a soul; and suddenly the skeleton was a 
 skeleton no longer, but a living, breathing being of 
 flesh and blood, the Art Song. And this thing was 
 done not by the pedantry nor the studied rules of the 
 Mastersingers, but by the few rare but signal geniuses 
 among them; of whom Hans Sachs, the cobbler, was 
 the greatest. 
 
 Like all important movements, the growth and de- 
 velopment of the Mastersingers' Art Song was very 
 slow. The great Mastersingers' Contests began in in- 
 formal meetings among musical burghers on dull win- 
 ter evenings, meetings during which songs were sung, 
 poems recited, stories told, and rules for singing and 
 composition discussed. As the rules multiplied and 
 the burghers gained proficiency and assurance in the 
 new craft, the cast-iron Guilds formed themselves, and 
 the Meistergesang was established. 
 
 This was all during the fourteenth century. By the
 
 A MAKER OF SONGS AND SHOES 161 
 
 fifteenth the thing was done, and at Colmar, Frank- 
 fort, Mainz, Prague, Breslau, Strassburg, Augsburg, 
 Ulm, Regensburg, Nuremberg, and indeed every city 
 of standing or size, the new schools of composition had 
 been instituted. 
 
 Nuremberg was the heart and shrine of the Master- 
 song, and is to-day acknowledged as one of the musical 
 temples of the past. Pilgrims go there, visit St. 
 Katherine's, where the formal contests of the Master- 
 singers were held, see the quaintly decorated cabinet 
 that hangs upon the church wall and bears the por- 
 traits of four masters as well as a stiff religious paint- 
 ing, and indulge in dreams of the dead days as they 
 pass through the streets once trod by Albrecht Diirer 
 and Hans Sachs. 
 
 The members of the Guild there, though unimagina- 
 tive and far from inspired, were men of intelligence and 
 character. Most of them were tradesmen or petty 
 burghers, but they gave at least half their busy lives 
 to the art which they were pleased to call theirs ex- 
 clusively. It seems to have given them pleasure to 
 elaborate upon their own restrictions, if so paradoxical 
 a phrase be permissible! Their rules, narrow and 
 strict as they were, were always being made more con- 
 tracted and more rigid, and their artistic work was 
 done in a cut-and-dried fashion which one writer de- 
 scribes as "grotesque pedantry." 
 
 Their care in being correct and scholarly in all that
 
 162 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 they did resulted in innumerable humorous effects. 
 For one thing, they were always most conscientiously 
 accurate in their Scriptural excerpts and quotations, 
 and very careful to make proper acknowledgment of 
 the sources of the texts. So, when a verse from the 
 Bible was set to music, the name of the book and the 
 number of the chapter were included in the song ! For 
 example, when they set the twenty-ninth chapter of 
 Genesis to music, the composition began in this style: 
 "Genesis am neun und Zwanzigsten nus bericht wie 
 Jacob floh vor sein Bruder Esau," etc., etc., all care- 
 fully set to music ! 
 
 Wagner's comic enumeration of the ridiculously 
 named "Tones" and "Modes," made use of by the 
 Mastersingers in composing their songs ("Die Meister- 
 singer," Act I.), is really much less exaggerated than 
 most persons guess. For the dryest possible combina- 
 tions of notes, this, the most unimaginative body of 
 musicians conceivable, had the following amazing 
 names : The Blue Tone, the Red Tone, the Rosemary 
 Tone, the Yellow Lily Tone, the Nightingale Tone, 
 the Maidenly Reserve Tone, the Blue Corn-flower Tone, 
 the Ape Tone, the Pointed Arrow Tone, the Glutton 
 Tone, the Wall-flower Tone, the Weaver's Song, and 
 the Melody of Roses ! 
 
 There were also the Long Tones and Short Tones, 
 and many more standard melodies, all of equal dul- 
 ness and dreariness to our ears.
 
 A MAKER OF SONGS AND SHOES 163 
 
 In the days of the Minnesinger, the word "Tone" 
 applied only to the rhythm or metre, the air being 
 called the melody. But the Meistersinger used Tone 
 to describe the tunes invented by the more creative 
 brains among them, and accepted them not only as 
 models of excellence, but as pegs on which striving 
 singers might hang any newly-chosen words. 
 
 Any one of the Standard Tunes, that named for 
 the Ape, the Glutton, the Corn-flower, or any other, 
 might be taken by a lyrical aspirant, and twisted to 
 fit the Biblical verse upon which he had decided. It 
 may be mentioned here, by the bye, that all the words 
 of the Mastersingers' songs were obliged to be of a 
 Scriptural order. No secular subjects were admitted 
 to the ultra-purified atmosphere of the Meisterge- 
 sang! 
 
 The question of originality was treated in a re- 
 markably odd manner by the Guild. The freedom 
 with which the Standard Tones might be used, with 
 such metrical alterations as the merest beginner in 
 music might effect, would seem to argue that individual 
 creation was not ardently encouraged, rather, in- 
 deed, that a premium was set upon stagnation, and 
 all incentive toward anything save a mere mechanical 
 following of others' ideas was totally lacking. As a 
 matter of fact, the conditions which prevailed were of 
 quite a contrary order. 
 
 While the habit of musical thought was encouraged
 
 164 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 by the wide and almost promiscuous use of the model 
 Tones, no man who had not himself created one or 
 more Tones could be admitted to the inner sanctuary 
 of the Guild. He might be a Singer a title of 
 honour, and one much coveted, but he could not be 
 a Mastersinger. Says Wagner's "David": 
 
 "The poet who, from his own brain, 
 To words and rhymes discovered by himself, 
 Can, for these Tones, create a new melody, 
 He as a Mastersinger is recognised!" 
 
 It is natural that the only conception which the 
 great public has of the character and personality of 
 Hans Sachs is the conception offered by Richard 
 Wagner. The accuracy of this conception is possible, 
 but not certain. The Sachs of Wagner is that rare 
 being, a philosopher, an artist, a poet, a commoner, 
 and a genial Romanticist. He alternately sings, 
 jests, philosophises, and makes shoes. Only one thing 
 we never see him do and that is write. And we know 
 that the real Hans Sachs left behind him musical and 
 literary compositions to the tune of 6,050 and more ! 
 But a Sachs who, in addition to the charming com- 
 bination of attributes given him by Wagner, pos- 
 sessed the qualifications of a profound scholar and 
 man of letters, would be a trifle too suggestive of blue 
 roses and moons attained ! 
 
 In any case, if the real Sachs who cobbled shoes in
 
 A MAKER OF SONGS AND SHOES 165 
 
 Nuremberg in the fifteenth century, and wrote with a 
 prolific ease paralysing even to the hurrying modern 
 world, was a less engaging person than he who sings 
 "Evchen, Evchen, Schlimmes Weib !" to our unquali- 
 fied joy, he must nevertheless have been a delightful 
 being. 
 
 Though he affiliated himself closely and irrevocably 
 with the Mastersingers' art, he nevertheless found 
 ways of infusing an enormous amount of individuality 
 and spontaneity into what he did. As a matter of 
 fact, he confessed that he considered that in his Mas- 
 ter Songs was the worst work of his career. But this 
 is decidedly open to question. Neither bolts nor bars 
 nor even Guild restrictions can shackle genuine inspira- 
 tion. Whatever Sachs touched became cither music or 
 poetry. It was a fine fancy of Wagner's that made 
 him give a musical rhythm even to the Cobbler's ham- 
 mer. For to such a fresh and vigorous genius as that 
 of Sachs, even the cobbling of shoes must have par- 
 taken of the spirit of his art. Longfellow, in his oft- 
 quoted poem on "Nuremberg," touched on this in- 
 evitable mingling of work and song, saying: 
 
 "As the weaver plied his shuttles, wove he too the mystic rhyme, 
 And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime, 
 
 "Thanking God whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of 
 
 poesy bloom 
 In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom."
 
 166 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 And Longfellow paid his special tribute to our 
 shoemaker, also: 
 
 ". . . Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the 
 
 gentle craft, 
 
 Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and 
 laughed. 
 
 ******* 
 
 "Vanished is the ancient splendour, and before my dreamy eye 
 Wave these mingled shapes and figures like a faded tapestry. 
 
 "Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's 
 
 regard, 
 
 But thy painter, Albrecht Diirer, and Hans Sachs, thy cobbler- 
 bard." 
 
 Whittier, the genial and the gentle, recognised a 
 kindred spirit in the great Maker of Shoes, as every 
 one knows who is familiar with his poem in which 
 appear the lines : 
 
 "Thy songs, Hans Sachs, are living yet, 
 In honest, hearty German . . ." etc. 
 
 From first to last Sachs worked for the universal 
 good. Art was to him no personal gratification, 
 hardly a personal indulgence or means of expression. 
 It was the method by which he, among a few chosen 
 ones, was enabled to uplift the many in the service and 
 to the glory of art. 
 
 Hans Sachs it was who gave to the Guild the rare 
 coin bearing the face of King David, and thus founded 
 that form of the mastersong known as the "David-
 
 A MAKER OF SONGS AND SHOES 167 
 
 gesange" The coin hung, with others, upon a heavy 
 gold chain which was placed about the neck of winners 
 in certain very exclusive and superior musical contests. 
 And the favoured wearer was called the "David-win- 
 ner." 
 
 It was a fine thing to be a David-winner. Men 
 worked half a lifetime to attain the honour, though it 
 would seem that the responsibilities of the David-win- 
 ner exceeded his perquisities. A man thus distin- 
 guished was an acknowledged master and teacher, and 
 was under moral and intellectual obligations to instruct 
 others in his art. But it was a matter not only of 
 honour, but of inflexible rule that he should accept no 
 payment for the lessons which he gave. 
 
 The disinterestedness of the Mastersingers is clearly 
 manifest in this. It was a matter both of duty and 
 of privilege to aid others, but to accept remuneration 
 would be to cheapen and degrade the song they loved 
 to a commercial basis. And this would have been ab- 
 horrent to them. The lesson is one worth noting in 
 this day of bartering, when few geniuses are above a 
 little auctioneering, and every inspiration has its mar- 
 ket value. 
 
 The David-winners were unwilling that their work 
 should receive even such emolument as might cover the 
 actual loss which their curtailed business might incur. 
 We must remember that, although for the most part 
 most prosaically prosperous, the Meistersinger were 
 
 >
 
 168 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 almost all men to whom every division of time stood for 
 some portion of labour accomplished, and a corre- 
 sponding sum of money gained. Therefore, practi- 
 cally speaking, the David-winner, in giving his 
 instruction gratis, gave, in addition, a fair amount of 
 money out of his own pocket. 
 
 Thus did the Meistersinger of Nuremberg love that 
 Art of Song of which they had appointed themselves 
 the champions. And they did their work well. They 
 sowed many fertile seeds, and cared for them duly, and 
 from that planting the musical world of to-day reaps 
 rich harvests. 
 
 Of course the possibilities in their own Kunst were 
 neither perceived nor yet dreamed of by them. But 
 the possibilities were there, albeit somewhat proto- 
 plasmic. They were waiting only for the easier, 
 lighter and freer touch, to grow into musical creations 
 of genuine and intrinsic value. In Heinrich von 
 Miigeln's melody known among the Masters as the 
 Long Tone, we find the germ of Wagner's "Meister- 
 singer" ! The broad and simple phrase which is one of 
 the central themes of the great Overture and March 
 can easily be recognised, in embryo, in the following: 
 
 
 It might be well just here to give a brief account of 
 the way in which the Mastersingers' Contests were
 
 A MAKER OF SONGS AND SHOES 169 
 
 conducted. Placards were first posted about Nurem- 
 berg, inviting citizens to come to St. Katherine's at a 
 certain time. The gathering was always a large one, 
 for the interest in the Kunst of the Masters was uni- 
 versal through city and suburbs. The proceedings be- 
 gan with the "Freisingen," or "Free Singing," which 
 was open to any one who imagined that he had a lyrical 
 or even merely a vocal gift. For a certain length of 
 time the Masters and the citizens listened to these Free 
 Singers, upon whose performances no judgment was 
 pronounced. Then the contest began. 
 
 Four Merker (Markers) were stationed behind a 
 screen or curtain near the altar. Each had a slate and 
 piece of chalk, and each had a special responsibility, 
 and a special duty to discharge. One Marker was 
 supposed to take note of mistakes in rhetoric, another 
 of errors in rhyme and metre, a third of incorrect 
 forms of melodic construction, while the fourth, 
 provided with a large Bible, paid careful heed as to 
 whether or no the singer kept strictly to the sacred 
 text. 
 
 Then the Singer who wished to become a Master- 
 singer, or the Mastersinger who wished to become a 
 David-winner, began his song. 
 
 The decision of the Judges was entirely controlled 
 by the records of the Markers, who made a chalk- 
 mark for every fault detected. The Markers were 
 zealous and the Judges conscientious, and he who 
 
 ^
 
 170 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 passed through the ordeal triumphantly without be- 
 ing declared "outsung!" must have been gifted not 
 only with an excellent education, but a set of re- 
 markably steady nerves. 
 
 Such were the ways and customs of the Meister- 
 singer of Nuremberg. 
 
 Hans Sachs was born in Nuremberg on Novem- 
 ber 5th, 1494. Authorities differ as to his antecedents, 
 some persons declaring his father to have been a shoe- 
 maker, others a tailor. In any case he was low-born, 
 though probably of intensely respectable, even pros- 
 perous, parentage. As a child he went to the Latin 
 School in Nuremberg, and made good use of his time. 
 When he was fifteen he was apprenticed to a shoe- 
 maker (some histories say to his father), and worked 
 as hard at cobbling as he had at Latin. 
 
 After two years of painstaking labour and con- 
 scientious application, he found himself a journey- 
 man instead of an apprentice, with all the unwonted 
 freedom of promotion. He straightway set out upon 
 his "Wander jahre (Wandering Year)." He was 
 then seventeen, and keenly alert to new impressions. 
 He wanted to see everything and do everything: the 
 world as viewed from the sleepy streets of Nuremberg 
 seemed too small for his Wander jahre! No youth 
 ever started forth upon his travels with a more vital 
 interest in life and things than did Hans Sachs. 
 
 He wandered all over Germany, learning much, en-
 
 A MAKER OF SONGS AND SHOES 171 
 
 joying everything, and living with every fibre and 
 every cell of his healthy body and brain. 
 
 He went to Ratisbon and Passau, Liibeck and 
 Osnabruck, Salzburg, Leipzig, and Munich. And 
 wherever he went he made careful mental notes of his 
 new impressions, and whenever he could he picked up 
 stray bits of information, together with the usual vast 
 quantities of experience. 
 
 He began to study singing as he went along. The 
 towns which he visited all had their Guilds and Song 
 Schools, and, through this varied mode of education, 
 he acquired a wonderful versatility of style and 
 breadth of musical experience. 
 
 In Munich, when he was nineteen, he finished his 
 training in the "Charming Art," as it was called. And 
 in 1514, when he was twenty, he began to write songs 
 of his own. In 1515 (possibly 1516) he returned 
 to Nuremberg, barely twenty-one, but a finished 
 master of music and poetry. And in Nuremberg he 
 remained thereafter until his death. 
 
 They made him a Mastersinger, of course, and he 
 worked untiringly for his Guild, as we have seen. 
 When he was twenty-five he married. Details con- 
 cerning the maiden's name and individuality are some- 
 what obscure, but we know that he was very happy with 
 her, and had several children, and that when she died, 
 after many years of mutual contentment, he mourned 
 her loss sincerely. Nevertheless, his grief did not pre- 
 
 >
 
 172 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 vent him from marrying again. Sachs seems to have 
 been the ideal and typical German Hausvater, and like 
 the great Bach, possessed the need and the genius for 
 founding and fostering the Home. This second mar- 
 riage was made when he was nearly seventy, but he 
 was a man of eternal youth, and never outlived his 
 spring-dreams nor his sense of humour. It was a 
 year after this marriage that he wrote his delightful 
 "Fastnacht spiel (Festival-Night-Song)" and, with 
 his own delicious art, incorporated therein the famous 
 old May Song of the thirteenth century. 
 
 Although this roundelay, or folk-song, was not his, 
 he contrived to dress it in such a new and charming 
 garb that it has become closely and justly associated 
 with him. 
 
 The fresh and graceful qualities of the original 
 verses are too delicate to be transplanted; the follow- 
 ing is a very liberal translation : 
 
 "The May-time, the May-time! 
 
 It fills the world with flowers! 
 God seeth what I yearn for, 
 
 With all my quickening powers. 
 
 "For Love is all my longing, 
 
 A maid as fair as May; 
 To bring her to my hearthstone, 
 And make the Springtide stay. 
 
 "Of wooing sings the nightingale, 
 
 And joy that here begins: 
 Ah, must I be the only one 
 That woos, but never wins?"
 
 Sachs did not only write songs. He wrote dramas, 
 narratives, fables, allegories, dialogues, hymns, 
 every form of literary and lyrical composition then in 
 vogue, and many which he invented himself. He wrote 
 two hundred and eight dramas in all, and one thousand 
 five hundred and fifty-eight narratives. His most 
 famous tragedies were "Lucretia" (1527), "Virginia" 
 (1530), "Melusine," "Klytemnestra," and "Julian der 
 Abtriinnige (Julian the Apostate)." His greatest 
 comedy was "Die Ungleichen Kinder Eva (The Un- 
 like Children of Eve)." There was, also, a wonderful 
 Carnival play, and the famous "Hiirnen Segfried 
 (The Horned Siegfried)" (1557). 
 
 He had the inconsistency of all great souls. Dur- 
 ing the Reformation he was one of Luther's most 
 violent partisans, and, in 1523, wrote for him the 
 beautiful "Wittenbergisch Nachtigall (The Nightin- 
 gale of Wittenberg)." The song was widely known 
 and deeply admired, and proved a genuine help to 
 Luther in gaining for him public sympathy. 
 
 After having identified himself thus definitely with 
 the sweeping religious movement of the period, Sachs 
 promptly proceeded to write four brilliant prose dia- 
 logues, "Counselling" (says the chronicle) "modera- 
 tion in the religious life!" 
 
 According to his own statement, the Cobbler com- 
 pleted, between the years 1514 and 1567, six thousand 
 and forty-eight works. This vast list was enormously 
 
 ^
 
 174 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 increased before his death, nine years later. He made 
 use of all things in his compositions folk-poems, 
 legends, history, the Bible, every-day life. 
 
 His was a utilitarian as well as an inspirational 
 genius. No trivial memory nor passing fancy came 
 to him but he found a value in it, and a power for 
 usefulness. No trouble touched him but he learned 
 from it; no joy but he shared it with the world. No 
 petty annoyance came to interrupt his daily cobbling 
 but he made of it a jest for us to laugh at to-day. 
 No dream visited his sleep-sealed eyes but found its 
 way into a song. 
 
 On January 19th, 1576, Hans Sachs, Mastersinger 
 and Cobbler, the illustrious Maker of Songs and of 
 Shoes, died, aged eighty-two. His life had been long 
 and incredibly busy, and with the exception of four 
 years when he was a very young man it had been spent 
 in Nuremberg. How had he learned the Universal 
 Speech, shut in among narrow streets and narrow 
 minds, unyielding walls and unyielding customs ? How 
 did he find there the secret of undying youth? Per- 
 haps the best answer is found on the lips of Wagner's 
 Sachs: 
 
 "My friend," says the Cobbler, speaking out of his 
 kindly tolerance and wisdom to the hot-blooded boy 
 knight, "my friend . . . the real poems of the 
 world are only dreams come true."
 
 MAITRE GUEDRON, A 
 TEACHER OF KINGS
 
 A ROMANCE BY 
 
 MAITRE GUEDRON 
 
 i 
 
 
 Ev - ery shep-herd - ess, has - ten to pleas 
 
 U, 1 , i 1 
 
 
 nre ! Ev - ery shop-herd - ess, has - ten to pleas ure ! 
 
 And be wa - ry wtth Time's scan - ty meas 
 
 3c 
 
 nre, And be wa ry with Time's scanty meas - ure ; 
 
 &=* 
 
 
 For like wa - ler it slips thro' the fin - gers, And 
 
 ratt.^ .. ,- 
 
 r 9- 
 
 'tis but re - gret then that with us lin - gers I 
 
 Seek your joys thro' the Spring for - est rov - ing, And 
 
 spend all your brief youth in lov - ing.
 
 IX 
 
 MAITRE GUEDRON, A 
 TEACHER OF KINGS 
 
 PARRY, in the "Oxford History of Music," says : 
 
 "The French composers, if left to themselves, do 
 not seem likely to have effected much in the direction 
 of passionate expression. Their natural instinct, like 
 that of their public, seems in the direction of gaiety 
 and light-heartedness, impelling them to treat even 
 pathetic situations with a sort of childish superficiality, 
 as occasions for making something neat and pretty, 
 rather than emotional and interesting. . . . The 
 songs are dainty morsels in themselves, sometimes ex- 
 pressing very delicately the sentiments of undramatic 
 words," etc. 
 
 While Germany was struggling slowly toward the 
 goal of the finished Art-Song, and was floundering in 
 the mazes of pedantry by the way, France was perfect- 
 ing that exquisite and distinctive thing known through 
 all centuries as French Song. 
 
 What the Troubadours, Trouveres and Menetriers 
 had sketched in lightest and most shadowy lines the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth century Frenchmen filled in 
 
 ^
 
 178 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 with such rose-hued decoration, amplification and or- 
 namentation as we might be tempted to term evanes- 
 cent and ephemeral, had the whole not outlasted the 
 centuries. In the early part of the sixteenth century, 
 songs for three, four, and five voices were popular. 
 But in the reign of Henri IV. the monodic, or single- 
 voice, songs came into fashion once more. 
 
 With the tinkle of lutes and soft choruses of court 
 singers, the French chanson, far from being forgot- 
 ten, was endowed with new life, and, enshrined on a 
 flower-decked altar, remained the pastime and the joy 
 of kings. 
 
 Naturally there were very few exponents of this 
 fragile art who had the keen brain, poetic instinct, 
 light touch, and musical cultivation necessary to pro- 
 duce songs of popular charm and artistic finish. 
 
 Among these few were Boesset, Mauduit, Bataille, 
 and, greatest of all, Pierre Guedron, the teacher 
 of two kings, and the master of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury chanson and romance in France, 
 
 He was born in Paris in 1565, and from the time 
 that he was old enough to have any interests or any 
 dreams, he devoted his life to the making of music. 
 We know little of his private and personal existence 
 beyond the fact that he married, and had one daughter 
 and several sons, none of whom appear to have par- 
 ticularly distinguished themselves. But of his work 
 we have ample record, not only in the chronicles and
 
 MAITRE GUEDRON 179 
 
 anthologies and histories, but in his unmistakable and 
 unique influence upon all subsequent French song. 
 
 At the time when he began to compose, Paris was 
 given over to all manner of extravagant gaieties. 
 The religious and political disturbances during the 
 reign of the weak-minded Charles IX. had left in 
 France a thirst for the perquisities of peace, for the 
 wildest and most extreme forms of merrymaking. 
 Masques and Ballets formed the chief diversions of the 
 Court, diversions into which every soul poured his 
 or her energies with a feverish and exaggerated ex- 
 citement approaching Paganism. Indeed they had 
 an old Bacchic hymn, beginning "Deus, qui bonum 
 vinum creati," which was sung at many festivals, 
 and effectually proved the tendencies as well as the 
 standpoint of the day. The following is a literal 
 translation of this most extraordinary lyric that ever 
 found favour in a civilised Christian Court. 
 
 "God! You who have created the good wine, and who have 
 permitted that liquor to affect so many heads so ill, preserve 
 for us, if you please, enough of sense, at least, to enable us 
 to find our way to bed!" 
 
 The popular Ballet or Masque had been introduced 
 into Paris by a protege of Catharine de Medici, 
 a young Italian violinist who had come to Court in 
 1577, had pleased her by his playing, and had been 
 installed as her Intendant of Music. He called him- 
 self Balthazar de Beaujoyeuex, which had no re-
 
 180 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 semblance to his real name, and was the composer of 
 "Circe," the first Ballet ever produced in France. It 
 was written and performed in honour of the marriage 
 of the Due de Joyeuse and Mile, de Vaudemond, 1582, 
 and was the beginning of a new musical craze. 
 
 Pierre Guedron grew up into an atmosphere of light 
 dramatic music, and lost no time in identifying himself 
 closely with the popular taste. Indeed, it was as a 
 ballet-composer that his fame was first acquired, 
 although he always loved song-writing best, and 
 usually contrived to incorporate in his Masque music 
 one or more of the charming Romances upon which 
 he had spent his dearest dreams and eagerest industry. 
 
 Henri de Navarre, the Bearnnais beloved of Hugue- 
 nots and women, always excepting Madame Cathe- 
 rine, the Regent, came duly to the Throne of France, 
 and, as behooved him, wedded Marie de Medici. His 
 Court Composer at that time was Claude Lejeune, 
 who, dying in a timely hour the year after the royal 
 marriage, left a most honourable position vacant. 
 This position Henri called upon Pierre Guedron to fill. 
 So, at the age of thirty-six he became Court Composer 
 to the King of France. We gather from various 
 records of the day that he was Valet de Chambre to 
 Henri, and teacher of music to the whole royal family, 
 and to many musical enthusiasts in the Court. The 
 King had for him a genuine affection, and Guedron 
 repaid the royal favours which he received by his
 
 MAITRE GUEDRON 181 
 
 painstaking instruction of the King and the little 
 Dauphin Louis in the gentle art of song-making. 
 
 Henri's love for music was a somewhat artificially 
 cultivated product, the result of his first wife's ardent 
 passion for sweet sounds. Marguerite de Valois pre- 
 ferred people to sing rather than to talk, if possible, 
 and her influence did much toward making music fash- 
 ionable in France. Henri himself started a precedent 
 of impromptu or extemporaneous verse-making which 
 resulted in a rhyming, declaiming, warbling, and more 
 than two-thirds ridiculous Court. Henri himself, 
 whether making love or making songs, was always 
 debonnair, graceful and assured ; but his would-be fol- 
 lowers were not always successful in imitating his 
 somewhat casual methods. 
 
 Of course he composed songs for the Princesse de 
 Conde and many other great ladies, but his first im- 
 promtu stanza was made in honour of the pretty 
 Duchesse de Sulli, with whom he was violently in love 
 at the time, the same Duchesse, by the bye, with 
 whom Dumas has made us feel so intimate, in the pages 
 of his "Reine Margot." 
 
 Henri was sitting at supper at the table of the 
 Duchesse, and when he rose to drink to the hostess, won 
 a round of laughter by declaring : 
 
 "I would drink to thee, Sulli, 
 
 But cannot, I confess! 
 For let me state to thee, 
 Adorable Duchesse, 
 
 ^
 
 182 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 To drink to thy sweet charms that so abound, 
 One should but do so, bowing to the ground!" 
 
 It was Henri who wrote the celebrated song "Char- 
 mante Gabrielle," and sent it to the beautiful Ga- 
 brielle d'Estree one day when he was planning a 
 campaign against Spain, and a consequent absence 
 from her: 
 
 "Ah, charming Gabrielle, 
 
 Thy darts most piercing are; 
 Alas, those wounds to sell 
 
 For thrusts of public war! 
 What pangs to part from thee, 
 
 Mere glory so to gain! 
 Lifeless I well might be, 
 
 As free from love's dear pain!" 
 
 Paris taste at the time when Guedron became 
 Royal Composer, was practically toward Vaudeville. 
 People wished nothing serious, nothing sad; even a 
 tragedy must be dressed up in some masquerade form 
 which would amuse, instead of impressing them. We 
 find several records of "Ballets tragiques" produced at 
 this period! 
 
 These Ballets, let it here be explained, were not at 
 all like our ballets of to-day. They were spectacular, 
 dramatic performances, with dances and instrumental 
 music of a high class. Sometimes they were pan- 
 tomimic, but oftener were sprinkled with songs and 
 choruses. The whole was a sort of musical potpourri,
 
 MAITRE GUEDRON 183 
 
 a cross between Opera Comique and Vaudeville. 
 Adam de la Halle anticipated the Ballet, though in its 
 sixteenth and seventeenth century form it was, thanks 
 to Balthazar, mainly Italian. 
 
 In 1610, Henri IV. having been killed by the 
 Catholic fanatic Ravaillac, the boy Louis XIII., with 
 his mother, Queen Marie, as Regent, reigned in France. 
 Maitre Guedron was retained as Court Composer, and 
 continued to teach the art of music to the young King. 
 
 Louis XIII. showed a rare taste and ability in 
 music from his childhood. He copied his master's 
 style, of course, and his melodies are scarcely more 
 than creditable sketches of the models which he had 
 before him constantly. Nevertheless, his love for his 
 art was genuine, and Maitre Guedron was not only 
 fond but proud of his royal pupil. 
 
 In 1614 the King was declared of age, and in 1615 
 he married Anne of Austria. 
 
 This wedding was an opportunity for Maitre Gue- 
 dron to pour forth such wealth of music as he could, 
 and he made good use of it. He acquitted himself 
 brilliantly, composing songs which surpassed any of 
 his previous achievements. He wrapped them up in a 
 Ballet of course to please the popular taste, a Ballet 
 which was called "Le Ballet de Madame," as a tribute 
 to Anne. 
 
 One of the songs reproached the Queen and bride 
 for her tardy appearance, and ran as follows :
 
 184 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 For sweet Anne weTe longing; Tru - ly she Is late! 
 9 i 1 I 1 1 
 
 I 
 
 Ah! our hopes she's wronging, Thus to let us wait! 
 
 Another song introduced in the same Ballet began 
 with these particularly naive verses : 
 
 "One day the Shepherdess Silvie 
 Sang: *Oh, prithee love thou meP 
 
 To her love and life sang she: 
 Twas a shepherd gay! 
 
 'Shepherd, wilt my true love be? 
 Then, awake! for it is dayP" 
 
 The "Ballet de Madame" was most successful, and 
 pleased the young Queen immensely. 
 
 It has already been said here that, besides Guedron, 
 there were other celebrated composers at that time, 
 Jacques Mauduit, a gifted man, though no genius, and 
 better known as a composer of church music than a 
 maker of songs ; Bataille, lutinist to Anne, and a won- 
 derful dreamer with a pretty aptitude for delicate har- 
 monies ; and last but not least Boesset. 
 
 Antoine Boesset was of noble birth, unlike Gue- 
 dron, who had risen from the rank and file of the peo- 
 ple, and rejoiced in the title of Sieur de Villedieu. 
 He was a rarely charming man and a brilliant musi- 
 cian, and by some persons was considered greater than 
 Guedron. Although twenty years younger than the
 
 MAITRE GUEDRON 185 
 
 famous Maitre, he was one of the King's Councillors, 
 Intendant to the Queen, a more celebrated lutinist even 
 than Bataille, and Guedron's most formidable rival 
 in the world of song. Nevertheless, the two masters 
 contrived to help, instead of harming, each other, sub- 
 stituting collaboration for competition, and finally 
 strengthening the tie of mutual admiration with that 
 of relationship. 
 
 Maitre Guedron's daughter Jeanne was all that was 
 most charming and most desirable. She was that rare 
 creature a girl of the people with an instinct for sim- 
 ple and homely pleasures and customs, polished by 
 contact with the cleverest men and most fascinating 
 women of the Court. She had youth, charm, culti- 
 vation, lack of self -consciousness, and the wit born of 
 necessity in a life among the brilliant and unscrupulous 
 French courtiers. 
 
 The Sieur de Villedieu fell in love with Jeanne Gue- 
 dron, and she with him, and their marriage served to 
 cement permanently the bond between the two dis- 
 tinguished musicians. 
 
 As Louis XIII. grew older he proved, as one writer 
 has said, "more at home in music than in politics." 
 Having appointed Richelieu as his Prime Minister, he 
 turned his back, metaphorically, upon state affairs 
 whenever he could, devoting his real enthusiasm to the 
 framing of Romances as much like those of Maitre 
 Guedron as possible. 
 
 ^
 
 186 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 In Louis two musical souls seemed constantly at 
 war. One manifested itself in his devotion to church 
 music, and the other was betrayed in his unconquerable 
 leaning toward such of the more frivolous branches of 
 the art which his father had patronised. This latter 
 taste eventually predominated over the marked if 
 sporadic asceticism of the former, and in time he grew 
 inordinately fond of the popular Ballet which he had 
 first disdained. 
 
 On January 29th, 1617, a great Court Ballet, 
 written by Guedron, Boesset, Bataille and Mauduit, 
 was produced. It was entitled "La Deliverance de 
 Renault," and was a most extravagantly spectacular 
 affair. In it were employed sixty-four singers, 
 twenty-four viol players, and fourteen lutinists. The 
 effect was very fine, we are told, and the interest of 
 the audience was vastly increased by the fact that the 
 King himself had a part. In fact he impersonated the 
 Fire-Devil "Le Demon du Feu" to the delight of 
 the Court ! 
 
 Indeed, it became quite fashionable for great per- 
 sonages to take part in the Masques and Ballets given 
 at the Court. And courtiers with good voices, and 
 pretty court ladies who knew how to dance, found in 
 this form of amateur theatricals a charming oppor- 
 tunity for the exhibition of their peculiar gifts. 
 
 The King, in addition to histrionic tendencies, had 
 other graceful, if unremarkable, accomplishments. One
 
 MAITRE GUEDRON 187 
 
 was his gift of rhyming. Although not startlingly 
 original, his poem "Amarylis" is quoted still as an ex- 
 ample of seventeenth century verse-making : 
 
 "Thou thinkest, sun most bright, 
 
 That naught is radiant as thy glowing light, 
 
 When, in the springtide hours, 
 Thou fashionest the flowers; 
 
 But, lo! thou palest quite 
 
 Before the eyes of Amarylis P* 
 
 In addition to his many lovely songs, Maitre 
 Guedron composed the following Ballets: "La Sere- 
 nade," 1614 ; an unnamed Ballet in the beginning of 
 1615; "Ballet de Madame" in the following March; 
 "La Deliverance de Renault," 1617; "Ballet de la 
 Reine," airs for "Ballet de Psyche," 1619; "Ballet 
 des Dernieres Victoires du Roi" and several others in 
 1620, and last, "Ballet de M. le Prince de Conde." 
 We have no record of any further work, and though 
 the exact date of Pierre Guedron's death is not known, 
 we may assume that it was soon after the composition 
 of the last-named Ballet. For with Maitre Guedron 
 to live was to compose. 
 
 Pierre Guedron's songs are so delicate, so sweet, and 
 withal so masterly that one cannot help regretting the 
 fact that he is not better known to-day. In regard 
 to both words and music his lyrics are second to none 
 in the history of French music. 
 
 We do not know whether or not Guedron wrote his 
 own verses. If he did, he showed himself to have been
 
 188 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 a charming poet as well as a great musician. Per- 
 haps the loveliest of his Romances is that which begins : 
 "Au plaisirs, au delices, bergeres!" : 
 
 "Every Shepherdess, hasten to pleasure, 
 
 And be wary with Time's scanty measure; 
 
 For like water it slips through the fingers, 
 And 'tis only regret then that lingers! 
 
 Seek your joys, through the spring forest roving, 
 And spend all your brief youth in loving!" . . . 
 
 The melody is of a sort to match the words : tender, 
 graceful, spirited, daintily sad, but never lagging, 
 full of quick changes of key that only a master could 
 dare. 
 
 Maitre Guedron was a great song-writer; one of 
 the kings of the lyric craft. If few of us know and 
 love him to-day as he deserves, it is because the spirit 
 of his Romances is of the stuff that dreams are made 
 on, a trifle beyond our blunt twentieth century per- 
 ceptions. As beautiful and perfect songs, they will 
 always live in the appreciation of musicians and stu- 
 dents, but for popularity ah, well ! their colouring is 
 too faint and exquisite for the bright glare of modern 
 times. They seem to require the subdued light and 
 scented spaces of the gardens of Versailles. 
 
 But, by cajoling the laggard fancy, one may re- 
 cover some tattered bit of the soft-hued tapestry of the 
 past to serve as a setting and background for Maitre 
 Guedron's songs. One may dream that one hears the
 
 MAITRE GUEDRON 189 
 
 light echo of lute and laughter and the murmur of 
 satin skirts. One may breathe in imagination the 
 heavy scents that came to Court from indolent Italy, 
 see the fair women and careless gallants, and feel, like 
 a cobweb touch, the soft, sweet, butterfly-life of it 
 all ; a butterfly -life that hovered always above marshes 
 and graveyards, battlefields and bottomless pits. 
 "Be wary with Time's scanty measure," 
 
 sang Maitre Guedron, delightful old Pagan ! 
 
 "For like water it slips through the fingers, 
 And 'tis only regret, then, that lingers!" 
 
 Ah, Maitre Guedron, Maitre Guedron! What a 
 philosophy of life is this ! Is it, indeed, you who 
 offer us such counsel? Is it possible that thus you 
 advise a struggling, bewildered, wistful world? You, 
 "Master of the Royal Music, and Composer to His 
 Majesty," you, a maker of master-songs, and a 
 teacher of Kings!
 
 THE WANDERING PEOPLE
 
 A MAGYAR SONG 
 
 ( By Erkel Elek ) 
 
 g g g 
 
 Let them find ont what my heart now hopes, now fears ! 
 
 =9i 
 
 
 u~ 
 
 What is it that fills mine eyes with un -shed tears? 
 
 -N r*B . 
 
 This gladsome grief, this sweet un - rest, And all these wak- 
 
 S Ik , r ^ S . 
 
 - ing dreams with which my nights are bless - ed? 
 
 What fills my soul with hope's young Spring? 
 
 5_-^ & -^= 
 
 Let them find out what pain such hap. pi-ness can bring.
 
 X 
 THE WANDERING PEOPLE 
 
 IN the fourteenth century great bands of dark- 
 skinned beings began to appear in Europe, and in- 
 cidentally in Hungary. The old records say that 
 there were "many of them, and that they were headed 
 by Counts and Dukes in rich dress." The warm and 
 mysterious East looked out of their deep black eyes, 
 and in their lazy smiles and lithe movements likewise 
 was their Oriental origin made manifest. A trifle like 
 Turks they were, yet with a definite difference, for they 
 were Scythians, of the Finno-Ugrian race, so Mr. 
 Krehbiel says ; also, they hailed originally from Hin- 
 dustan. 
 
 By gradual stages they came, with a truly Oriental 
 lack of speed or violence. Slowly they infested the 
 Southeastern part of Hungary, and there they stayed, 
 among the Magyars. Quietly but unmistakably their 
 influence began to steal into the Hungarian soul. 
 Such is the way of the Orient and the Orientals. 
 
 By the fifteenth century they were an integral part 
 of the people's life. Yet they waged no war (al- 
 though sorely oppressed and persecuted), demanded 
 
 ^
 
 194 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 no lands, settled in no city, no, nor yet village! 
 asked no favours, and mingled but little, at first, with 
 the Magyar folk. 
 
 For these were the Gypsies, the Wandering Peo- 
 ple. 
 
 Out of far-away tropical lands that have dreamed 
 away centuries with far less struggle or concern than 
 we have spent on a few short years, came the Wan- 
 dering People of old. They had 
 
 ". . . yearned beyond the sky-line 
 Where the strange roads go down." 
 
 In fact, it was and always will be their inevitable 
 and eternal doom so to yearn toward those unseen 
 roadways roadways that lead where? In all men 
 and women possessed of that same fateful yearning 
 is the blood of the Wandering People. 
 
 Spurred by the yearning, that unrest which draws 
 forth stars now and then from their places in high 
 heaven, and impels them, whirling, down to the sea, 
 they came to wander through new lands. 
 
 And because the East is invariably sumptuous and 
 spectacular when not utterly sordid and vile, they 
 came "headed by Counts and Dukes in rich dress" ! 
 "Count" and "Duke" were mediaeval Hungary's trans- 
 lations, doubtless, of mysterious Indian titles. Titles 
 were dear to the Wandering People. They clung to 
 every strange insignia of rank conceivable, and pre- 
 served ceremonies and formalities that had about them
 
 THE WANDERING PEOPLE 195 
 
 still the aroma of spices, and unguents, and jungle- 
 jasmine. 
 
 They sought out the wildest, loneliest spots for their 
 stopping-places ; dwellings they had not, nor did 
 they wish for them. In the depths of the forests and 
 on remote hillsides they lived their lives, smiling and 
 dreaming, and keeping very close to the great primi- 
 tive marvels of Mother Earth. 
 
 Elemental they were, yet strangely, mystically 
 spiritual. Whatever they did, be the deed great or 
 small, had Romance for a crown and Melancholy for 
 a pedestal. Their lips were shaped to the praise of 
 Beauty ; their hearts were attuned to the philosophy of 
 Sorrow. 
 
 At first, in spite of their intense hatred of dis- 
 turbance and trouble, the Gypsies were the objects of 
 a systematic persecution. They were accused of can- 
 nibalism and witchcraft, and were racked and burned 
 and put to death in numberless ingenious ways. 
 
 When any man disappeared mysteriously the catch- 
 word of the day was: "The Gypsies ate him!" And 
 the suspected Gypsies would be captured and haled 
 before a tribunal of ostensible justice. There, under 
 tortures such as the mediaeval magistrate seemed skil- 
 ful in devising, the Gypsies would confess that "they 
 had eaten him !" Thereupon they would be killed, more 
 or less mercifully. 
 
 And if, next day, the missing man happened to be
 
 196 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 found, and the recent demonstration was proved to 
 have been murder and not execution, public opinion 
 said : "Well, if we had not had them killed they would 
 soon have eaten some one else, in any case !" 
 
 But in spite of these ghastly preliminaries, the 
 Gypsies rapidly gained so firm a foothold in Hun- 
 gary that persecution gave place to tolerance, and 
 finally to complete acceptance. 
 
 They cleared themselves, in time, from the charge 
 of cannibalism, but they have never succeeded in re- 
 futing that of witchcraft. As psychics and occultists 
 they will be held as long as the East remains the 
 Arch-Sybil of the world. And who can know that 
 they did not bring with them from mystical Hindu- 
 stan the eyes that See, and the ears that Hear? 
 
 To understand the "Musicians of Hungary," one 
 must know something of the queerness and quaintness 
 of their customs, for in such things are the inherent 
 impulses and sympathies of a race disclosed. 
 
 Who but the Gypsies would dream of renouncing 
 some trifling material luxury, in honour of the dead? 
 When a Gypsy husband and father dies, his widow and 
 children take a solemn, formal and eternal oath never 
 again to taste the article of food which he liked best! 
 
 When on long marches, there are always some mem- 
 bers of the band who lag behind, or wander from the 
 road in search of adventures by the way, children 
 who have paused to chase butterflies, or young men
 
 THE WANDERING PEOPLE 197 
 
 who have slipped away to make pretty speeches to 
 soft-eyed peasant girls. For these there are a dozen 
 signals, which are left by the others. A little group 
 of stones means one thing, two crossed sticks another, 
 a pile of grass, leaves or straw a third, and so on. 
 The vagrant gypsies, hurrying after their comrades, 
 find messages and directions for their guidance, telling 
 them the route chosen by the band and any other 
 necessary information, in a language most easy for 
 them to understand. For life in the clean open world 
 sharpens the faculties, and when one's only primers 
 and books have been roads and fields, one grows apt at 
 reading letters that are penned in pebbles and grass- 
 blades. 
 
 But the odd and delightful ways of the Gypsies are 
 legion. They are a charming people, and one of their 
 most wonderful traits is their unchangeableness ! As 
 they are to-day, so they were, we gather, six centuries 
 ago. They have never lost the glamour that clung to 
 those strange garments which they wore from Hin- 
 dustan. In the fourteenth century they left epistles 
 for their companions penned with sticks and straws 
 and leaves upon the high road, and renounced the 
 favourite delicacies of their beloved dead. 
 
 A strange but intensely sympathetic people they 
 have been from the beginning, and well for Hungary 
 that they came to her forests and mountains, and grew 
 to be so vital a part of her spirit and heart. And
 
 198 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 well, too, for Music that the music of the Magyars 
 should have been thus perfected. For the Gypsies 
 had a tribute to pay to the land that they had adopted ; 
 they did not only wander and dream and laugh to- 
 gether under the sun and the stars. They made songs, 
 the songs of the Gypsies, the songs of the un- 
 walled hill-spaces and echoless woods, the songs of the 
 House of the Wandering People that has the sky for 
 its roof. 
 
 Their songs, like wine, coursed through the veins of 
 Southern Hungary. The cold, wild Slovaks in the 
 northwestern part of the country chanted their Sla- 
 vonic melodies in vain. Never did the music of the 
 Slav pervade Hungary. The Gypsy music became 
 the Magyar music, and the Magyar music became the 
 music of Hungary. In Magyar-land the real Hun- 
 garian music was born, and lived, as it lives to-day, 
 a red-blooded, passionate, tragic, joyous thing, whose 
 wings beat to an unheard rhythm, whose soul is moun- 
 tain-mist, and whose heart is a coal of living fire. 
 
 Franz Liszt, the One Who Knew, declared that to 
 the Gypsies, and the Gypsies alone, belonged the music 
 of Hungary. 
 
 There were, to be sure, a number of religious out- 
 bursts in music just after Christianity had swept over 
 Europe, and again during the Reformation. But the 
 Hungarians belonged to their country before the 
 Church, and ecclesiastical music was their strong point
 
 THE WANDERING PEOPLE 199 
 
 at no time. They would not even sing their hymns in 
 Latin, but always in the Magyar tongue ! And be- 
 yond one really beautiful "Hymn to the Virgin," an- 
 other equally fine "Hymn to St. Stephen," once King 
 and always Patron-Saint of Hungary, and one or 
 two further exceptions, Church-Music had but a faint- 
 hearted existence in the land of the Magyars. 
 
 The Folk-Song, brought to its full development by 
 the Gypsies' Oriental infusion, had and has a supreme 
 place in the heart of the nation as it has an assured 
 niche in the history of the world's music. 
 
 And to this day it is the Gypsies who are the "Musi- 
 cians of Hungary." From their fingers come the airs 
 for those mad, thrilling dances so universally and 
 poignantly associated with the spirit of the nation. 
 And from their life, too, come the wonderful Magyar 
 songs, as sad as life and as mad as love, as strange 
 as happiness and as eternally questioning as death. 
 Mr. Krehbiel, in his "How to Listen to Music," points 
 out that it is a common error to believe that all Magyar 
 music is Gypsy music. He says : "The Gypsies have 
 for centuries been the musical practitioners of Hun- 
 gary, but they are not the composers of the music of 
 the Magyars, though they have put a marked impress 
 not only on the melodies, but also on popular taste. 
 The Hungarian folk-songs are a perfect reflex of the 
 national character of the Magyars, and some have been 
 traced back centuries in their literature."
 
 200 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 But if the Gypsies only coloured the Magyar music, 
 what a colouring it is ! Such colouring as a great 
 master might paint upon the charcoal sketch of his 
 pupil. If they did not actually compose the melodies 
 which they played and sang so inimitably, they in- 
 vested them with a character and personality all their 
 own. Indeed, fair testimony of this lies in the uni- 
 versal acceptance of the Gypsy music as Magyar 
 music, even though it be, as Mr. Krehbiel says, 
 erroneous. 
 
 Only of the East could be born such imagery and 
 colouring, the East wedded to that robust and vigor- 
 ous strength which made the heroes of Hungary im- 
 mortal. 
 
 The following stanza forms the text of a song by 
 Erkel Elek, and from a poetical standpoint, shows the 
 Oriental character of the national imagery : 
 
 1M Thine eyes are black as the deep night, 
 Yet they shine like the day so bright: 
 For as countless as the drops are in the sea, 
 So are the stars which from thine eyes flash down on me." 
 
 In the following verses the Eastern play of fancy 
 is quite as apparent: 
 
 "From his boat into Balatin's waves 
 Tossed the Fisherman his net, 
 Fishing for the love which has fled, 
 Since she betrayed him, and left him alone with his grief. 
 
 ir rhis and the following translations from the Hungarian 
 by Madame Zerffi.
 
 THE WANDERING PEOPLE 201 
 
 "Into Balatin's waves would I toss 
 Down my heart with its tears and its wail, 
 For love was its anchor, and hope was its sail: 
 It can never recover their loss." 
 
 And here is something which shows the Magyar 
 song-maker in his gayest and most irresistible mood. 
 It is rather a well-known song, called, in the original, 
 "Piros, piros, piros, piros !" and, whether we imagine 
 it sung by a Gypsy or a Hungarian peasant, it has the 
 national spirit of merriment, condensed into two 
 
 stanzas : 
 
 "Red, red, red the wine is 
 Which so brightly fills my glass; 
 Fair, fair, fair my sweet is, 
 My true, my shy, my own lass! 
 But full of whims is she: 
 When her eyes glow tenderly, 
 And I bid her 'kiss me, dear,' 
 She always says 'No !' 
 
 "You must, you must laugh not; 
 In Lent this is forbidden! 
 I must, I must love not, 
 My loving, tender, sweetest dove! 
 But ah ! her looks so bright 
 Put all my resolves to flight; 
 When I bid her 'kiss me, dear,' 
 She always says 'No !' " 
 
 "Piros, piros, piros, piros," seems the very quin- 
 tessence of joy in life. The lover who sings is a merry, 
 carefree, wholesome creature, who likes red wine and 
 laughter, and has but a slight reverence for the restric- 
 
 N
 
 202 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 tions imposed upon him by the Church. In this is the 
 very root and base of the Hungarian peasant's re- 
 ligion : 
 
 "You must, you must laugh not, 
 In Lent this is forbidden!" 
 
 Pure irony here: 
 
 "I must, I must love not," 
 
 What Church could stop him? 
 
 "But ah ! her looks so bright 
 Put all my resolves to flight !" 
 
 Such are the Lenten resolves, and indeed the re- 
 ligious convictions, of the average Magyar. 
 
 But of all the Hungarian songs which translations 
 and English editions have made familiar to us almost 
 the loveliest is the following wonderful little fragment 
 of universal tenderness: 
 
 "Let them find out what my heart now hopes, now fears! 
 What is it that fills mine eyes with unshed tears? 
 This gladsome grief, this sweet unrest, 
 And all these waking dreams with which my nights are 
 
 blessed? 
 
 What fills my soul with life's young spring? 
 Let them find out what pain such happiness can bring." 
 
 The rhythm of Hungarian music is as strange 
 and distinctive as that of Scandinavia. The curious 
 management of word, note, accent and beat, all seem- 
 ingly at odds with one another, becomes extraordinary
 
 THE WANDERING PEOPLE 203 
 
 when one hears the impossible achieved, and grasps 
 the fact that the Magyar's sense of strict time is one 
 of the most emphatic in the world. How these metri- 
 cal problems are solved into melodious and rhythmical 
 compositions is a question which can only be answered 
 by a Magyar Gypsy, or Liszt. Mr. Krehbiel says 
 that the rhythmical oddities in the Magyar music are 
 direct products of the Magyar language. With the 
 strange little terminal or cadence : 
 
 i vif m ~^^~ f m i 
 
 (sometimes minus the grace note) the Liszt "Raph- 
 sodies" have made the entire world of music-lovers fa- 
 miliar. Simple in itself, it is immensely character- 
 istic, and an interesting bit of musical invention. Liszt, 
 in the "Gypsy Epics," as he liked to call them, has also 
 immortalised that odd accentuation of the uneven beat 
 which is so peculiarly typical of the Gypsy music : 
 
 This last rhythmical detail is by no means exclusively 
 the property of the Magyars, but their way of making 
 use of it is entirely their own, and it is too integral 
 a part of nearly all of their melodies not to be pointed 
 out. 
 
 >
 
 204 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 There are very few celebrated song-writers in Hun- 
 garian history, few musicians, indeed, of genuine 
 renown before our beloved Liszt. Here and there a 
 name stands out, in a vague and glimmering fashion, 
 partly hidden by mists and shadows: Andreas 
 Vasarheli, who wrote the "Hymn to the Virgin," al- 
 ready mentioned, a composition which, for some rea- 
 son, was first printed in Nuremberg in 1484; and the 
 great bishop, Slatkonia, born in 1456, who was Chapel- 
 master to Maximilian I., and a skilled composer; and 
 the famous "Sebastian the Lutinist," whose real name 
 was Tinodi, a strolling musician and a most sweet 
 singer, who died in the sixteenth century. But Hun- 
 gary is essentially a land of folk-songs rather than 
 of finished music. 
 
 Concerning the Hungarian's absorbing passion in 
 his country and his art, Mrs. Wodehouse writes : 
 
 "The very exclusiveness with which he loves his own 
 music has, by excluding foreign influence, been a hin- 
 drance to its progress, and has condemned it to a long 
 stagnation in the immature stage of mere national 
 music." 
 
 But she adds : 
 
 ". . . It must, nevertheless, be admitted that the 
 Hungarians can fairly plead the unsurpassed beauty 
 of their national melodies as an excuse for their ex- 
 clusive devotion." 
 
 And these national melodies, the beauty of which is
 
 THE WANDERING PEOPLE 205 
 
 recognised by everyone, and the mystery and magic 
 by the few who have an occult sympathy with things 
 Oriental, came from the presence in Hungary of the 
 Wandering People. 
 
 Liszt, the One Who Knew, called them: "Hu- 
 man birds, nesting where they would in the forests, or 
 upon the bosoms of the great lonely mountains. . . ." 
 
 Human birds are they indeed, to whom has been 
 granted the music-soul which is the prerogative of the 
 feathered kind, and of the children of the gods. Com- 
 panions to the things that fly, and to the things that 
 creep and scamper and vanish among the shadows ; 
 companions to streams and stars, and trees and under- 
 brush, the Gypsies could hardly fail to have a wood- 
 note in their songs, such as the birds themselves have, 
 or the water of the brook as it falls in an everlasting 
 melody, from stone to stone. 
 
 This is one element of the music of the Wandering 
 People. The other is the Something that looks from 
 their deep eyes, and flashes in their smiles ; that throbs 
 in their passionate hearts and dreams in their meta- 
 physical souls ; the Something that is mysterious, and 
 impenetrable, and that, through the maddest tempest of 
 gaiety, remains immutably and infinitely sad. Men 
 have called it the Shadow of the East. 
 
 ^
 
 THE CASKET OF GRAPES
 
 AN AIR BY CACCINI 
 
 
 I I 

 
 XI 
 THE CASKET OF GRAPES 
 
 A great casket, heaped high with bunches of grapes, 
 was their device: "Quid non designat ebrietas? (Who 
 intends not to get drunk?)" was their motto. For 
 these, be it known, were the celebrated Florentine sep- 
 tet, "Degli Alterati," which means "The Thirsters." 
 They were all young, all brilliant, all noble, and all 
 interested paramountly in one thing, the revolution of 
 music. They rebelled violently against the pedantic 
 harmonic form then in vogue among the better class of 
 composers, and desired to bring Dramatic Song to its 
 full development. A small but heroic band, they 
 undertook the reformation of lyric art in 1568. They 
 were not hampered by scruples born of timidity, nor by 
 too much professional knowledge, and with immense 
 assurance and good cheer they imbibed wine and art 
 in pleasing conjunction at the house of that accom- 
 plished Thirster, Pietro Strozzi. The names of these 
 seven enthusiasts, the original band of Alterati, to 
 whom were added many illustrious names later, were, in 
 addition to Strozzi: Giovanni Bardi Conte di Vernio, 
 Jacopo Corsi, Ottavio Rinuccini, Girolamo Mei, 
 Emilio del Cavaliere, and Vincenzo Galilei.
 
 210 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 Pietro (sometimes called incorrectly Giambattista) 
 Strozzi was a son of one of the oldest and noblest 
 houses in Florence. Felipo Strozzi, a dissipated and 
 utterly vicious man, had married Clarice, sister of the 
 Lorenzo de' Medici who was made Duke of Urbino. 
 It was Clarice di Strozzi by the bye who refused to 
 recognise her half-brothers and desired them to be 
 exiled from the country, because they were illegiti- 
 mate. This alliance alone proves the standing of the 
 Casa Strozzi. Pietro was a poet of genuine ability, 
 and even a musician, though of no great attainments. 
 It was he who wrote the music for "II Mascarada degli 
 Accecati (The Masquerade of the Blind)" in 1595. 
 
 Giovanni Bardi, the Count of Verino, was one of 
 the most prominent nobles of the day. He was a bril- 
 liant and renowned mathematician as well as being a 
 man of letters and a composer. His own music cer- 
 tainly never was inspired, but his artistic appreciation 
 was keen and valuable. He belonged to the Academy 
 "Delia Crusca," a celebrated literary institution, and 
 his standing in Florence was particularly high. He 
 was a clever librettist, and among other works wrote the 
 text for "II Combattimento d' Apollino Cal Serpente," 
 later set to music by Caccini. 
 
 Jacopo Corsi was another Florentine noble passion- 
 ately devoted to the interests of art in general and 
 music in particular. He, too, had a gift, though not 
 a positive talent, for composition, and was a fairly
 
 THE CASKET OF GRAPES 211 
 
 good musician of the dilettante order. Ottavio 
 Rinuccini was a poet and a dramatist, with a dream 
 of reviving the dramatic forms of the ancient Greeks. 
 He closely approached being a genius, and was the 
 poet chosen, in after years, to accompany Marie de' 
 Medici, as dramatist and singer, when she went to 
 France to marry Henri IV. A dim sort of rumour has 
 been circulated, the sort of rumour which often be- 
 gins and ends in smoke, that Rinuccini loved Queen 
 Marie. But as he has been dead these very many 
 years, no man will ever know how true or false it is. 
 
 Girolamo Mei was enthusiastically devoted to the 
 cause of music, but had very slight rmsical talents 
 himself. He was especially conspicuous and success- 
 ful in his literary works on music, being the author of 
 several brilliant treatises, and possessed of a gift which 
 to-day we should term "journalistic." 
 
 Emilio del Cavaliere was one of the two genuinely 
 talented composers among the seven original Alterati. 
 He was born in Rome of a noble family, and had an 
 inherent instinct for and knowledge of artistic things. 
 While he was still absurdly young he was summoned 
 to the Court of Tuscany by Duke Ferdinando de' 
 Medici. The Duke appointed him Inspector-General 
 of the Artists of Florence, and in that somewhat in- 
 definite capacity he came to know Bardi, Strozzi, and 
 the rest. A brilliant musician was Cavaliere, and one 
 who understood the possibilities of the voice to a
 
 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 marvellous degree. He was a typical "Alterate," in- 
 asmuch as he was of the nature that experiments. Not 
 only was he among the first composers to employ such 
 vocal ornamentation as the trill, shake, turn, etc. 
 (gruppo and grupetto such tonal oscillation was 
 termed in Italy), but he was also one of the pioneers 
 in the use of the figured bass for instrumental music. 
 Incidentally he was, of all the Alterati, the most in- 
 timate friend of their poetic Muse, Laura Guidiccioni. 
 
 Although only thirty-three at the time of the found- 
 ing of the Alterati, Vincenzo Galilei was probably its 
 oldest member. He is famous for a great number of 
 interesting thi igs, among others for being the father 
 of Galileo Galilei, the immortal astronomer, and for 
 having invented solo-singing! He studied with 
 Gioseffe Zarlino, the great master and contrapuntalist, 
 but in spite of being a brilliant lutinist and viol-player, 
 and a musician of robust inspiration, he was by no 
 means a genius. There are, however, few men in 
 musical history to whom we owe a larger debt of grati- 
 tude. 
 
 As a matter of fact, genius was not the presiding 
 element in these early meetings under the symbol of 
 the Casket of Grapes. They were all dilettanti, the 
 founders of the Alterati. Subsequently they added to 
 their gatherings several genuine planetary lights, but 
 the original Seven were chiefly conspicuous for their 
 enthusiasm. Yet they succeeded in revolutionising
 
 THE CASKET OF GRAPES 213 
 
 lyric and dramatic music, and out of those friendly 
 and convivial meetings of theirs grew a new era for 
 song, not only in Italy but all over the world. 
 
 Florence has always been an artistic centre. She 
 has never been particularly conspicuous for her morals, 
 but she could invariably be counted on for her manners. 
 The Medici did not make for high ethical standards, 
 but they were patrons of the arts. During her worst 
 epochs "Firenze" was beautiful, and it is certain that 
 even her Carnival bull-baiting must have been carried 
 on with a graceful sort of barbarity. 
 
 The "Canti Carnascialeschi (Carnival Songs)" of 
 Florence should be better known. Beginning as mere 
 street-ballads, they grew, under that thorough-paced 
 but artistic scoundrel Lorenzo de' Medici, into plays 
 and operettas. 
 
 He whom Browning's "Fra Lippo Lippi" calls 
 "Master Cosimo of the Medici" was the ruling power 
 in Florence in 1568. He was an interesting person, 
 with a fondness for murdering his children, but a 
 profound appreciation of art. 
 
 In every way possible the aim of the city was to- 
 ward beauty. Vice might exist if it liked, it might 
 even be encouraged and welcomed with songs and tim- 
 brels, but it must be charming vice, artistic vice, with 
 a definite aesthetic mission to fulfil, a duty toward the 
 Florentine gods who were all Pagan and all beautiful. 
 
 Savonarola preached superbly the message of 
 
 >
 
 214 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 "vanitas vanitatum," waging a crusade of sublime 
 eloquence against the frivolities and laxities of the 
 day. But even his tirades were in keeping with the 
 standards of Florence, for they were always perfect 
 of their kind, finished expositions of the highest spirit- 
 ual inspiration. 
 
 And the vanity of things went on, like a chime of 
 exquisite bells, empty but indescribably tuneful; bells 
 that have rung since Florence was born, and will echo 
 softly on until she has crumbled not only into ruins, 
 but into dust. 
 
 It was Beauty which the Alterati desired; also, it 
 was Truth. They were tired of the forms that meant 
 nothing, and the rules that excluded even the possi- 
 bility of freedom. They wanted music which would 
 fire the soul and touch the heart, and for the scientific 
 or theoretic accuracy of their work they cared but a 
 trifle. Not that they were all amateurs, as we have 
 seen, for instance, from the achievements of Cavaliere, 
 but they recognised with perhaps exaggerated clear- 
 ness the lack of elasticity and of spontaneity in the 
 inflexible counterpoint in vogue, and desired to bring 
 about a musical condition in keeping with the Floren- 
 tine passion for the beautiful. They dreamed of a 
 lyric art which should combine the freshness and charm 
 of the folk-songs and carnival airs with the erudition 
 of the musical student. This, with the aid of three 
 additional Alterati, Caccini, Peri and Marenzio,
 
 THE CASKET OF GRAPES 215 
 
 they eventually achieved. To these ten men, and a 
 handful of sympathetic "Florentine patricians," be- 
 long the honour of inaugurating Monodic (or solo) 
 song in the appreciation of the public, and of present- 
 ing to the world the embryo of the Italian Art Song. 
 
 At that time, Italian music was practically entirely 
 polyphonic music. The monodic form did not exist 
 except in street-songs. Madrigals there were, written 
 for four, five or more voices, but no lyrics. Moreover, 
 the secular compositions were treated by the masters 
 of the day precisely as though they were masses, 
 rigid adherence to the laws of counterpoint and a care- 
 ful exclusion of spontaneity or levity being their two 
 characteristics. It was this incongruous mixture of 
 secular text and ecclesiastical music which the Alterati 
 were determined to change. 
 
 When Francesco I., Duke of Tuscany, married the 
 lovely Bianca Capello, that famous Venetian beauty, 
 with the eventful and sad career, Florence was in a 
 positive uproar of festivity. The bridal music was to 
 be the best which Italy had ever heard, and was to be 
 composed by the great Andrea Gabrieli and Claudio 
 Merulo. These two Venetian masters are renowned in 
 history for their strict musical rhetoric. They wrote 
 in the style of Palestrina, and created models in correct 
 form and contrapuntal ingenuity for posterity. 
 
 Had the occasion been a funeral or even a Lenten 
 mass, their music would have been superb ; but as 
 
 N
 
 216 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 bridal-songs and not hymns were required, they merely 
 succeeded in making their own great art ridiculous. 
 The words of the madrigals were of the least churchly 
 nature imaginable, chiefly consisting of an unin- 
 terrupted enumeration and laudation of Bianca's per- 
 fections ; and the music was such as might have accom- 
 panied an "Ave Maria, ora pro nobis" ! 
 
 All Florence smiled at the effect. But the Alterati 
 did not smile. They were too overwhelmed with dis- 
 gust. They had come to hear wedding-music by two 
 of the greatest masters of their time, and they had 
 heard a performance mainly remarkable for its ab- 
 surdity. They could not contain what they felt, being 
 young and impetuous, and straightway determined to 
 make a public denunciation of the universally accepted 
 style of "secular music." 
 
 By this time the Alterati were meeting in the Palazzo 
 Bardi, for Pietro Strozzi, that brilliant amateur so 
 well beloved by his friends, was dead. Bardi was the 
 acknowledged patron of Florentine art, and the grow- 
 ing circle of talented men of which the Casket of 
 Grapes was the device, is known in musical history as 
 the Bardi coteri. 
 
 Mei and Galilei began the campaign against the 
 recognised standards of music in the well-known and 
 brilliant series of letters called the "Dialogo della 
 Musica." Fast and furious waged the "Paper War," 
 as it was termed. Zarlino, Galilei's old master, be-
 
 THE CASKET OF GRAPES 217 
 
 longed to the strict polyphonic school, and was drawn 
 into the vortex. He found several severe things to say 
 to his quondam pupil and present adversary, some of 
 which (notably his statements in regard to the pitch- 
 ing and tuning of musical instruments, and to scales 
 in general) were absolutely justified, and put Galilei 
 ignominiously in the wrong. 
 
 Art -lovers were divided, generally speaking, in two 
 factions: the professionals, who for the most part 
 abided by the old rules until the way had been cleared 
 for their defection, and the dilettanti, of whom Nau- 
 mann says: "They were not awed by any hideous 
 thought of casting to the winds the experiences and 
 prejudices of the professor. If any dread of violating 
 hard-and-fast theory had had any weight with them 
 their efforts would have been paralysed. . . . And 
 here we must pay a just tribute to the dilettanti." 
 
 Vincenzo Galilei was one of those men who are born 
 to take the initiative. He was not a genius, but he 
 was a pioneer; and he possessed that species of dar- 
 ing self-confidence which makes a brilliant substitute 
 for higher talents. He, Mei, and the Alterati in gen- 
 eral found an able cooperator in Giambattista 
 Doni, a member of Delia Crusca and a celebrated musi- 
 cal theorist. The three of them, sometimes assisted by 
 Rinuccini, attacked the established music of the world 
 until the heavens rang with the vigour of their de- 
 nunciations. 
 
 ^
 
 218 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 And then, one day, Galilei proceeded to invent 
 Monodic Song. 
 
 He composed a cantata called "II Conte Ugolino," 
 founded on the Ugolino episode in "II Purgatorio," 
 and, accompanying himself on his viol, sang it all 
 through himself, to his assembled friends. 
 
 Even the Thirsters were amazed. Never had the 
 Casket of Grapes presided over so surprising a per- 
 formance. Was he by chance the victim of too ex- 
 cessive a thirst, both for wine and for art? 
 
 Some of his hearers laughed, some were frankly be- 
 wildered, but they all applauded heartily, and Doni 
 declares that it was "very pleasing." And when 
 Galilei made a song out of the "Lamentations of 
 Jeremiah," and sang that, the thing was done : Song, 
 single-voice, Monodic, solo Song, was born. 
 
 Galilei could not bring his invention to completion, 
 for he lacked both musical inspiration and profound 
 cultivation, but he had created the idea, and now left 
 it to other and greater brains to develop. Cavaliere 
 quickly surpassed him along his own lines, and then 
 came the three new Alterati before whom not only the 
 dilettanti of the Casket of Grapes but all Italians were 
 compelled to bow : Giulio Caccini, Luca Marenzio and 
 Giocomo Peri. 
 
 In 1558, Giulio Caccini was born in Rome, 
 and for that reason is sometimes spoken of as Giulio 
 Romano. He learned to sing and to play the lute
 
 THE CASKET OF GRAPES 219 
 
 from Scipio della Palla, the master who did so much 
 to develop the grupetto. When Caccini was twenty 
 he went to Florence, where he was received enthusiasti- 
 cally by the Thirsters, and he was one of the first to 
 follow Galilei's lead in writing composition for the 
 single voice. His success in the new form of music 
 was instant and extraordinary. "You are the father 
 of a new kind of music," wrote to him Angelo Grille, 
 Tasso's friend, "or rather singing, which is not a 
 song, but a recitative song of a nobler and higher 
 order than the popular song ; which does not sever nor 
 maim the words, nor deprive them of life, but gives 
 new force and vigour to both. . . ." 
 
 Mrs. Wodehouse says that Giulio Caccini created 
 "an epoch in musical history" when he published his 
 "Madrigali, Canzoni, and Arie," for one voice. In- 
 deed the world has almost forgotten that it was not 
 Caccini who was "the father of the new kind of song." 
 This is but one of a thousand cases in musical history 
 in which one man supplies the thought and another the 
 act. 
 
 Caccini was a genuine and forceful musician, though 
 his counterpoint, owing to carelessness in study, was 
 often not very sound. His songs are full of the vigour 
 and freshness of a really fine imagination, and show a 
 fund of versatile invention. He was a man whose per- 
 sonality entered strongly into his work. He filled his 
 airs with such directions as: "Esclamazione spiritosa
 
 220 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 (spiritedly exclamatory)," "Senza mesura, quasi 
 favellando, in armonia con la suddetta sprezzatura 
 (Without keeping the time, and as if speaking in ac- 
 cordance with the already expressed disdain)," etc., 
 besides constant minor marks of expression. He also 
 gave explicit directions in his preface as to the sing- 
 ing of every song. Having a particularly beautiful 
 voice, he much preferred, if possible, to sing his airs 
 himself, and did so very often, accompanying himself 
 upon the theorbo, in the playing of which he had 
 been perfectly trained by Scipione della Palla. 
 
 This instrument, by the bye, requires a word of 
 mention. It has a variety of names, tiorba, tuorba, 
 and archiliuto, and, technically speaking, is a large, 
 double-necked lute with two sets of tuning pegs. It 
 was dearly loved by sixteenth century musicians, and is 
 supposed to have a peculiarly sweet and plaintive tone. 
 What it looks like is a goose with a crick in its neck. 
 
 Who Caccini married we do not know, but his daugh- 
 ter Francesca was a famous singer and an able com- 
 poser as well. He educated her himself for a musical 
 career, and it was his boast that she was "a finished 
 cantatrice at nineteen !" 
 
 When Caccini set Bardi's "Apollino" to music in 
 1589, he was assisted by the eminent madrigalist, Luca 
 Marenzio, who by this time had become one of the 
 Alterati. The story of this brilliant man is a sad one 
 in spite of being full of the records of public triumphs.
 
 THE CASKET OF GRAPES 
 
 He was born in 1560, in the little village of Coc- 
 caglia, which lies between Brescia and Bergamo. The 
 natives of these two large towns have waged a pretty 
 word-war over his memory, each side claiming him 
 to belong rightfully to its own township. Out of the 
 confusion of conflicting data brought up by the op- 
 posing contingents a fairly complete history has been 
 rescued, though accuracy in regard to the sixteenth 
 century Italian composers is a synonym for impossi- 
 bility. 
 
 His family is reported to have been of old Bergamese 
 stock, but extremely poor, so poor that Luca was 
 practically supported and educated by Fra Andrea 
 Masetto, the village priest of Coccaglia. 
 
 The boy studied under Giovanni Contini, the organ- 
 ist of the Cathedral in Brescia, and while very young 
 began to compose. 
 
 Ottavio Rossi, in his description of Marenzio's child- 
 hood and early surroundings, expresses the belief that 
 these youthful associations did much to form the taste 
 for the pastoral, simple and sweet, which characterised 
 the compositions of his later years. 
 
 Whoever heard Marenzio play his melodies adored 
 him, invariably, and, after having been aided and hon- 
 oured by many influential nobles of his own land, the 
 young madrigalist was appointed Master of the Royal 
 Music at the Court of Poland. The Polish Queen, 
 consort of Sigismund III., was one of the most enthu-
 
 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 siastic admirers of Marenzio's music, and a genuine 
 friendship seems to have existed between the two. 
 
 But Poland is not Italy, and Marenzio was a fragile 
 being, composed chiefly of nerves and imagination. 
 The Court Physicians warned him that he would die 
 unless he left the chill winds of the North. So he left 
 the gracious King and Queen and journeyed home to 
 Italy, there to be honoured, and feted, and copied, 
 and bored, and made much of, to a wonderful degree. 
 It was at this time that the Alterati opened their 
 doors and their wine-casks to him, and that he 
 wrote the madrigals for the "Apollino" of Caccini and 
 Bardi. 
 
 One of Marenzio's closest friends was the great 
 Cardinal Cintio Aldobrandino, the nephew of Pope 
 Clement VIII. His Eminence vied with the public in 
 honouring the young musician, who obtained a posi- 
 tion as musician in the Papal Chapel. 
 
 Just who the mysterious lady was whom Marenzio 
 loved we do not know. Henry Peacham, in "The Com- 
 pleat Gentleman," says that she was the Holy 
 Father's kinswoman, and incidentally "one of the 
 rarest women in Europe for her voice and the lute." 
 But we have no very definite information upon which 
 to base conjecture. There is a story that the Queen 
 of Poland, having heard of the lady's musical fame, 
 sent word to Marenzio asking him to bring her to the 
 Polish Court. There are also other tales of a like
 
 THE CASKET OF GRAPES 223 
 
 nature concerning her, but one and all are vague and 
 problematical. Marenzio retained his appointment in 
 the Papal Chapel until his death, and the Pope was 
 unfailingly gracious to him save in one respect: he 
 would not give his consent to his kinswoman's marriage 
 with the young musician. This sorrow is said to have 
 broken Marenzio's heart and spirit, and soon after- 
 ward he died. 
 
 John Dowland, the English lutinist who met him 
 once or twice, declares frankly that he "could not dis- 
 semble the great content he had found in the proffered 
 amity of the most famous Luca Marenzio." And in- 
 deed he was almost universally loved and admired. 
 Henry Peacham gives this description hearing him 
 play his compositions : 
 
 "For delicious aires and sweete Invention in Madri- 
 gals, Luca Marenzio excelleth all other whatsoever: 
 and to say truth hath not an ill Song. . . . His 
 first, second and third parts of Thyrsis, Veggo dolce 
 mio ben die foe hoggi mio Sole Cantava, or Sweete 
 Singing Amaryllis, are Songs the Muses themselves 
 might not have been ashamed to have had com- 
 posed. . . ." 
 
 Peacham also gives us this picture of the great 
 madrigal-writer: "Of stature and complexion, he was 
 a little and blacke man." 
 
 Peacham declares that the Pope's displeasure over 
 Marenzio's love for the mysterious kinswoman so
 
 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 wrought upon the musician's feelings that "hee tooke 
 a conceipt and died." 
 
 And so we come to the greatest genius who ever 
 joined the Alterati, Giocomo Peri. 
 
 He was a Florentine, and though for some reason 
 he does not appear to have been one of the original 
 band of Thirsters, he grew to be closely associated with 
 the Casket of Grapes and its votaries. The exact date 
 of this celebrated composer's birth is not known, but 
 as it was during the last part of the sixteenth century 
 he must have been a very young man still when he 
 joined the Alterati. 
 
 His comrades were devoted to him. They called 
 him "II Zazzerino (the Short-Haired One)" by way 
 of an affectionate jest, for, as a matter of fact, he 
 had an enormous amount of hair, of a vivid yellow, 
 which shone like a nimbus about his face. 
 
 He had studied music under Cristoforo Malnezzi, of 
 Lucca, but, like Caccini, had never taken the pains to 
 complete his artistic education with any degree of 
 thoroughness. His music was of an order, however, 
 which did not require cultivation. It sprang, in- 
 spirationally, from the inexhaustible source of pure 
 genius. 
 
 For a time he was Maestro di Capella to Duke Fer- 
 nando, and later to the great Cosimo. He married 
 a daughter of the Casa Fortuni, and became a social, 
 as well as an artistic, power.
 
 THE CASKET OF GRAPES 225 
 
 His son was a constant trial and anxiety to Peri. 
 He was sent in after years to Galileo Galilei, our 
 Galilei's illustrious son, to be educated, and succeeded 
 in causing his master the greatest possible trouble. 
 So violent and so vicious was this youth that Galileo 
 invariably called him, despairingly, "My Daemon 
 Peri !" 
 
 Giocomo Peri is often called the "Father of Opera." 
 It is certain that when he set Rinuccini's "Dafne" to 
 music, he wrote the heading to a new chapter in musical 
 history. He and Rinuccini collaborated once more 
 upon the famous "Eurydice," which was performed at 
 the wedding festivities of Marie de Medici and Henri 
 IV., and had so vast an influence upon French music. 
 It is said that Caccini, too, had a hand in the com- 
 position of this celebrated opera, which, strange as 
 it seems, was the precursor of the modern music 
 drama ! 
 
 Operatic work was now the object of all the enthu- 
 siasm of the Alterati. Emilio del Cavaliere, while he 
 distinguished himself by no immortal works in this line, 
 wrote exquisite music for pastoral plays. These were 
 written for him by Laura Guidiccioni, and between 
 them they evolved some delightful work. 
 
 The Alterati had two guiding stars, we understand ; 
 one a serious-minded planet, the other something of 
 a comet. The first was La Guidiccioni, who came of a 
 family in Lucca famed for its literary achievements.
 
 226 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 She wrote excellent poetry, we are told, and did much 
 to promote art and letters in Tuscany. 
 
 And then there was Euterpe ! Euterpe, the bril- 
 liant, the wonderful, the gifted, and the adored ! Was 
 she not acknowledged by even the dullest Florentine 
 to be a great artist? And was not II Zazzerino 
 transported by joy when he showed her the score of 
 "Eurydice," and she approved of the work ? 
 
 Her name was Vittoria Archilei, and she was a 
 Florentine singer. But to the Alterati she was always 
 Euterpe : Euterpe, the Muse, the "Well-Pleasing One," 
 the patroness of flute-players and revellers, the fol- 
 lower of Apollo and of Bacchus, she who is ever pic- 
 tured crowned with flowers, and holding a flute or lyre. 
 
 "Euterpe" was a fitting goddess for the Thirsters, 
 and Peri was not the only one who hung upon her 
 censure or praise. 
 
 As seen across the gulf of over three hundred years, 
 they seem a wonderfully lovable band, these young 
 Florentines of the Casket of Grapes. If they were a 
 bit iconoclastic in their theories and impetuous in their 
 practices, at least they possessed that fire which kindles 
 nations, devours prejudice, warms art, and lights the 
 path of progress : the fire of Enthusiasm. 
 
 The Alterati existed for many years. When Bardi 
 was called to Rome by Pope Clement VIII. to become 
 his Maestro di Camera, the Thirsters met at the 
 Palazzo Corsi. There we lose sight of them and do
 
 THE CASKET OF GRAPES 227 
 
 not know the processes by which, as the years went 
 by, the band was slowly dissolved. After all, their 
 work had been done. The New Music was no longer 
 a dream in the brains of a few madcap dilettanti, but 
 a definite and acknowledged element in universal art. 
 Consider well what it was that they did, those men 
 back there among the glimmering lights and blurring 
 shadows of the past. They established Monodic 
 Song; they instituted harmony between music and 
 words ; they galvanised the old Church forms into 
 spiritual life ; and they founded the Opera. 
 
 Salve, oh, Casket of Grapes ! You are the symbol 
 of the abundant wine of inspiration and enthusiasm 
 which the Alterati of Florence poured into the music 
 of the world.
 
 THE SCULLION OF 
 LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE
 
 SONG OF THE SHEPHERDESS 
 IN "ARMIDE" 
 
 Less a - maz - ing 'twould be if the 
 
 Spring in its splen dor Should bring no flow'rs, nor breezes to 
 
 ^==:=i 
 
 fra - grant - ly move, Than if these the best 
 
 
 days of our lives and most ten - der, 
 
 Should be bare of joy and of love I
 
 XII 
 
 THE SCULLION OF 
 LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE 
 
 IF the Chevalier de Guise had not made a half -jesting 
 promise to Mademoiselle, when calling upon her at 
 the Orleans Palace just before his departure for Italy, 
 the history of music would be different. 
 
 Neither he, very debonnair and gallant, nor she, 
 very young and wayward and spoiled, had the slight- 
 est intention of thus affecting the development of art. 
 Mademoiselle was bored by herself and the world. 
 At the moment few opportunities for spectacular 
 escapades seemed open to her. 
 
 She heard M. le Chevalier's remarks on the subject 
 of his prospective trip through Italy with the restless- 
 ness of a child. Doubtless the thought of such des- 
 ultory and untrammelled journeying appealed to the 
 vagabond in her nature, and made her hate her be- 
 loved Paris for the moment. 
 
 When, in taking leave of her, he asked, between a 
 smile and an obeisance, if he might bring her some- 
 thing from Italy, she answered, with a sudden idle 
 impulse :
 
 232 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 "Oui : Je veux un joli petit Italien ! (Yes ; I should 
 like a pretty little Italian boy!)" 
 
 The Chevalier laughed, bowed low once more, and 
 assured her that he would not forget her commands. 
 
 Then he went his way; and Mademoiselle forgot 
 all about it straightway. But the pebble had been 
 thrown into the pool, and a new chapter in music had 
 been begun. 
 
 Twelve years before, in 1633, Giovanni Battista 
 de' Lulli had been born. His father, Lorenzo de' 
 Lulli, was the son of an old and honour- 
 able Florentine family, the fortunes of which had 
 fallen to a low ebb. Of his mother we have little in- 
 formation beyond her name, which seems to indicate 
 noble birth, Caterina del Serta. They lived just out- 
 side Florence, and it was there that Giovanni's earliest, 
 though only his earliest, childhood was passed. Doubt- 
 less his parents dreamed that he would grow up to be 
 a Florentine gentleman like Messer Lorenzo. But it 
 was written that, twelve years later, he should abandon 
 his Italian birthplace and his Italian name, and attach 
 himself to the fortunes of a new land. 
 
 Giovanni Battista apparently was possessed of some 
 demon of unrighteousness. From the beginning of his 
 childhood he established records for mischief and imp- 
 ishness which were remarkable even for a Latin child. 
 He was irresistibly quaint and charming, and attracted 
 all who saw him, but he was a source of perpetual anx-
 
 LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE 233 
 
 iety to the Lulli pair, who had lurid visions of a career 
 of crime stretching before their son. 
 
 There seemed to be only one thing which Giovanni 
 Battista loved better than mischief, naughtiness and 
 disobedience : that was music. His ear was exception- 
 ally fine and keen, and even as a tiny boy he had the 
 artist's sense. He would become docile and good at 
 once, the moment that some vagrant ballad-singer 
 passed by, singing his soft old Italian songs. And as 
 he himself had a sweet and flexible voice he was forever 
 humming over the airs that he heard. There was a 
 door into his queer perverse heart, and, though it stood 
 fast closed and locked as a rule, its key from his birth 
 to his death was music. 
 
 One day a certain old Franciscan monk noticed the 
 child, and was charmed by his merry face and eager 
 eyes, his grace and his delightful voice. He talked 
 with Giovanni Battista several times, and discovered 
 the boy's passion for music. Like most monks of the 
 old days, the old man knew the essential foundations 
 of music, and he determined that this brilliant, if self- 
 willed child should have the benefit of such knowledge 
 as was his. 
 
 He began to teach Giovanni Battista the a b c of 
 music, and taught him to play not only the violin but 
 also that extremely secular instrument, the guitar. 
 Giovanni Battista learned everything with the rapidity 
 of a shooting star. He soon acquired all the rudimen-
 
 234 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 tary musical education which his master was able to 
 give, and thirsted for more. He learned to play the 
 guitar and violin with the skill of a prodigy, and to 
 sing like a veritable bird. 
 
 The picture, as we view it in fancy, is a quaint one : 
 the old Franciscan in habit and cowl, with rosary and 
 girdle and crucifix, and the enthusiastic, bright-eyed 
 child; both bending over the monk's old guitar as he 
 teaches Giovanni how to play an accompaniment for 
 a love-song which they have heard recently in the 
 Florentine streets. 
 
 The guitar, forever associated with scenes of 
 merry-making or with moonlit serenades, how did he 
 happen to know it so well, that old Franciscan monk? 
 From this early chapter in our young composer's life 
 comes a breath of secret and fugitive romance that 
 tempts one to speculation. Certainly he was a delight- 
 ful and a baffling being, this aged Brother who knew 
 so marvellously well how to play the guitar ! 
 
 When Giovanni Battista was not quite thirteen came 
 the beginning of his really remarkable career. 
 
 He was basking in the warmth of the Italian sun one 
 day and singing to himself. Perhaps he was even 
 then in some dream-world, brilliant and beautiful, where 
 he was to make songs and sing them, forever and ever. 
 His voice, fresh and boyish, but excellently trained, 
 thanks to the diligence of the monk, was remarkable 
 enough to attract the attention of a passer-by. So it
 
 LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE 235 
 
 came about that into the vague gorgeousness of Gio- 
 vanni Battista's day-dream stepped suddenly a per- 
 sonage who seemed a part of it. Giovanni Battista 
 thought confusedly that he looked like a courtier or a 
 king or some such exalted creature : he had servants and 
 fine clothes, and a general atmosphere of grandeur, 
 and he had positively stopped to speak to him, him, 
 Giovanni Battista, curled up in the sun like a little 
 yellow-brown, purring kitten ! 
 
 The Chevalier de Guise had not forgotten that 
 casual promise to Mademoiselle in Paris, and was still 
 looking for her "petit Italien." Giovanni Battista's 
 expressive face attracted him at once, and his voice, 
 it was a delight ! Here surely was the very child for 
 Mademoiselle. He had grace, and a personality, and 
 he could sing ; he would make an ideal page. 
 
 A few questions elicited the information that the 
 boy could also play upon the violin and guitar, and 
 likewise showed him to have a gay wit and very pretty 
 manners. Enchanted with the little fellow, the Cheva- 
 lier wasted no more time on preliminaries but asked 
 him, suddenly, if he would go back with him to France, 
 to be the page of a beautiful Princess. 
 
 Giovanni Battista wasted as little time as the Cheva- 
 lier, and, with a glow of excitement and delight in 
 his handsome eyes, cried "yes !" 
 
 Messer de' Lulli and Madonna Caterina were visited 
 by the Frenchman at once. He convinced them of the
 
 236 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 great honour it would be for their son to be taken into 
 the service of the Duchesse de Montpensier, and 
 painted the prospective position in glowing colours. 
 It did indeed seem a most wonderful opportunity, and 
 they bade farewell to Giovanni Battista. They wept 
 in doing so, in spite of the trouble which he had given 
 them ever since he was old enough to play pranks, but 
 Giovanni Battista, whose heart was flint, ice and steel 
 combined, except toward his music, knew no shadow of 
 regret in leaving his parents and Italy. His brain 
 was full of sparkling pictures of Paris, of the great 
 lady he was to serve, and the many wonderful and in- 
 teresting things which he was to see and do. Almost 
 immediately he departed for France with Guise, and 
 sang for joy as he went. It is doubtful if he even re- 
 membered to say good-bye to the old Franciscan monk, 
 who, left behind, was obliged perforce to play upon 
 his battered guitar alone. 
 
 When they reached Paris the boy was no longer 
 called Giovanni Battista de' Lulli, but Jean Baptiste 
 Lully ; and so ended the first chapter of his life. 
 
 The second began with his presentation to Made- 
 moiselle. 
 
 She happened to be in a furiously bad temper when 
 the Chevalier de Guise arrived, smiling and non- 
 chalant, accompanied by Baptiste, as he was now 
 called. 
 
 Guise reminded her of her command and his prom-
 
 LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE 837 
 
 ise, and, with mock solemnity, presented her with his 
 offering : the little Italian boy she had asked for. 
 
 Mademoiselle looked at them both. She was very 
 young then, barely nineteen, and only six years older 
 than Baptiste. He gazed at her with a child's open- 
 eyed admiration and wonder, thinking her the most 
 brilliant being he had ever imagined, and the most 
 marvellously dressed. 
 
 "Ah, bah!" said Mademoiselle, with a flash and a 
 frown, "I said a pretty Italian boy ! Take him away." 
 
 The Chevalier retired, crestfallen, with Baptiste, 
 only to be recalled by Mademoiselle, who ordered that 
 the boy be sent to the palace kitchen. He was not 
 pretty enough for a page, she declared, but would 
 do very well as a marmiton (scullion) ! 
 
 A servant led him away from the presence of his 
 august young mistress, and instructed him in his duties 
 as marmiton under Mademoiselle's cooks. Baptiste 
 was very silent and seemingly quite impassive. But 
 in his small heart, torn with disappointment, bruised 
 by humiliation, and burning with rage, began that 
 hour a profound and bitter hatred of Mademoiselle, 
 which never departed nor lessened during all the days 
 of his life. Yet, as a matter of fact, his mistress was 
 unworthy of his violent detestation, and had many 
 generous and fine qualities, in spite of her quick tem- 
 per, despotic tendency, and countless perversities. 
 
 Anne Marie Louise d'Orleans, Duchesse de Mont-
 
 238 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 pensier, known to France and history as La Grande 
 Mademoiselle, was a strange being. She was a 
 daughter of Gaston d'Orleans and the Duchesse de 
 Montpensier, a granddaughter of Henri IV. and 
 Marie de' Medici, and a cousin of Louis XIV. She 
 was a creature of violent moods and a giant self-will, 
 and was by nature an adventuress and a great lady in 
 one. 
 
 Mademoiselle it was who took part in the Fronde, 
 headed troops, scaled the walls of Orleans on a ladder, 
 and saved Conde's defeated men, after the Saint-An- 
 toine battle, by opening the gates of Paris, and cover- 
 ing the route of their flight with the cannons of the 
 Bastille ! 
 
 She was so great, so stupendously rich, and so very 
 close to royalty that, to all intents and purposes, she 
 was a queen in her own right. Since no one dared to 
 gainsay her will, she rode supreme above every conven- 
 tion of her time, and presented history with that amaz- 
 ing paradox, a Princess who did what she chose. 
 She contrived to create a large amount of trouble 
 during her career, as was the inevitable outcome of 
 an exalted position and an ungovernable nature. 
 
 "The beginning of the misfortunes of my house," 
 she declares in her remarkable "Memoires," "fol- 
 lowed closely upon my birth !" 
 
 This madcap girl-duchess, then, whom high and 
 low called by the simple title of Mademoiselle, was the
 
 LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE 239 
 
 mistress of the Orleans palace where Battiste Lully 
 was scullion. 
 
 A marmiton's position was one with small honour 
 accruing to it. If to be a scullion in Mademoiselle's 
 kitchen was not quite so contemptible as to be one in 
 less exalted households, it nevertheless was a condition 
 quite without dignity, however one might look at it. 
 A scullion was called a "galopin," which may be trans- 
 lated as "errand boy," or "scamp," but, as it generally 
 was used as a term of opprobrium, was apt to mean 
 the latter. 
 
 Radet calls Lully "one of the most extraordinary 
 types of the successful adventurer that ever lived." 
 Perhaps one of the elements of his success lay in his 
 ability to adapt himself to his adventures, as well as 
 his unerring perception of opportunities. Lully never 
 willingly wasted one moment in a manner which was 
 not moderately certain to bring him in some sort of 
 dividend. His pride, while quickly injured and secretly 
 implacable, never stood in the way of his advantages. 
 Therefore it was characteristic that he should accept 
 the position of galopin with inner rage but apparent 
 cheerfulness. Sometimes patient fortitude and ex- 
 pedient hypocrisy look very much alike on the out- 
 side. 
 
 Battiste was a born actor, and when he had grasped 
 his own situation, he spent no strength iu rebellion, but 
 began to play his role in all consistency.
 
 240 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 He was an admirable galopin truly, and his fellow 
 servants found him most merry and companionable. 
 He became an immense favourite and kept the entire 
 kitchen amused by his fun, and by his singing of his 
 sweet Florentine songs. He also learned the street- 
 ballads of Paris, and sang them very effectively and 
 with the French spirit, which it had been an easy mat- 
 ter for him to acquire. 
 
 Time passed, and still he remained a scullion, and 
 still he waited for some opportunity to arise. He had 
 the optimism and the courage of the true adventurer, 
 even at that early age, and felt firmly confident that 
 his luck would change some day. And change it did, 
 in such a fashion and to such an extent that, in look- 
 ing back over musical history, we can find no parallel 
 example of similarly brilliant success and good for- 
 tune. 
 
 In some way Baptiste obtained a violin. It was 
 an unusually bad one, of cheap make and wretched 
 tone, but it was a violin, and therefore Baptiste loved 
 it. He played upon it in every spare moment, and, 
 through much practice, improved steadily in his exe- 
 cution. 
 
 In a corner of the great kitchen, the air filled with 
 the clatter of pots, the steam from boiling stews, and 
 the smells of herbs and spices, a small slight figure 
 might be seen : a boy playing softly to himself upon an 
 execrable violin.
 
 LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE 
 
 All manner of delicious fancies danced before his 
 eyes, faint, fleeting memories of the blue sky over 
 Florence, the street-ballads, and the flowers ; his father 
 and mother, his home, the scene of a thousand child- 
 ish pranks, and the old Franciscan monk playing his 
 guitar. . . . Then dreams of coming days, when 
 he should be rich and famous, and men should bow 
 down before -him instead of ordering him about. The 
 violin music would quiver to a bare thread. The boy's 
 eyes, big and dancing, would fix themselves upon the 
 Future. . . . 
 
 An angry call from the awe-inspiring head-cook. 
 The banquet of Mademoiselle would soon have to be 
 served: where was that galopin? "Baptiste! Bap- 
 tiste !" 
 
 Down would go the violin, and away would go the 
 dreams, and Baptiste, the scullion, would hasten to 
 turn a spit, or bear a great dish to some impatient 
 attendant. 
 
 Now it happened that the Comte de Nogent, a 
 French noble who greatly admired Mademoiselle, once 
 passed near enough Her Highness's kitchen to hear a 
 faint echo of music. He stopped, listening to the 
 elusive melody, and then made his way toward the 
 sound. He had an unusually keen ear and a good 
 taste in music, and he thought that he recognised a 
 master-hand. 
 
 When, to his questions he was told, "Oh, it is only
 
 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 Baptiste, the galopin!" he was more interested than 
 before. He lost no time in telling Mademoiselle of the 
 genius buried among the pots and pans of her kitchen. 
 The Duchesse promptly summoned Baptiste, and, be- 
 ing as quick in her kind impulses as she was with her 
 unkind, she promoted him from the position of a scul- 
 lion to that of a musician in her own orchestra. This, 
 of course, would have been a high honour for a much 
 older artist, and, after waiting and planning and hop- 
 ing for so long, Baptiste could hardly believe that he 
 was not still in a day-dream in the noisy, smoke-filled 
 kitchen. 
 
 However, he had seen the last of the kitchen, and of 
 his wretched little violin. As one of Mademoiselle's 
 violinists he had a good instrument, and, for the first 
 time in his life, a musical atmosphere. Thus did he 
 enter upon his third chapter. 
 
 He became Mademoiselle's especial favourite, and 
 often was singled out from the rest to play and sing 
 for her alone. She grew to like the boy immensely, 
 and was very kind to him. But Baptiste had not for- 
 gotten her first reception of him: "I said a pretty 
 Italian boy !" Nor had he forgiven her for it. So 
 he remained as hostile inwardly as he was ingratiat- 
 ing and devoted outwardly. 
 
 He had a peculiarly quick and timely wit, and a de- 
 cided poetical gift, and often made comic songs for 
 the entertainment of Mademoiselle's household. This
 
 LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE 243 
 
 ability of his was the eventual cause of his dismissal 
 from the Orleans palace. 
 
 It happened one day that Lully composed a song 
 of particularly clever words and infectious melody. 
 For good reasons he did not sing it to Mademoiselle, 
 but he did to every one else in the palace. It was 
 laughed at, whispered over, and surreptitiously 
 hummed by the whole household. The musicians, the 
 ladies-in-waiting, the courtiers, the members of the 
 guard, and the servants were each and all amused by 
 its wit and pleased by its air. 
 
 And then came the cataclysm ! 
 
 Mademoiselle came, quite unexpectedly, upon a 
 group of delighted listeners, with Lully in the centre, 
 singing very softly a verse of his new song. Mademoi- 
 selle listened also for a brief minute, being petrified by 
 horror and rage. For the song was a satirical one, 
 and held up to ridicule no less a person than La 
 Grande Mademoiselle herself! 
 
 Mademoiselle's punishments were invariably swift 
 and certain. Lully left the palace that day. 
 
 He was still only seventeen, but his brilliant work 
 in Mademoiselle's Band of Musicians had won for him 
 a certain degree of renown. With characteristic 
 hardihood he presented himself at Versailles with a 
 petition that the young King, Louis XIV., should give 
 him an appointment. Louis knew of him, and so did 
 Dumanoir, the director of the "Violons du Roy." He
 
 244 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 was accordingly given a position in this celebrated 
 orchestra, which was composed of violins, violas and 
 basses to the number of twenty-four, and was some- 
 times called the "Quatre-Vingt Violons du Roy." 
 
 So well did Lully acquit himself that the King 
 founded for him a second orchestra, which was called 
 "La Petite Bande (The Little Band)," or "Les Petite 
 Violons de sa Majeste (His Majesty's Little Violins)." 
 And thus did Jean Baptiste Lully, adventurer and 
 musician, reach that sun-illumined chapter of success 
 which was to extend over the remainder of his days. 
 
 He had the brains to appreciate that, gifted and 
 talented as he was, he was not a thoroughly trained 
 musician. Therefore, as soon as his place was as- 
 sured, and he was in a position to afford it, he began 
 a rigid course of musical study, all the while ful- 
 filling his duties as Director of Les Petits Violons. 
 
 His masters were Metru, Roberdet, and Gigault, all 
 musicians of note, and organists to St. Nicholas-des- 
 Champs. From them he learned the laws of composi- 
 tion, as well as to play both the organ and harpsi- 
 chord. 
 
 Gustave Chouquet says that Lully devoted himself 
 to the interests of "la Petite Bande" only until he had 
 won the position at Court which he desired, and was 
 likely to gain the title of "Surintendant de la Musique 
 du Roy," and that he took no further interest in 
 the Little Violins when their usefulness to him had
 
 LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE 245 
 
 been exhausted. "This point once gained," says M. 
 Chouquet, "nothing further was heard of the 'Petite 
 Bande,' and by the beginning of the next reign it 
 had wholly disappeared." 
 
 This element of selfishness in Lully's make-up is 
 recognised by everyone who has studied his life. Wil- 
 liam H. Husk says that he "lost no opportunity of in- 
 gratiating himself with men of rank, a useful process 
 for which he had a special gift." 
 
 From this it may be imagined that Lully was what 
 we would term a "snob," and that he had a love for 
 the titles and insignia of greatness. This deduction 
 would be quite inaccurate. Lully was gregarious 
 even democratic, and had a touch of scorn for 
 pomp and panoply, the scorn which artists and men 
 of noble birth have in a more marked degree than the 
 rest of the world. It was not from a servile worship 
 of the trade-marks of high estate that he so assiduously 
 cultivated the prominent nobles at Court, but from a 
 motive even less admirable. He wished to secure every 
 possible advantage for his own advancement and ag- 
 grandisement. He knew that in a city like Paris, and 
 a Court like Louis le Grand's, every influential friend 
 had a value. And so he talked and jested and made 
 himself charming to every one, varying the stereotyped 
 Court flattery by the far cleverer expedient of audac- 
 ity. 
 
 He made many friends, among whom was Moliere,
 
 246 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 who was very fond of him and helped him in several 
 ways. But his best friend was the King. From the 
 first, his influence over Louis was extraordinary, and 
 it seemed that no favour was too great for the King to 
 bestow upon "his Baptiste," as he always called him. 
 
 Lully soon began writing Ballets as Pierre Guedron 
 had done, Ballets in which both he and the King 
 danced with much success. Lully was a good actor, 
 as we have seen, and appeared in several of Moliere's 
 plays for which he had written the incidental music. 
 He began more and more to consider the possibilities 
 and the development of dramatic vocal music. Theat- 
 rical to his finger-tips he worked incessantly to per- 
 fect the operatic form. 
 
 This style of composition had been faintly sketched 
 in the Ballets of Guedron and others of his predeces- 
 sors, as well as in the "musical plays" of Cambert and 
 the Abbe Perrin, both contemporaries of his own. But 
 it was in the "Eurydice" of Peri and other subsequent 
 works of the new Italian school that he found the real 
 germ which he wished to bring to maturity. So 
 well did he succeed in amplifying and completing his 
 idea, that he is known to-day as the "Father of French 
 Opera." 
 
 He is more than this. Dramatic or operatic music 
 has always had its effect, either temporary or lasting, 
 upon the growth of song. No one could deny the 
 enormous influence which Wagner has had upon the
 
 LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE 247 
 
 dramatic or descriptive lyrics of modern times, and 
 just as strongly did Lully's operatic work colour the 
 subsequent songs of France. Moreover, although 
 Lully is far from being a song-composer in the strict 
 sense, he had to a signal extent the gift which is the 
 very essence and soul and individuality of Song, the 
 instinct for melody. The airs in his operas are as 
 spontaneous as the most purely lyric folk-songs, as 
 well as being possessed of a finish which is the prod- 
 uct of musical cultivation. The introduction of this 
 great operatic composer among the song-writers re- 
 quires this word of explanation to the public at large. 
 But to those who have carefully studied Lully and 
 his immediate successors, the choice will seem less 
 odd. Fertility of melodic invention, dramatic feel- 
 ing wedded to smooth rhythmic forms, perfect har- 
 mony between words and music, and a lyrical phras- 
 ing most happily adapted to the requirements of the 
 voice these are the conspicuous features of Lully's 
 Soli, and also of the compositions of every great song- 
 composer that ever lived. 
 
 Among Lully's most delightful and characteristic 
 songs are "Cruel Amour (Alciorw)" "Sans Alceste 
 (Alceste)," "Aimez Roland a Votre Tour (Roland)," 
 and the "Chanson de la Bergere" from "Armide." The 
 last-named of these is one of the very few entirely joy- 
 ous melodies ever written in a minor key. It is a 
 worthy companion-air to Rossini's "Gia la luna." The
 
 248 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 words of this lyric from "Armide" are by Quinault, 
 who wrote almost all of Lully's librettos, and are as 
 follows : 
 
 "Less amazing 't would be if the spring in its splendour 
 Should bring no flow'rs nor breezes to fragrantly move, 
 Than if these, the best days of our lives, and most tender, 
 Should be bare of joy and of love!" 
 
 The Abbe Bourdelot tells of a young beauty of 
 Louis's Court who went mad, like Ophelia, on account 
 of an unhappy love-affair. There seemed no hope 
 that her sanity could ever be restored, until to the 
 great Court Doctor who attended her came a brilliant 
 inspiration. He selected a number of the King's best 
 musicians and secreted them behind some draperies in 
 the mad girl's room every night. There they played 
 melodies by Lully with great sweetness and softness, 
 until by slow degrees her madness slipped away from 
 her on the gracious airs, and she became cured. 
 
 Lully was made Court Composer, "Surintendant de 
 la Musique de la Chambre," and "Maitre de Musique" 
 to the Royal family. He was also ennobled by the 
 King, and enabled to restore the "de" of nobility to 
 his name. 
 
 When he was twenty-nine he married Madeline 
 Lambert, daughter of the singer Lambert. She 
 brought him an ample dowry, and, being a very frugal 
 person, succeeded in helping him to save and economise 
 until he owned an enormous fortune.
 
 LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE 249 
 
 Lully was both ambitious and avaricious, and, as 
 Husk says, "he possessed neither honour nor morals." 
 Whoever thwarted him was bound to go under, and, 
 if he never forgot a slight, he also never took the 
 trouble to remember a kindness. He did not know the 
 meaning of the word loyalty, and considered generosity 
 but a form of investment. 
 
 When he was temporarily in pecuniary straits, 
 Moliere advanced him a large sum of money. Yet in 
 after years Lully treated Moliere with a complete lack 
 of gratitude and consideration. 
 
 Probably he was guilty of the most underhand per- 
 formance of his career when he stole from the Abbe 
 Perrin and Cambert their theatre-patent. They, with 
 Henri Guichard, the librettist, and some artistic noble- 
 men who were willing to back the enterprise financially, 
 had laid brilliant plans for the art work which they 
 would accomplish in this theatre. Lully feared that 
 they would interfere with his success, and determined 
 that not only should they not have the theatre but that 
 he would. 
 
 He went to Madame de Montespan and induced her 
 to get from the King the transfer of the theatre- 
 license from Perrin to himself. With de Montespan 
 and Lully bringing all their influence to bear, the King 
 agreed with small demur, and the theatre, literally 
 stolen, was placed in Lully's hands. He further 
 succeeded in introducing in the wording of the patent
 
 250 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 a clause which gave to him the exclusive right of pro- 
 ducing operas in France ! 
 
 This trickery and the ungenerous use of an ad- 
 vantage won for Lully the hatred and distrust of all 
 his artistic colleagues. Boileau calls him "an odious 
 buffoon with a low heart," and frankly pronounces his 
 standards dishonourable. 
 
 Henri Guichard, furious over being tricked out of 
 a post as librettist, published an article declaring Lully 
 to have been the son of an Italian miller, and attribut- 
 ing his abominable conduct to his low origin. 
 
 When the article was brought to Lully's notice he 
 merely shrugged his shoulders, and remarked coolly 
 that he was not at all surprised: that he knew very 
 well Guichard would love to poison him ! 
 
 We have many anecdotes of Lully, but few which 
 point to a very pleasant side of his nature. In nearly 
 all he appears cunning, or insolent, or worse. Now 
 and then we catch a gleam of the quaint or whim- 
 sical humour which made him as adored at Court as 
 he was hated in the artistic world, but it is rarely 
 kindly humour. There is almost always a sting 
 in it. 
 
 On one occasion he broke down from overwork and 
 over-dissipation. The Chevalier de Lorraine called 
 upon him, and Lully, though desperately weak and ill, 
 outdid himself in his efforts to make him welcome. 
 Not so Madame de Lully. She looked with disfavour
 
 upon the noble guest, and thought of recent festivities 
 at which he had been the host. 
 
 "Oh, you are a fine friend!" she remarked, sternly. 
 "It was you with whom he got drunk last, and who 
 are the cause of his death !" 
 
 Lully laughed. 
 
 "Hush, my dear wife," he said. "If I do not die, 
 it will be he with whom I shall get drunk first !" 
 
 One afternoon, on the very eve of a performance, 
 Louis sent word that he was too tired to be present. 
 
 Lully shrugged his shoulders in his favourite way, 
 and remarked indifferently to the Gentlemen-in-Wait- 
 ing who had brought the message: "The King is 
 master. He may bore himself as much as he pleases." 
 
 The Court performances were usually the King's 
 delight, however. As has been stated, he danced in 
 many of the Ballets himself, and was one of the origi- 
 nators, it is said, of "Farewell Appearances." For 
 the Court representations a big arched frame and 
 platform were erected in the gardens of Versailles. 
 A curtain hid the musicians (in which respect they 
 were far more artistic than we), and atmosphere and 
 perspective were not artificial but the natural effects 
 of shadowy, tree-lined garden spaces. In front of the 
 impromptu stage the thrones were placed, for the King 
 and Marie Therese, and on either side sat or stood the 
 Court. 
 
 Here they listened to the delicious melodies by the
 
 252 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 Me&tre de Musique, and watched the troops of gaily 
 dressed dancers swaying and circling under the rust- 
 ling trees. Here they heard the "Alceste, vous 
 pleurez," the "little duet" of which Naumann speaks 
 with so much admiration, and that intoxicating 
 Chorus of Shepherds and Shepherdesses in "Armide," 
 the following text of which is again Quinault's : 
 
 "Ah, folly deep, and errors rife, 
 To fail to dance away this life ! 
 To reckless love and laughing plays 
 Give all the flying wonder-days !" 
 
 It was just after the completion of this same 
 "Armide" that Lully fell ill once more. This time he 
 really believed that he was going to die, and he sent 
 for his Confessor. 
 
 After he had mentioned a few of his dishonourable 
 actions, the Confessor refused to grant absolution 
 until he had committed the terrible penance of burn- 
 ing the score of his "Armide." Lully made violent 
 objections, but the priest remaining firm, he finally 
 agreed. The score was burned, and the master musi- 
 cian was absolved from his sins. 
 
 Next day Lully was better. In came the Prince de 
 Conti, much perturbed. 
 
 "Baptiste! Baptiste!" he cried. "What is this I 
 hear? You have thrown your beautiful work into the 
 fire?" 
 
 "Peace, peace, Monseigneur," returned Lully, smil-
 
 LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE 253 
 
 ing cheerfully from his pillow. "I knew what I was 
 doing, / have a copy!" 
 
 In the space of fourteen years, Lully, with Qui- 
 nault for his librettist, composed twenty operas, in ad- 
 dition to the thirty Ballets which he wrote to amuse the 
 King, and which never were published. He worked 
 incessantly, indefatigably and conscientiously. In 
 reviewing his life of avarice, deceit, selfishness and 
 cold-heartedness, this is the one fact upon which we 
 may dwell with genuine respect. Says Naumann: 
 "The only ray of light in the sorry spectacle is that 
 when Lully had climbed to the summit of his worldly 
 glory he did not lapse into artistic idleness, but set to 
 work with tenfold vigour to elevate the national music- 
 drama." The final unpardonable sin in Lully would 
 have been an inept and indolent enjoyment of suc- 
 cess. 
 
 After an illness of the King's, Lully wrote a "Te 
 Deum" expressive of the national pleasure in the royal 
 recovery. While conducting this composition the 
 orchestra made a slip in the time. Lully, in his rage 
 and his wish to accentuate the rhythm unmistakably, 
 beat time so furiously that he struck his foot violently 
 with his baton. It was discovered that he had wounded 
 himself seriously, and in a very short time was the 
 victim of a severe case of blood-poisoning. 
 
 Monseigneur de Vendome offered the Marquis de 
 Carrelt, a physician, two thousand pistoles if he
 
 254 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 should cure him. But the Marquis was more than half 
 a charlatan, and was quite incapable of coping with so 
 grave a condition. 
 
 Jean Baptiste de Lully died on Saturday, March 
 22d, 1687, aged fifty-four. His death was in one of 
 his four houses, that which stood in the Rue de la 
 Ville-l'Eveque, and he was surrounded by his fam- 
 ily, consisting of his wife and six children. It was 
 characteristic that he should die chanting, with dra- 
 matic fervour, a song of penitence! 
 
 The Court mourned his loss, and his heirs overcame 
 their naturally parsimonious habits in order to erect 
 for him a superb monument in the Church of the 
 Petits Peres. The Latin epitaph was composed by 
 Santeul, and the marble was carved by Colton, the 
 sculptor. Such were the tributes paid to the memory 
 of the greatest master of music and one of the most 
 influential men in all France, he who had begun his 
 career as the scullion of La Grande Mademoiselle. 
 
 But these gorgeous honours were yet insufficient to 
 hide the unbeautif ul character of the dead man. Only 
 in his music may his warped and acrid spirit be for- 
 gotten, his ungenerous deeds be forgiven, and his whole 
 strange personality lifted into something comprehensi- 
 ble and fine. 
 
 Music was his friend, his goddess, and his defender. 
 When he was little Giovanni Battista, learning to play 
 the guitar from the old Franciscan monk, under the
 
 LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE 255 
 
 turquoise sky of Florence, it was Music who quieted 
 his restless feet and softened his perverse heart. 
 
 And to-day, as we stare mercilessly upon the records 
 of wrongs and frauds that blot the brightness of his 
 remarkable career, it is Music who slips between and 
 lays a tender, protesting hand across our eyes.
 
 THE RUNOS OF THE NORTHLAND
 
 HERDSMAN'S CALL 
 
 
 m/ 
 
 
 rii.
 
 XIII 
 
 THE RUNOS OF THE NORTHLAND 
 
 "And though the deeds of man- folk were not yet waxen old, 
 Yet had they tales for song-craft, and the blossoming garth 
 
 of rhyme, 
 Tales of the framing of all things, and the entering in of 
 
 time 
 From the halls of the outer heaven, so near they knew its 
 
 door. 
 Wherefore up rose a sea-king, and his hands that loved the 
 
 oar 
 Now dealt with the rippling harp-gold; and he sang of the 
 
 shaping of earth, 
 And how the stars were lighted, and where the winds had 
 
 birth, 
 And the gleam of the first of summers on the yet untrodden 
 
 grass. . . ." 
 
 Thus wrote William Morris, juggler with strange, 
 rare thought-colours, master of wind-like, wave-like 
 word-tones, and interpreter of the cryptic soul of the 
 ancient North. 
 
 The writings of such poets are invaluable, if one is 
 striving to understand the music, which means the 
 heart, of such a people as those of Scandinavia. 
 Without the glimpses of light shed by the illumined 
 ones who know we grope blindly in the darkness of
 
 260 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 strange standards and alien sympathies. Not only are 
 we frustrated by the difficulties of meagre information 
 and imperfect records, but we are balked above all by 
 the unwillingness of the Northland to be understood at 
 any cost. 
 
 At first we are a trifle awed, even repelled by the 
 bigness and grimness of the world we are trying to 
 explore. We find there strength that is superhuman, 
 courage that is barbaric, melancholy that is profound 
 and hopeless, passion that is without tenderness, emo- 
 tions that seem always either savage or sad, and that 
 often are both. There appears to be gaiety there, 
 not happiness, but a wild, cold sort of exhilaration to 
 which we find it harder to respond than to the depres- 
 sion which otherwise prevails. We find mists and 
 towering mountains, fir-trees and snow-filled gullies, 
 biting winds, and black waters storming a gloomy 
 coast. We hear the twang of rude harps or Kanteles, 
 and hear rough voices chanting unintelligible syllables 
 and dreary airs. And we draw back, chilled and dis- 
 couraged. How hope to look into the hearts of these 
 strange folk, and master the inherent motives and sen- 
 timents of their national songs ? 
 
 But after striving and struggling, after much pa- 
 tience and many prayers to Odin and the rest, the 
 time comes when the grey cold mists part a little, and 
 we begin to see cattle in the shadow of the big dark 
 hills, and smoke rising from the wind-swept valleys.
 
 THE RUNOS OF THE NORTHLAND 261 
 
 We begin to discover the humanity which is burning 
 brightly even among the ice-fields. We see not only 
 sea-folk, and men who know how to fight and to die, 
 but the makers and warders of homes. We hear the 
 Lur or cow-horn calling in the herds at sunset, and 
 see the women spinning or knitting by red-lighted 
 hearth-stones. And the eternal minor note in their 
 music ceases to be dreary, and becomes touching, and 
 the dearth of light or tender feeling in their ballads 
 resolves itself into the reticence of a race proverbially 
 silent. 
 
 We find that here are a people far less unfriendly 
 than we dreamed, a people full of poetic feeling, and 
 loving music with all the fervour of peculiarly intense 
 natures ; a people who pour their melancholy into their 
 songs as the Spaniards of old poured their inconse- 
 quent joys and headlong passions into theirs; as the 
 Troubadours poured their love-fancies, and the good 
 Meistersingers their conscientious pedantry. 
 
 And so we enter at last into the spirit of the coun- 
 try. And in time we grow to love the quaint sad 
 Runos, as they call these ancient ballads of theirs, and 
 seem to find in their odd intervals and rhythm, their 
 sudden pauses and unexpected cadences, wonderful 
 little pictures of long, dark, dream-haunted years in 
 the world of the North. 
 
 And thus begins the study of Scandinavian Folk- 
 Song.
 
 262 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 By Scandinavia, we mean Norway, Sweden, Iceland, 
 Lapland, Finland and Denmark all the mysterious 
 silent Northland. It is as much of an enigma nation- 
 ally as the East, almost as inscrutable, if possibly 
 less profound. Our nearest approach to understand- 
 ing it is in our childhood, usually, through the genius 
 of that poet-magician, Hans Christian Andersen. 
 
 We all know how eagerly we used to read of fjords, 
 and lakes, and marshes, and water-spirits, and reindeer, 
 and wolves, and other queer delightful Northern 
 things ; and can surely remember those wonderful days 
 when Gerda's journey to the Palace of the Snow 
 Queen was a thrilling fact, and the Marsh King's 
 daughter was not only a pathetic and charming per- 
 son, but very much alive. Dear Hans Christian An- 
 dersen, all the children of all the world form your 
 kingdom ; and all the children of all the world thank 
 you, because you have given them the freedom of the 
 Country of Dreams. 
 
 From the beginning of things the Scandinavian 
 nations have been imaginative and beauty-loving, in 
 spite of their exterior coldness and gloom. Their 
 epic-poems have always been standards of free, wild 
 poetry, and few races know so well how to sing of 
 gods and heroes and big elementary matters. They 
 know, too, how to imprison nature-pictures in a few 
 words and notes. The breath of their ice-chilled 
 mountain winds is in their Runos and their Kampevisor
 
 THE RUNOS OF THE NORTHLAND 263 
 
 (battle-songs or heroic songs) and their effects are 
 always of a large, bold and noble order. 
 
 There is almost no lyrical music, according to 
 our standards. There are love songs, it is true, but 
 almost invariably they are of a fierce and even unten- 
 der order, proclaiming loyalty and passion, but few 
 of the pretty illusions with which the South likes to 
 play. 
 
 A good example of the love-poetry of the North is 
 to be found in the following strange little lyric, 
 much sung in Finland, and known as the "Love Song 
 of the Finnish Maiden" : 
 
 *"If my Well-Known should come, 
 My Often-Seen should appear, 
 I would snatch a kiss from his mouth 
 Though it were tainted with wolf's blood; 
 I would seize and press his hand, 
 If a serpent were at the end of it; 
 If the wind had a mind, 
 If the breeze had a tongue, 
 To hear and bring back the vows 
 Which two lovers exchange. 
 
 "All dainties would I disregard, 
 Even the Vicar's savoury meat, 
 Rather than forsake the friend of my heart, 
 The wild game of my summer's hunting, 
 The darling of my winter's taming." 
 
 Such a girl as this seems to paint her own picture in 
 her words. One can easily imagine her, straight, 
 translation by Edward Daniel Clarke.
 
 264 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 strong and fearless, clear-eyed and unashamed, truth- 
 ful and daring in her love as she would be in her hate, 
 capable of gentleness, doubtless, but utterly incapable 
 of putting it into words, a creature as clean as the 
 snow, as strong as the sea, as passionate as the storm, 
 the woman of the Northland. 
 
 The Folk-Song of a people must always be very 
 close of necessity to their immediate interests and 
 every-day considerations. If there is a ruling pas- 
 sion or an ever-present fear in a nation, be certain that 
 you will find it flourishing in nine-tenths of its ballads. 
 
 The deep-rooted terror of wolves in certain parts of 
 the North gave birth to the following brief song of 
 Lapland, which is still sung, although it is very ancient 
 indeed : 
 
 '"Accursed wolf, far hence, away! 
 Make in these woods no longer stay; 
 Fly hence ! And seek earth's utmost bounds, 
 Or perish, by the hunter's wounds 1" 
 
 One may easily imagine this "Song to the Wolf," 
 as it is called, chanted by the hunters as they fly over 
 the snow fields, with knives ready for the fierce beasts 
 to whom their song is addressed. 
 
 The Kampevisor are for the most part extraordinary 
 productions. They are declamatory and almost with- 
 out rhythm or melody save for the Omkvad, or refrain. 
 
 Nearly all are minor, and many are in such time 
 translation by Joseph Acerbi,
 
 THE RUNOS OF THE NORTHLAND 265 
 
 as 5/4 or 7/4. Moreover the majority were composed 
 to be sung to the Kantele, a harp-like instrument 
 with five strings, G, A, B^, C and D, which, as 
 may readily be seen, form the foundation for a pecu- 
 liarly plaintive class of airs. 
 
 Almost the best example of Epic Song within our 
 reach is that upon Sigurd's battle with the Dragon. 
 It is very old, and, when finally notated, had to be 
 taken down from the lips of singers in Norway, whose 
 ad libitum style of singing made it very difficult to 
 catch the rhythm. It is really an interesting piece 
 of music, though its weirdness may be imagined from 
 the following strange bars which occur just before the 
 Omkvad: 
 
 JH^TF r r 1^5=^ 
 
 a i K i 
 
 "Back in the world's beginning" they made it, the 
 old Scolds and Runojas. They were not ordinary 
 singers, it is certain, but some "masters of song-craft" 
 such as William Morris describes : 
 
 ". . . The mightiest men that cast 
 The sails of the storm of battle adown the bickering blast." 
 
 With an accompaniment of wind playing wailing 
 battle music among the bending fir-trees, they fash- 
 ioned the song of Sigurd, while yet, who knows?
 
 266 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 his great deeds may have been close enough to be re- 
 membered and sung in exultation and in awe. 
 
 The great Scandinavian King, Regner Lodbrog, 
 composed many splendid Kampevisor, full of the al- 
 most savage courage of the Northland, and giving re- 
 markable glimpses of the hold which their mythology 
 had upon these Vikings and warriors. One, roughly 
 translated, runs as follows : 
 
 "My courage tells me that death is near. 
 Already the Divinities sent for me by Odin 
 Invite me to enter his Dwelling Place. 
 Seated high at his table, 
 I shall then, with much good cheer, 
 Drink of the rare mead that he will offer me. 
 The hours of my life are ended: 
 I die, laughing!" 
 
 The following, also the composition of Regner, is 
 more savage, and even more characteristic of his race 
 and land: 
 
 "We have stricken off the heads of these our enemies with 
 
 our swords ! 
 
 But that which causeth me my greatest joy 
 Is that Odin hath bidden me shortly to his feast. 
 Soon I shall drink my fill of mead there, 
 Mead foaming from a curved drink-horn! 
 And with neither fear nor trembling shall I present myself 
 
 at the Palace !" 
 
 Truly here were men worthy to sit at wine "with 
 the gods of the Elder Days," men to whom life was a 
 battle-ground, pain a triumphant test of courage, sor-
 
 THE RUNOS OF THE NORTHLAND 267 
 
 row a jest, grim, but good, and death an invitation 
 to a banquet ! 
 
 The verses just quoted, if verses they could be 
 called, were sung to inconceivably wild and barbaric 
 melodies. The last-cited one has attached to it an air 
 of particularly poignant tragedy, mingled with a fierce 
 exultation which makes its intervals quite incompre- 
 hensible to a civilised ear. But one would like to 
 have seen him, this King Regner who laughed at 
 death, and gloried in Odin's invitation to his table, 
 and to have heard him chant his wild strange songs 
 of bloodshed, and dying, and the drink-horns of the 
 gods! 
 
 It was not only the mountain and sea folk who made 
 songs. There were court minstrels in ancient Nor- 
 way, Denmark and Sweden, as in other lands. They 
 had their measure of musical cultivation, and in many 
 cases had learned their art in foreign lands. Though 
 these men wrote music less typically Scandinavian 
 than the pure folk-songs, they deserve honourable 
 mention in musical history. 
 
 Poetry and music were popular in all the old Scandi- 
 navian Courts. Many were the men who won fame 
 and honour by their gift of song. There was that 
 noted minstrel of the eleventh century, the great 
 Jarlaskald, a contemporary of those mighty sons of 
 the immortal Sigurd: Harald and Magnus the Good. 
 There was Arnold of Iceland, attached to the Court
 
 268 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 of Waldemar the Great, King of Denmark. There 
 were Acquinus the Swede, Gustav Vasa, Torstenius 
 Johannes, Jean Fortejo, Melchior, Borchgrevinck, 
 Diihen, Sartorius, Bauwart, Biedermann, Meibomius, 
 and many others. And they made great quantities of 
 stirring songs for the delectation of those long-ago, 
 semi-barbaric courts. 
 
 Says Soubies: "Those regions possess one of the 
 most essential elements for great poetry and great art, 
 and that is a past that is rich in heroic traditions and 
 epic memories. Parallel with this vein of secular 
 legends run the peculiarly grand and severe nature of 
 the country, a sort of nature most favourable to an 
 aptitude for revery. It engenders a disposition in 
 melancholy souls to the sentiments whence come the 
 songs of the people, songs of rare colour and pene- 
 trating accent." 
 
 The great Liszt, whose insight into the souls of men 
 was truly that of the magician they termed him, ex- 
 pressed much of the spirit of the Northland singers 
 when he wrote : 
 
 "The Scandinavian Bards faced a frigid Nature 
 who imposed upon their senses a great fear, fear of a 
 climate rarely lighted even by a passing smile. There- 
 fore they exalted courage to a point of almost voluptu- 
 ous indulgence, and Walhalla offered them not so 
 much a recompense for their achievements as an op- 
 portunity for fresh combats and incessant victories."
 
 THE RUNOS OF THE NORTHLAND 269 
 
 But they had an Orpheus once in Finland, a singer 
 of gentler Runos, and an awakener of tenderer dreams. 
 He lived in mythological days, and he was a demi-god. 
 His name was Wainamoinen, mercifully corrupted to 
 Vainamoinen, which is quite bad enough. And, like 
 the other Orpheus, he could charm the wild things into 
 submission, and even draw the timid sprites of wood 
 and woo them from their most secret hiding places. He 
 would sit in the forest, so goes the legend, and play 
 upon his harp, and sing most sweetly and melodiously, 
 until the big bear came lumbering from his den, and 
 the wolf crept near, his wild eyes softened by love, 
 and the fishes poked their silver noses up through the 
 ripples of the stream, and the big, strange birds 
 dropped in their swift flight to listen. Then, as he 
 played and sang, the reindeer would come down the 
 mountain side, his antlered head upraised to hear the 
 music, and the snake would slowly uncoil and glide 
 close to the singer's foot. And the Necker, the sad, 
 music-loving water-folk, who had lost their souls but 
 wanted to go to heaven, would come up in shadowy 
 crowds among the reeds, and the gay, evil satyrs that 
 lived in trees and laughed at all things, would draw 
 closer, in sudden gentle melancholy, while Vainamoi- 
 nen sang and played upon his harp. 
 
 From this legend it is easy to see the deep hold 
 which music has always had upon the people of the 
 North. In Vainamoinen they incarnated the Spirit
 
 270 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 of Music, and in the adoration of the wild things 
 depicted their own devotion to the Goddess of Sweet 
 Sounds. If the sounds evolved by them are sometimes 
 far from sweet to our ears, it may be because our 
 sense of hearing has not been subjected to the severe 
 training of avalanches and mountain storms ! 
 
 In a land where the after-glow of the worship of 
 gods has hardly faded from the sky, it is inevitable 
 that superstition and belief in the supernatural should 
 abound. Every manner of sprite and elf is reputed to 
 inhabit those far away Northern forests, and the fog 
 is supposed to be full of spectral shapes with portents 
 of good or ill. The spirits there are of the elemental 
 order, inhabiting trees, brooks, lakes and hill-places, 
 in the manner of certain Grecian and Roman beings of 
 whom we have read in ancient poems and legends. 
 
 But the one sprite of the Northland gifted with an 
 eternal love and gift for the art of song is the Neck, 
 or Nixy, the pale water-fairy who spends his or her 
 wave-washed years in singing strange songs, to the 
 wonder of those who pass near. 
 
 The Necker are reputed to be angels who, by per- 
 mitting thoughts of sin, have fallen from Heaven, and 
 are doomed to be fairy-folk until by some marvellous, 
 merciful chance they win back their souls. Hans 
 Andersen, in his sad little tale of the Mermaid who 
 won her soul through love, has touched most grace- 
 fully upon this old superstition. Many other writers
 
 THE RUNOS OF THE NORTHLAND 271 
 
 have made it the subject for stories and poems, 
 Dante Gabriel Rossetti among others. But the land 
 of the North is full of legends more interesting and 
 poetic than any which the writers of other tongues 
 have been able to originate or even plagiarise. The 
 "Oxonian in Thelemarken" (Norway) says: 
 
 "Like the Daoineshi of the Scotch Highlands, the 
 Neck of Scandinavia shines in a talent for music. 
 Poor creatures ! The peasantry may well fancy they 
 are fallen angels who hope some day for forgiveness ; 
 for was not one heard, near Hornbogabro, in West 
 Gotland, singing to a sweet melody, 'I know, I know, 
 I know that my Redeemer liveth'? And did not a 
 Neck, when some boys once said to him, 'What good is 
 it for you to be sitting here and playing, for you will 
 never enjoy eternal happiness? begin to weep bit- 
 terly? . . ." 
 
 Among the dances of Sweden is one very graceful 
 and charming one known as the "Neckens Polska." 
 The melody of it is light and pretty, but it lacks the 
 mournfulness which is so nearly inevitable in North- 
 ern music, and which would be particularly suitable in 
 anything bearing the name of that most melancholy of 
 elves, the Neck. 
 
 Poor Necker! Let us hope that you will all find 
 your souls and go back to Heaven, even though 
 your going leave the lakes silent and the streams deso- 
 late.
 
 272 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 The country is peculiarly rich in legends and fairy- 
 stories, all, with practically no exceptions, incorpo- 
 rated in the folk-songs. With all their reserve as a 
 nation the Scandinavians have been extraordinarily 
 prolific in the making of songs. 
 
 There are so many songs in Jutland that at one time 
 it was not permissible to sing the same song more than 
 once in a year ! 
 
 There is a district called the Strickgegend, or 
 Knitting District, where the air is as full of folk-songs 
 as a wood with the songs of birds. For years the cus- 
 tom prevailed for the peasants to meet every evening 
 during the winter months, spin or knit woollen fabrics, 
 and sing their songs till late into the night. Wagner 
 in his "Flying Dutchman" has made use of this cus- 
 tom on a small scale. But it remains for some one 
 to describe for us, in prose, poetry or drama, such a 
 scene as the books of travel indicate : the roaring fire, 
 the whirring wheels and clicking needles, the minor 
 music of the Langluke (a harp-shaped violin) or the 
 Kantele,the voices of the peasants, and the monotonous 
 chant telling of the prowess of some long-dead demi- 
 god ; while outside the winter winds shriek and struggle 
 together among the trees. 
 
 Not always are the Northern scenes accompanied 
 by the roar of storms, however. There is peace to be 
 found among them of a profound, because a primitive, 
 description.
 
 THE RUNOS OF THE NORTHLAND 273 
 
 Take, for instance, the watchmen of the cities. As 
 in all lands where the older civilisation prevails, the 
 custom of having the streets patrolled all night by 
 these quaint and picturesque figures is still universal. 
 With his lantern in his hand, the Norwegian watch- 
 man wanders along between the sleeping houses, cries 
 the hour, and reports upon wind and weather. 
 
 In Spain they had, as we know, a brief and most 
 musical phrase to sing, but the Norwegian Watch- 
 man intones a monotonous sort of chant which is well- 
 nigh interminable. And he sings the same one that 
 his predecessors have been singing for centuries gone 
 by. 
 
 In Trondhjem they sing a different kind of exhor- 
 tation to prayer with every hour. Here is the one 
 for ten o'clock: 
 
 1 "Ho, the Watchman, ho ! 
 The clock has struck ten, 
 Praised be God our Lord! 
 Now it is time 
 To go to bed, 
 
 The housewife and her maid, 
 The master as well as his lad. 
 The wind is south-east. 
 Hallelujah! Praised be 
 God our Lord." 
 
 We all remember the Watchman in "Die Meister- 
 singer" with his "Lobet Gott den Herrn"! Evidently 
 
 ^Translation by De Capell Brooke.
 
 274 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 City Watchmen, whether in Nuremberg or Norway, 
 will always be much the same ! 
 
 Then, as was said at the beginning of this article, 
 there is a gentle and quiet side to the country -life in 
 the North. The most melodious form of music which 
 one finds there is the Herdsman's call. This, having 
 various airs, is always of the same character, and 
 is employed by the peasants, both men and women, 
 to call the herds and flocks down from the hills. With 
 it goes the nasal note of the Lur. By the bye, it is 
 a cow-horn which Wagner gives to the afore-men- 
 tioned Watchman. One may imagine from that what 
 it sounds like; far from tuneful, we may wager! 
 But the Calls themselves are charming. They are 
 more unequivocally melodies than any music in all 
 Scandinavia, and have a plaintive lilt of their own 
 which is essentially characteristic, and could have been 
 conceived by no other people. 
 
 The one which will be found at the beginning of this 
 article is one of the loveliest. Like all Scandinavian 
 music, whether harsh or graceful, it paints a picture. 
 In this case it seems to be that of a mountain slope flam- 
 ing with the light of the cold Northern sunset, mists 
 lying white and still on a Neck-haunted lake, some 
 clear-eyed girl with the Lur held to her lips, standing 
 on the rocky pathway, while the herds come slowly 
 down from among the trees above her on the hill. 
 Down in the valley somewhere a fire is waiting, supper,
 
 THE RUNOS OF THE NORTHLAND 275 
 
 and the spinning wheel. And later there will be songs 
 and legends of the heroes that are dead and the sprites 
 that are living. 
 
 Yet, with all our effort and with all our occasional 
 confidence in success, have we indeed, in our study of 
 these mysterious folk, crept one step farther upon the 
 road of understanding? We have seen a few pictures 
 and listened to a few songs ; we have exulted in frag- 
 mentary glimpses of the veiled secrets of sentiment 
 and emotion. But the true Scandinavia, the ever- 
 lasting North, have we really touched her sealed, 
 strange heart for but the shadow of a passing 
 moment ? 
 
 I fear if she heard the question she would smile, 
 as who should say: "When you have understood the 
 secrets of Silence, and the Mysteries of Dreams, the 
 heart of the Sphinx, and the Soul of Religion, when 
 you have learned why Life was, and what Death will 
 be, and the age of the eternal stars, you may under- 
 stand Me !"
 
 THE ROMANCE OF STRADELLA
 
 AIR FROM THE " SERENATA 
 
 Go, thou, therefore, and see where waits, Where 
 
 bo ,d 
 
 I i 
 
 waits a true . heart; Which doth bend to thy 
 
 scorn, and doth of - - - fer.... in - cense of 
 
 love 
 
 Go, thou, there-fore, and see where 
 
 
 Tfcb i-J f 
 
 waits a.... true heart, Which doth bend to thy 
 
 
 r ri j 
 
 scorn and doth of - fer In cense of.... love.
 
 XIV 
 THE ROMANCE OF STRADELLA 
 
 NEVER in musical history has there been so mysteri- 
 ous a person as Alessandro Stradella. For some 
 strange reason no one knows anything definite about 
 him, but everyone a great deal that is indefinite. Why 
 all the reliable records are silent concerning this really 
 great composer will never be known, nor why, in the 
 absence of definite facts, people should have taken the 
 trouble to invent so much fiction. But it is true that 
 most of our information concerning him seems to be 
 the result of vague report, vivid imagination, or sim- 
 ple, flagrant error. One writer declares: "No musi- 
 cian has ever been the subject of more unwarrantable 
 romancing than he." Another says, in reference to 
 Bourdelot's famous account of the composer's life and 
 death: "How can we believe a statement . . . 
 that was made simply on the faith of Court gossip ?" 
 
 But in spite of these and other statements rejecting 
 the accuracy of the story, the Romance of Stradella 
 will always be popular, and, what is more, it will al- 
 ways be credited by at least half the reading world. If 
 no man can prove it true, at least no man can prove it
 
 280 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 false ! And, for the rest, there are several interesting 
 facts of history which were preserved for us by 
 "Court gossip." 
 
 And so, admitting in the very beginning that they 
 all may be unfounded, we will turn our attention to 
 such incidents as are written down in Bourdelot's 
 book. He was the first romancer on the subject, 
 if indeed it be all romancing, and the other ro- 
 mancers have copied him obediently. We are really 
 obliged to, for I doubt if many of us have the imagi- 
 nation to invent so good a story as his! 
 
 The Abbe Bourdelot was a charming person, even 
 if he knew nothing about music and wrote about it as 
 though it were Black Magic or poison ivy. And who 
 knows that his "Court gossip" was untrue? He 
 vouches for the facts, and his book impresses one, at 
 least, as being ingenuous. 
 
 So here is the romance of Stradella. He was born 
 somewhere about 1645, Bourdelot and Wanley say 
 in Venice, Burney, Fetis and Naumann in Naples. Let 
 us take the Abbe's word in favour of Venice, even 
 though Naumann insists that he belonged to the Nea- 
 politan school. 
 
 "He was a comely person," says Wanley, "and of 
 an amorous nature." 
 
 Signer Muzzicato appears to think this statement 
 quite unjustifiable, since there is no authentic descrip- 
 tion of Stradella extant, but it seems, on the whole,
 
 THE ROMANCE OF STRADELLA 281 
 
 a most reasonable deduction. The "Penny Cyclo- 
 pedia's" assertions, which also annoy Signor Muz- 
 zicato intensely, are, it must be admitted, a trifle more 
 visionary: "Stradella was not handsome, but remark- 
 able for his symmetry of form, his wit and polished 
 manners." 
 
 But when a man presents so mysterious and ro- 
 mantic a figure as this long-dead maker of madrigals, 
 a certain poetic license should be permitted anyone 
 who attempts to write of him. After all, since the 
 authorities declare that nothing can be proved con- 
 cerning his life, what could one say about him if for- 
 bidden to use one's imagination? Let us, therefore, 
 assume, by all means, that he was "a comely person, 
 and of an amorous nature," and that, though not 
 strictly handsome, "he was remarkable for the sym- 
 metry of his form, his wit, and polished manners." 
 
 Other statements almost as hopeless to substantiate, 
 according to Signor Muzzicato, are Hawkins's that "he 
 was an exquisite performer on the harp;" Burney's 
 that "he was a great performer on the violin ;" Wan- 
 ley's that "he excelled in an extraordinary hand, so 
 much so as to have been accounted the best organist 
 in Italy;" and Catalani's that "he was a Latin and 
 perhaps also an Italian poet." However, since we 
 are romancing, let us accept them all! 
 
 In any case no one denies that he was a great com- 
 poser, who helped to develop the Cantata, and wrote
 
 282 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 exquisite madrigals, ariettas, and canzonets. He was 
 a realty marvellous lyric-maker, writing the purest 
 and most poetic style of melody imaginable. His 
 madrigal "All* apparir del Sole" is charming, but 
 clings to the old polyphonic methods. It is in his 
 compositions for single voices that his melodic gift is 
 easily seen. Unfortunately we have few authentic 
 songs of his, though we have several which are wrongly 
 attributed to him. 
 
 The "Serenata," a masque or pastorals, though 
 it has been pronounced crude by masters of harmony 
 has a wonderful atmosphere, and a charm quite its 
 own. Rockstro calls it <4 the work that Handel hon- 
 oured by borrowing from it." In this "divertimento" 
 each lover brings a coachful of musicians to serenade 
 the "Dama" whom both love. In the complications 
 that ensue there is some delightful music. ''The Sin- 
 fonia" is rather clattering and disappointing, but the 
 vocal parts are all that could be desired. The deli- 
 cious aria "Amor, amor!" is too long to be given in 
 its entirety, but the "Ite dunque a cercar" at the end 
 of this song is the best of all. It is built upon two 
 lines: 
 
 "Ite dunque cercar dov'e quel core 
 Che s'atterri al di sprezzo o incensi amore. 
 (Go thou therefore and see where waits a humble heart 
 Which doth bend to thy scorn and doth offer incense of 
 love.)"
 
 THE ROMANCE OF STRADELLA 283 
 
 Stradella's music is wonderfully delicate. It sug- 
 gests moonlight and fine-carven traceries on marble. 
 Its warmth, for it is warm now and then, is the 
 warmth of summer-kissed flowers. Note the magical 
 cadence of the "incensi amore" and see if the effect is 
 not actually that of incense. 
 
 But to return to the Romance. 
 
 There was a certain nobleman in Venice named 
 Contarini. He was a man of great influence and high 
 standing, and had a real or a cultivated taste for 
 music. He did all that he could to further the cause 
 of melody in Venice, perhaps because the woman he 
 loved was a singer. Her name was Ortensia (Burney 
 says Hortensia) ; we know her to have been gifted and 
 charming, and believe her to have been beautiful. And 
 Burney says that she was possessed of "many esti- 
 mable qualities." 
 
 Ortensia's voice was a very lovely one, and she had 
 a fair amount of musical education, but her singing 
 had not been perfected to the limit of its possibilities, 
 and she had never reached great heights in her per- 
 formances. 
 
 Now at this time Stradella was what Bourdelot calls 
 "the fashionable musician" of Venice. By what steps 
 he had attained the position has never been told by 
 the romancers. He was then about thirty, and the 
 most brilliant composer of his land and day. Con- 
 tarini had heard him sing and play and knew his com- 
 

 
 284 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 positions. Here, thought the nobleman, was a musician 
 worthy to teach even the wonderful Ortensia whom he 
 adored. He determined that with Stradella and Stra- 
 della alone should she study to perfect her voice. 
 
 He spoke of the matter to Ortensia, and she said 
 that it would give her pleasure to let the young maestro 
 teach her. So Contarini, a violent man, but possessed 
 of a great love for her, was overjoyed to have pleased 
 her, and betook himself away to seek out Stradella. 
 
 Poor Ortensia ! If she might but come back to us, 
 and tell us just how it all happened two centuries ago ! 
 I think she was a typical Venetian, with gold-red hair 
 and sad eyes. For some reason, doubtless because 
 of her terrible death, Ortensia seems a tragic figure. 
 One cannot think of her as laughing or jesting, 
 only leaning on some stone window-ledge and staring 
 wistfully out over the silent canals and blue-washed 
 spaces of Venice : 
 
 "Mid the waves 
 Of the City of Graves." 
 
 She was one upon whom Fate had laid a compelling 
 finger from the beginning, and there was an endless 
 shadow in her eyes. 
 
 Stradella came. The master musician and the 
 singer, both young and both children of Venice, looked 
 into each other's eyes, and with a mutual sense of won- 
 der the singing lessons began.
 
 THE ROMANCE OF STRADELLA 285 
 
 In reference to this situation Bourdelot remarks, 
 naively: "I only say what I know when I speak of 
 the dangers there are in giving young masters to 
 young and beautiful ladies to teach them music. For 
 it must often happen that an amorous song sung very 
 tenderly makes an impression upon the heart of any 
 young person !" 
 
 Burney treats the matter as follows : ". . . Hor- 
 tensia's love for music and admiration for the talents 
 of her instructor, by frequent access soon gave birth 
 to a passion of a different kind, and like Helo'ise, she 
 found that though at first 
 
 " 'Guiltless she gaz'd and listened while he sung, 
 
 While science flow'd seraphic from his tongue, 
 From lips like his the precepts too much move: 
 They music taught, but more, alas! to love.' 
 
 "And accordingly she and her master became mu- 
 tually enamoured of each other." 
 
 And yet, Bourdelot and Burney to the contrary, 
 it was not the music. It was youth, and fate, and 
 Venice ! 
 
 The enchantment of countless centuries hung in 
 impalpable mists above the room where they worked 
 and sang together, the enchantment of the most 
 mystically wonderful city in the world. All the ghosts 
 of dead loves and forgotten passions that had ever 
 burned themselves out beside the Adriatic crowded 
 close with voiceless whispers. How should Stradella
 
 286 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 and Ortensia, thus surrounded with magic, resist the 
 spells that the ancient sages knew no way of breaking? 
 
 Moreover, they were young, and the world was a 
 marvellous place, filled with all manner of joys and 
 glories for two lovers young and strong of heart, 
 who, hand in hand, should go forth to seek them. 
 
 So, one purple and silver night, when the wind stole 
 in with a thrill in its low tone, bearing echoes from 
 the song of the Adriatic, they went away together. 
 Stradella drew the great dark cloak about Ortensia, 
 and covered her hair with its big hood, and helped her 
 into the gondola that was waiting. Then they glided 
 away among the shadows. 
 
 Eastcott says: "It was a fine night." . . . 
 And though Signor Muzzicato may disapprove of the 
 unauthorised statement, no one else will find fault with 
 it. Yes, it was a fine night, even if the stars were 
 obscured, and the rain drenched the hood above Orten- 
 sia's hair. 
 
 Next day they were in Rome. 
 
 When Contarini discovered the flight of the woman 
 he loved with the teacher he had recommended, his rage 
 was supreme, rage against her quite as much as 
 against Stradella. The nobleman had loved Ortensia 
 as much as he could love anyone, but when he knew 
 that she had eloped with another man, his jealous fury 
 engulfed all milder sentiments, and his sole desire was 
 for revenge. Consequently he sent for two ruffians
 
 THE ROMANCE OF STRADELLA 287 
 
 known to be beyond scruples when it was a matter of 
 money. Men called them assassins, or professional 
 murderers. He ordered them to follow Stradella and 
 Ortensia to Rome, where he had found that they had 
 gone, and to kill them both. For this he promised 
 the men one hundred pistoles, fifty to be paid in ad- 
 vance, and their expenses ! The assassins were satis- 
 fied with the terms, and set out for Rome. 
 
 Now it chanced that upon the very night of the 
 cutthroats' arrival in the Eternal City, Stradella was 
 playing his new Oratorio upon the organ of St. John 
 Lateran. The Oratorio was "San Giovanni Battista," 
 a composition in two parts, which is still celebrated. 
 The assassins, in order to gain advantages in the way 
 of time and opportunity, entered the church. And 
 then, according to the historians (or romancers), a 
 wonderful thing happened. 
 
 Stradella sat at the organ playing. There is a 
 legend that he played "Pieta, Signer," the great re- 
 ligious aria which is on sale to-day under his name. 
 But as it has been proved conclusively that he did not 
 even write this song, the legend loses much of its con- 
 vincing quality. It was almost certainly some portion 
 of the "San Giovanni Battista" that worked the 
 miracle. The assassins were overcome, first by amaze- 
 ment, then admiration, then awe, and finally penitence. 
 To kill a man like this, a man who could bring 
 Heaven to earth, and thrill the innermost recesses of
 
 288 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 the soul with indescribable harmonies! Who would 
 dare commit such a crime? The impressive religious 
 atmosphere and the beauty of the music so played upon 
 the emotions of the ruffians that they determined to go 
 to Stradella and tell him the story of their change of 
 heart; and also to warn him of Contarini's blood- 
 thirsty intentions. 
 
 So, when the musician and Ortensia were leaving the 
 church, they were accosted by the two cutthroats, who 
 explained the situation with perfect simplicity. 
 Stradella thanked them for their warning, and he and 
 Ortensia acted upon it promptly. That night they 
 left for Turin. There the laws were known to be very 
 strict and the military organisation most complete, 
 and there was no possibility of escape for any criminal. 
 The two reformed assassins went back to Venice and 
 told Contarini that the fugitive couple had left Rome 
 some days before, and gone to Turin. Incidentally 
 they emphasised the hopelessness of murdering any 
 one there, where the only places beyond the reach of 
 the law were the embassies ! 
 
 But Contarini had by no means abandoned hope yet. 
 He next engaged three new assassins, dismissing the 
 first two, and then went to his friend the Abbe d'Es- 
 trade, French Ambassador to Venice. He told the 
 Abbe that he had three friends, merchants he called 
 them, who wished to go to Turin on business, and 
 he asked d'Estrade to give them letters to the French
 
 THE ROMANCE OF STRADELLA 289 
 
 Ambassador there. The letters were duly forthcom- 
 ing, and the three "merchants" departed for Turin. 
 They presented their letters of introduction, and M. de 
 Villars, the French Ambassador, received them with 
 much courtesy. They had a delightful time, call- 
 ing at the embassy daily, it is said, and meeting 
 numbers of charming people who would have run for 
 their lives if they had guessed the character of the 
 three. 
 
 Meanwhile, Stradella and Ortensia had told their 
 story to the Duchess of Savoy, who was then regent 
 and living in Turin (Filibert says Christine de France, 
 Muzzicato, Jeanne de Nemours ; Bourdelot calls her 
 merely "la Madame Royale" ) . The Regent was much 
 interested, and most apprehensive for their safety. She 
 sent Ortensia to a convent temporarily, for protection, 
 and appointed Stradella her own Maestro di Capella. 
 But even these kind and careful efforts were not 
 enough to protect Stradella. 
 
 One evening, just as it had begun to grow nearly 
 dusk, Stradella was walking on the ramparts of the 
 city. Suddenly the three assassins attacked him, 
 one after the other stabbing him with their daggers. 
 
 Then, as he fell to the ground, they rushed to the 
 house of the French Ambassador, who was forced to 
 extend them shelter. 
 
 As the news spread Turin became frantic. The en- 
 tire town was in an uproar. The Regent ordered the
 
 290 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 city gates to be closed, and sent men-at-arms to find 
 the criminals. 
 
 Stradella was in a critical condition, but there 
 seemed to be a chance for his recovery. The Regent 
 gave orders .that everything possible should be done for 
 him, and indeed proved herself a rare friend in need. 
 
 When the assassins were known to be in the French 
 Embassy she and all Turin demanded of the Ambas- 
 sador that they should be given up to justice. M. de 
 Villars, however, insisted upon protecting them until 
 he could write to Venice and receive explanations from 
 d'Estrade. 
 
 The Abbe wrote finally that he had known nothing 
 of the character of the "merchants" befriended by 
 Contarini, and expressed his indignation that two am- 
 bassadors should have been so tricked. 
 
 Needless to say, M. de Villars harboured the cut- 
 throats no longer, but, as Stradella was recovering, he 
 permitted them to escape from the town. 
 
 When Stradella was well again, the "Madame 
 Royale" arranged a great wedding festival for Or- 
 tensia and him in her own palace, and the sky seemed 
 clear again. 
 
 But though Stradella and his wife loved each other 
 deeply and were very happy together, they both recog- 
 nised the shadowy danger under which they both lived. 
 Wherever they went a sword hung just above their 
 heads. They did not know when it would fall.
 
 THE ROMANCE OF STRADELLA 9l 
 
 Five years after the Turin episode they were in 
 Genoa. Stradella had composed a cantata called "II 
 Barcheggio," in honour of the marriage of Carlo 
 Spinola and Paola Brignole, and had gone to Genoa 
 for the rehearsals. 
 
 One night, it was just before dawn, the instru- 
 ments of Contarini's undying hatred and vengeance 
 broke into the house where Stradella and Ortensia 
 lived, and, creeping to their apartment, stabbed each 
 of them through the heart. Then the murderers fled 
 away through the darkness, and set sail just as dawn 
 was breaking. They were never heard of again. 
 
 Stradella and Ortensia died at one and the same 
 moment, and so began together the journey whereof 
 no man has knowledge. 
 
 There is an old French saying (which Catelani 
 mightily resents) to this effect: "Songs and knife- 
 thrusts keep close company in musical Italy!" 
 
 But no one knows what really happened after all. 
 It is only a romance, you see.
 
 PURCELL, MASTER OF MUSICK
 
 SONG FROM "THE TEMPEST" 
 
 Come nn - to these yel 
 
 low 
 
 sands, and then take hands; Foot it, feat - ly, 
 
 = f i* i*-7JG=gZJ 
 
 1 ' -' 
 
 here and there, and let sweet sprites the 
 
 ^ r* ~=m 
 
 bur - den bear. Hark ! Hark ! The watch-dogs bark ! 
 
 
 Hark ! Hark ! I hear the strains of Chan - ti - cleer !
 
 XV 
 PURCELL, MASTER OF MUSICK 
 
 IF you should walk down Old Pye Street in West- 
 minster, you would come to St. Anne's Lane, and 
 there you would pass three ancient houses of red brick 
 standing in a row, dilapidated monuments to seven- 
 teenth century London. 
 
 At present they are peopled by ghosts only, but in 
 1 658 the inmates were quite alive. Perhaps the ghosts 
 still talk over the old days when "beer and skittles" 
 were something better than memories. The phrase 
 is used in its literal sense, for the first house in the row 
 used to be a tavern, and the second the entrance to the 
 skittle grounds ! The tavern, the back door of which 
 it was that opened onto St. Anne's Lane, was the Sign 
 of the Bell and Fish, kept by Master Oldsworth, and 
 great were the merrymakings within. 'Tis said, in- 
 deed, that Master Oldsworth lost his license because of 
 them ! 
 
 In the third red brick lived one Master Henry Pur- 
 cell, Gentleman, and his wife Elizabeth, the parents 
 of England's greatest musical genius. 
 
 Henry Purcell, the elder, was something of a musi- 
 cian and a good actor, and, as he was one of the Gen-
 
 296 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 tlemen of the Chapel Royal under Charles II., he evi- 
 dently could sing. He was one of those "Gentlemen 
 of Musick," by the bye, who were presented with four 
 yards of "fine scarlet" for a gown to wear at the 
 coronation services. 
 
 Pepys mentions him as a "Master of Musique." 
 
 ". . . After dinner I went back to Westminster 
 Hall. Here I met with Messrs. Lock and Purcell, Mas- 
 ters of Musique, and with them to the coffee-house, into 
 a room next the water, by ourselves, where we spent an 
 hour or two. . . ." 
 
 Matthew Lock was a close friend of the elder Pur- 
 cell (and later of his illustrious son also), and in- 
 deed had acted with him in musical plays. Two years 
 before, Sir William Davenant had taken a room be- 
 hind Rutland House, Aldersgate Street, for private 
 dramatic productions, and there both Purcell and Lock 
 had appeared in "The Siege of Rhodes." 
 
 "Captain Cooke" acted in the same performance, 
 for which he had also composed a portion of the music. 
 The productions of Davenant were attended by the 
 strictest secrecy, of course, stage performances be- 
 ing against Parliamentary laws in those dark and 
 bigoted days. 
 
 Lock was Composer in Ordinary to Charles II., and 
 had written the music for "Ye King's sagbutts and 
 cornets," which accompanied Charles's passage from 
 the Tower to Whitehall at the time of his coronation.
 
 PURCELL, MASTER OF MUSICK 297 
 
 In 1658, Henry Purcell, the composer, was born. 
 
 He could barely have made his advent into the 
 world at an era more utterly in need of a musical 
 genius. During the Puritan sway of the Common- 
 wealth England had been utterly without music. The 
 tale of how musical church services were abolished, 
 all song-books obtainable destroyed, organs hacked to 
 pieces, and musicians and stage-folk practically beg- 
 gared is too well known to need recountal. England 
 had been not only gloomy, cold and fettered during 
 Cromwell's ascendancy, but dumb as well. Organ- 
 builders, indeed nearly all the instrument-makers, 
 had fled the country, theatres were non-existent, and 
 there was not a chorister in all England ! 
 
 Such musical elements as remained had been pre- 
 served by a patient and art-loving few who had waited 
 in faith for the lifting of the darkness and the dawn- 
 ing of the Restoration. 
 
 With the coronation of Charles confusion reigned 
 in the English art-world. It took years to train boys 
 for the choirs, build new organs, and establish new 
 theatrical organisations. So comprehensive had been 
 the work of destruction that the men who had at heart 
 the welfare of the national music were almost in de- 
 spair. 
 
 Moreover, Charles himself was of small assistance 
 in the musical recovery. He had brought with him 
 from exile a love for frivolous songs and light dances,
 
 298 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 and cared very little for genuinely artistic music. 
 Later, however, he admired the singer Gostling so 
 greatly that he gave him a silver egg filled with 
 guineas, remarking that "he had heard that eggs were 
 good for the voice !" 
 
 Altogether music in England was at its lowest ebb 
 when Henry Purcell was born, though it should be 
 added that during the years immediately following the 
 progress made in an artistic direction was magnificent. 
 Though no great genius appeared before Purcell be- 
 gan to compose, the average of ability among these 
 musicians of the Restoration was excellent. 
 
 From his babyhood Henry, or, as everyone called 
 him, Harry Purcell was so wonderful and exquisite a 
 being that he was known to all London as "the Beau- 
 tiful Purcell." Some sketches of him still in existence 
 show his face to have been rarely delicate and sensi- 
 tive, the eyes full of dreams, and the broad forehead 
 a patent of intellectuality. He loved all beautiful 
 things, but especially those which appealed chiefly to 
 his imagination. Lovely as he found the actualities 
 of the green earth, he had even a deeper tenderness for 
 those ethereal creations of his own fancy. Therein we 
 see the manifestation of his superb creative faculty. 
 It seems, in studying his Work, that the entire range 
 of natural emotions was too narrow for its full expres- 
 sion, and that it reverted perforce to the additional 
 opportunities offered by the supernatural. No man
 
 PURCELL, MASTER OF MUSICK 299 
 
 ever heard such elfin melodies, and, having heard, im- 
 prisoned them in his music as did he. As a very tiny 
 child he must have absorbed the essence of fairy-tales 
 as he breathed the air. 
 
 His father had dreams of the boy's becoming a com- 
 poser, and knowing his own health to be in a very 
 fragile condition, appointed his brother Thomas as 
 Harry's guardian. Thomas Purcell also was a singer 
 in the Chapel Royal, and a musician of fairly thorough 
 training. These plans for Harry's education and 
 welfare were not made too soon, for when the child 
 was barely six years old his father died from consump- 
 tion, a tendency to which it is probable that the com- 
 poser inherited. 
 
 So deep was Thomas Purcell's love for his nephew 
 that he always spoke of him as "My son Harry," and 
 was enormously proud of his ability. He was a rarely 
 kindly and generous man, and his one effort was that 
 Harry should have every comfort, advantage and 
 pleasure obtainable ; this in spite of the fact that he 
 was far from rich. The "Gentlemen of his Majestie's 
 Private Musick," as they were called, did not grow 
 affluent. 
 
 Pepys says: "Many of the Musique are ready to 
 starve, they being five years behindhand for their 
 wages." That Thomas Purcell was no exception to 
 these common conditions is shown by the record of a 
 payment made to him in 1672, by the Court Treasurer,
 
 300 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 which reads: ". . . Due for fower yeares and 
 three-quarters ended at Mic'mas." 
 
 The year of his father's death Harry Purcell en- 
 tered the boy's choir of the Chapel Royal. He was 
 just six years old when he thus began his musical 
 career. It is said that at this time he was as beautiful 
 as a small angel, and possessed of a voice in keeping 
 with the image. 
 
 His master was a man who will always be a most in- 
 teresting figure, Captain Cooke, the "Master of the 
 Children of the Chapel." 
 
 Captain Cooke it was, by the bye, who had ap- 
 peared with Matthew Locke and Harry's father in 
 Davenant's secret entertainment in the room back of 
 Rutland House. He was a very good teacher, and 
 several of his pupils besides Purcell won distinction in 
 later years, notably John Blow, William Turner and 
 Pelham Humphrey, the follower of Lully. There is 
 a story to the effect that Humphrey did so much better 
 work than his master that Captain Cooke "died of 
 jealousy in 1672." The date of his death is accurate, 
 but for the cause stated it is difficult for a mere 
 biographer to vouch ! 
 
 Cooke had been a chorister, a student, and finally a 
 teacher, in the Chapel Royal of Charles I. When 
 the Civil War started he gave up singing for fighting, 
 and was a captain in the King's army. A red-hot 
 Royalist, he would have liked to have murdered all the
 
 PURCELL, MASTER OF MUSICK 301 
 
 founders and warders of the Commonwealth, begin- 
 ning with Cromwell, and finishing with the least obnox- 
 ious Puritan citizen ! When Charles II. came to the 
 throne, Cooke's services were recognised by his instal- 
 ment as "Master of the Children." Though he had 
 been a musician before being a soldier, he derived im- 
 mense joy from his military experience, and clung fast 
 to his title of Captain till the day of his death. 
 
 Under him Harry Purcell made such brilliant prog- 
 ress that when he was eleven years old he began to 
 compose. His first effort was characteristically dar- 
 ing. He set to music of a tolerably pretentious charac- 
 ter the address of the children to King Charles on the 
 occasion of the royal birthday. The title, or dedica- 
 tion, of the composition read : 
 
 "The Address of the Children of the Chapel Royal 
 to the King, and to their Master, Captain Cooke, on 
 His Majesty's birthday, A.D. 1670. Composed by 
 Master Purcell, one of the Children of the said 
 Chapel." 
 
 In 1672 Captain Cooke died, and his place in the 
 Chapel Royal was filled by Pelham Humphrey, who 
 was then twenty-five, and almost at the end of his brief 
 but remarkable career. He was Harry PurcelPs master 
 until his own death in 1674, when Harry completed 
 his studies under Dr. Blow, who had been another of 
 Cooke's pupils, and one of the first choristers ever 
 trained after the Restoration.
 
 302 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 Upon Blow's tomb, according to his request, is the 
 inscription : 
 
 "Master to the famous Mr. H. Purcell." 
 
 Purcell studied ceaselessly, although his genius, as 
 has been pointed out by many writers, was of that 
 vivid and inspirational order which appears to require 
 but little rigid education. He has been compared to 
 Mozart in this respect. 
 
 In 1680, when he was twenty -two, so great was 
 his genius and so marvellous his work, that Dr. Blow, 
 then organist of Westminster Abbey, resigned his 
 position in his favour. This post will always be 
 closely associated with Purcell, and until his death re- 
 mained one of the chief sources of pride and happi- 
 ness in his life. 
 
 And so the "Beautiful Purcell" sat at the great 
 Westminster organ, and created giant harmonies, that 
 stormed, and surged, and died away in angelic whis- 
 pers down the echoing cathedral aisles. The visions 
 which must have come to him as he played were surely 
 of things beyond the conception of ordinary mortals. 
 For his were eyes that had been touched by the miracle 
 of divine sight. 
 
 Yet he was delightfully human, so human that 
 some persons, mistaking infectious and genial merri- 
 ment for unseemly levity, and a love for good fellow- 
 ship, for a taste for carousal and dissipation, have
 
 PURCELL, MASTER OF MUSICK 303 
 
 marred his memory with derogatory stories, which 
 seem, luckily, to bear the hall-mark of untruth. 
 
 It was during the year of his appointment as organ- 
 ist to the Abbey that he wrote his famous opera "Dido 
 and JEneas." 
 
 At this time one Mr. Josias Prast, erstwhile theatri- 
 cal dancing-master, was the principal of a "Boarding 
 School for Young Gentlewomen at Chelsey, removed 
 from Leicester Fields. . . ." It was at his school 
 that "Dido" was performed. We read that it was 
 "Given by the young gentlewomen, the words being 
 made by Master Nate [A T aAan] Tate, the music com- 
 posed by Master Henry Purcell. . . . The Epi- 
 logue was spoken by the Lady Dorothy Burke." 
 
 Purcell is reported to have sung one of the roles 
 himself, and that a feminine one ! The accounts of 
 the performance are vague and fragmentary, but the 
 opera-score itself is its own best witness as to its value. 
 In "Dido's Lament" Purcell achieved the task of writ- 
 ing a complete, spontaneous and varied melody, with 
 an unchanging "ground bass" of five bars, and one 
 built upon the chromatic scale at that ! 
 
 The following year, when Purcell was twenty-three, 
 he married. His bride was Frances Peters, the daugh- 
 ter of "Thomas Peters, Gentleman, of St. Clement's 
 Danes." 
 
 We know very little of Frances Purcell, his "love- 
 ing wife," as he calls her in his will, but from certain
 
 304 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 little over-scrupulous observances of her dead hus- 
 band's wishes in after years, we may believe her to have 
 been a woman both of sentiment and principle. Their 
 life was not always happy, for they lost several chil- 
 dren, and met many of the griefs and trials common 
 to the most blessed of human beings, but on the whole 
 it seems to have been a most fortunate and happy mar- 
 riage. The persons who seem to like to make Mistress 
 Purcell out a cross between a ghoul and a murderess 
 fail, happily, to produce testimony for their supposi- 
 tions. 
 
 So far from being the hard and untender woman of 
 these legends, there is evidence to show that Frances 
 Purcell was, in all ways and at all times, the "loveing 
 wife" which her husband termed her. And as the 
 document in which this phrase occurred, and which 
 left all his worldly goods to her, was made out when 
 he was upon his death-bed, the inference seems a fairly 
 definite refutation of the canards circulated against 
 her. Her own tender remembrance of her husband, 
 not only in her well-known dedication of the "Orpheus 
 Britannicus" (a collection of his songs) to Lady Eliza- 
 beth Howard, but in the records of her life, seem to 
 clear his name also from the slanders of the unthink- 
 ing or malicious. 
 
 It is true that Purcell loved gay companionship, 
 good wine, and merrymaking of all kinds. Hogarth 
 says that "he appears to have been gay and good-
 
 PURCELL, MASTER OF MUSICK 305 
 
 humoured and of social habits." He loved to wander 
 about London with those two witty scapegraces, Tom 
 Brown and Tom D'Urfey. Who loved a clever phrase 
 or a keen jest better than Harry Purcell? And who 
 was more welcome at a gathering of congenial souls, 
 whether in an ale-house or the Court of King Charles ? 
 Lock, his father's old friend, loved him dearly, and 
 was never content to spend a merry evening without 
 "Harry." 
 
 "DEAR HARRY (we find him writing) : Some of the 
 Gentlemen of His Majestie's Musick will honour my 
 poor lodgings this evening, and I would have you come 
 and join them; bring with thee, Harry, thy last 
 anthem, and also the canon we tried over together at 
 our last meeting. Thine in all kindness, 
 
 "M. LOCK." 
 
 Tom Brown is too well known a figure in the history 
 of English literature to require much comment. All 
 the word knows the truth of what Hogarth says: 
 "Brown lived in ale-houses and taverns, employing his 
 own ingenuity in baffling his creditors and their emis- 
 saries, the bailiffs; and Purcell, with others who de- 
 lighted in the brilliancy of his conversation, was too 
 often the partaker of his vigils. 
 
 But what could one expect when, in addition to the 
 charm of Tom Brown's personality, there was the
 
 306 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 magic of a place like Cobweb Hall to be taken into 
 consideration? For "Cobweb Hall" was the delicious 
 name of the public-house most frequented by these men 
 of genius. It was kept by one Master Owen Swan, 
 and it stood in Bartholomew Lane. Swan was a vintner 
 possessed of a well-stocked cellar, and the wine, that 
 ran in rivulets of purple-red from dusk till dawning, 
 was of the best. Hour after hour Tom Brown would 
 tell his tales, and crack his jokes, and drink his wine or 
 ale. And Tom D'Urfey, that inexpressibly coarse but 
 inexpressibly amusing and imaginative humourist, 
 would find many a jest with which to touch off the fire 
 of the greater brain. 
 
 And Purcell would listen, keenly alive to the shafts 
 of wit flying about, and put in a word or two now 
 and then, or else fall to dreaming, suddenly penning 
 in his brain the filmy phrases of an elfin melody, or 
 the thrill and dramatic splendour of a "mad song." 
 
 It was such fanciful themes which pleased him best. 
 And never, as a matter of fact, save in "The Tempest" 
 and in Dryden's "King Arthur," did he find such 
 congenial inspiration as in the "mad lyrics" in "The 
 Fool's Preferment." And D'Urfey, the author of 
 "Pills to Purge Melancholy," positively ! wrote it. 
 
 When one knows Purcell's peculiar genius for deal- 
 ing with the fantastic and fanciful, it is easy to see 
 how he was able to compose one of his finest songs 
 upon the following stanzas, supposed, by the bye,
 
 PURCELL, MASTER OF MUSICK 307 
 
 to be sung by a young lover who has gone mad because 
 of his lady's disdain : 
 
 "I'll sail upon the Dog-star, 
 
 And then pursue the morning! 
 I'll chase the Moon till it be noon, 
 But I'll make her leave her Horning. 
 
 "I'll climb the frosty Mountain, 
 
 And there I'll coin the weather; 
 I'll tear the Rainbow from the sky, 
 And tie both ends together. 
 
 "The stars pluck from their orbs, too, 
 
 And crowd them in my budget: 
 And, whether I'm a roaring boy, 
 Let all the nation judge it!" 
 
 "The Fool's Preferment" was written for William 
 Mountford. "He sung a clear counter tenor," says 
 Colley Gibber, "and had a melodious, warbling voice." 
 It was Mountford who interfered with the plot of 
 Lord Mohun and Captain Hill to abduct Anne Brace- 
 girder, the actress, and who subsequently was stabbed 
 to death by way of revenge. 
 
 Purcell was noted for his wonderfully beautiful 
 musical odes to the crowned heads which it was his fate 
 to serve. He wrote quantities of odes for Charles II., 
 and in 1685 he had a new ode of welcome for James II., 
 and another for his coronation. Still later, when 
 James had departed and William and Mary reigned, 
 he composed more and still more odes. With all his
 
 308 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 sincerity and simplicity, one is tempted at times to 
 suspect the making of a very finished courtier in "the 
 Beautiful Purcell !" 
 
 In 1687 Purcell wrote a "March and Quickstep" 
 which have since become famous nearly all over the 
 world. It happened that the Earl of Tyrconnel, a 
 renowned Papist, had just been made Lord Lieutenant 
 of Ireland by James II. In 1688 he was re-nomi- 
 nated. This fact, annoying Lord Wharton, the Irish 
 Viceroy (who for political reasons had desired to see 
 Tyrconnel defeated), he raked up some seemingly 
 doggerel verses with the refrain of "Lilli, lilli, lilli 
 burlero," and set them to Purcell's Quickstep. 
 
 Then he gave the song to the army, who loved it, 
 and improvised fresh verses. Lord Wharton con- 
 trived to insinuate an enormous amount of the neces- 
 sary political feeling into the military ranks through 
 this seemingly innocent channel. 
 
 "Ho, broder Teague, dost hear de decree? 
 (Lilli burlero, bullen a la!)" 
 
 Thus it ran: 
 
 "Dat we shall have a new deputy, 
 (Lilli burlero, bullen a la!) 
 Lero, lero, lilli burlero," etc. 
 
 "Perhaps never," says Bishop Burnet, "had so 
 slight a thing so great an effect." 
 
 For it was successful, oh, decidedly ! "Through
 
 PURCELL, MASTER OF MUSICK 309 
 
 that song," vowed Lord Wharton, "I have sung a de- 
 luded prince out of three kingdoms !" 
 
 Dr. Charles Mackay insists that the refrain of this 
 song was not "doggerel" but an old Celtic phrase. It 
 was partly written by a well-known Irish writer, 
 author of the "Irish Hudibras," and Dr. Mackay finds 
 in its apparently nonsensical syllables the germs of a 
 druidical chant : 
 
 "La! Li Beur! lear-a! Buille na la! (Light! Light on the 
 sea beyond the promontory ! 'Tis the stroke [or dawn] of the 
 morning!)" 
 
 The Quickstep starts off as follows : 
 
 Ho, bioder Teague dost hear de de-cree? Lilli burlero, bullen 
 
 a la! 
 
 Purcell's amazingly prolific gift will not permit the 
 enumeration of his compositions, which comprised 
 songs, operas, church music, and every form of musical 
 effort. His two greatest achievements always will be 
 bones of contention among musicians, for no one can 
 decide which is the greater, the most truly inspired: 
 "The Tempest" or "King Arthur." In a choice of 
 lyrics one hesitates between "Full fathom five" and 
 "Let not a moon-bound elf mislead you ;" and between
 
 810 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 "Come unto these yellow sands" and "Two daughters 
 of this aged stream." 
 
 All have the fanciful, magical quality which dis- 
 closes Purcell at his best. But on the whole it is the 
 "Tempest" music which best stands the test of time 
 and familiarity. The "ding-dong" melody of "Full 
 fathom five" is well known: 
 
 J ' ' J-" 
 
 Full five fathom thy father lies 
 
 The pianissimo chorus, "Sea-nymphs hourly ring 
 his knell," is the most mystical, dream-like thing imagi- 
 nable. 
 
 Many persons insist that "King Arthur" (composed 
 1691) is Purcell's master-work, but melodious and 
 powerful as it is, it lacks the freshness, freedom, and 
 charm of the two famous songs from "The Tempest." 
 
 His anthems and settings of the church services are 
 still used by organists with sufficient artistic percep- 
 tion, and are uniformly beautiful. 
 
 Of his single songs, "I attempt from Love's Sick- 
 ness to fly," is generally considered the greatest. The 
 most dramatic without question, and the most interest- 
 ing (in this Hogarth and many other writers agree) is 
 his celebrated "Mad Bess," sometimes called "Bess 
 of Bedlam." Particularly expressive is the music ac- 
 companying the lines:
 
 PURCELL, MASTER OF MUSICK 311 
 
 "Poor Bess will return to the place whence she came; 
 
 Since the world is so mad she can hope for no cure: 
 For Love's grown a bubble, a shadow, a name, 
 That fools do adore, and wise men endure." 
 
 One day Queen Mary, being in the mood for music, 
 sent for Purcell, Gostling, and Arabella Hunt, the 
 great soprano, she to whom Congreve wrote the ode : 
 "To Mistress Arabella Hunt, singing." Purcell was 
 the accompanist, and, as a matter of courtesy alone, 
 might reasonably have expected to be asked for one 
 of his own compositions, especially as he had written 
 many for Mistress Hunt. To his chagrin and the 
 amusement of the other artists, the Queen's first request 
 was for the popular country ballad, "Cold and 
 raw!" 
 
 The Queen's birthday followed close upon this epi- 
 sode, and Purcell, in setting to music Sir Charles 
 Sedley's ode in honour of the occasion ("Love's God- 
 dess sure was Blind"), built his bass upon the air of 
 "Cold and raw !" So marked was this melody that 
 the Queen could not fail to recognise it, and she was 
 duly surprised. William H. Husk says: "Purcell, 
 nettled at finding a common ballad preferred to his 
 music, but seeing it pleased the Queen, determined that 
 she should hear it again when she least expected 
 it!" 
 
 The story regarding Pur cell's death, which is so 
 irritating to just and rational minds, is that Purcell
 
 312 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 having remained too late at a tavern, one winter night, 
 his wife refused to admit him on his return ; and that 
 he, catching a severe cold from the exposure, died as 
 a result of Mistress Purcell's rigid discipline. Now, 
 putting all other questions aside, it seems incredible 
 that any man of human intelligence would stand 
 meekly on his doorstep until morning freezing to 
 death. Were there, then, no taverns open still ? 
 
 Fortunately almost every modern historian has done 
 his best to explode this monstrous tradition. The 
 probable, if not certain, truth of the matter is that 
 Purcell inherited his father's phthisical tendency, and 
 that some trifling cold during severe weather termi- 
 nated in inflammation of the lungs, and thus death. 
 More space need not be given to the absurd hypothesis 
 accepted for so many years. 
 
 Henry Purcell died at the early age of thirty-seven. 
 What he might have done and been, had death not in- 
 tervened, no man can say. He was one of those 
 prodigious geniuses whose vigour and inspiration are 
 lavished in such abundance that, from sheer cosmic 
 economy, Fate can only permit them a few decades of 
 activity. Whom the gods love die young ; and if ever 
 man bore the insignia of divine approbation it was 
 "the Beautiful Purcell." 
 
 He died on the 21st of November, 1698, upon the 
 eve of the Feast of St. Cecilia, the patron saint of 
 music. Cummings, who better than any one alive,
 
 PURCELL, MASTER OF MUSICK 313 
 
 perhaps, knows the life and work of the great English 
 master, gives the following hypothetical but beauti- 
 ful account of his death: 
 
 ". In a house on the west side of Dean's 
 
 Yard, Westminster, in a darkened chamber, the dying 
 musician was lying on the couch, in full possession of 
 all his faculties, as he himself had just said in his will, 
 but with a thorough knowledge that he was about to 
 pass into the land of shadows. He could possibly hear 
 some faint murmurs of the evensong service wafted 
 from the old Abbey close by, perhaps some well-re- 
 membered phrase of one of his own soul-stirring 
 anthems. The psalm of the day which would be 
 chanted at that evening service concluded with words 
 which he had set to music the world was not likely soon 
 to forget, music which still remains unsurpassed in 
 truthfulness and dignity. A more noble or a more 
 fitting death chant for a child of song it would be 
 difficult to find. 
 
 " ' Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, 
 From everlasting world without end, 
 And let all the people say Amen.'" 
 
 He had written some grave and touching music for 
 Queen Mary's funeral a short time before, and it was 
 this music which was played at his own last service. 
 
 The tombstone, erected by Lady Elizabeth Howard, 
 bears this inscription :
 
 314 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 "Here lies 
 HENHY PUHCELL, Esa., 
 
 Who left this life 
 
 And is gone to that blessed place 
 
 Where only his own harmony can be excelled. 
 
 Obiit 21 mo die Novembris, 
 Anno Aetatis suae 37 mo, 
 Annoque Domine 1695." 
 
 Beneath this is the epitaph beginning "Plaudite, 
 filias suplir tanto hospite," which, translated, runs as 
 follows : 
 
 "Applaud so great a guest, celestial powers, 
 Who now resides with you, but once was ours: 
 Yet let invidious earth no more proclaim 
 Her short-lived favourite and her chiefest fame, 
 Complaining that so prematurely died 
 Good-nature's pleasure and devotion's pride. 
 Died? No! he lives while yonder organs sound, 
 And sacred echoes to the choir rebound."
 
 SONGS OF THE GREAT TERROR
 
 THE MARSEILLAISE 
 
 A -rise, oh, children of the land, ... The day of 
 
 f 
 
 glo - ry lights the 8ky ! Now the com ing ty - rant 
 
 band, 
 
 It's blood-red pen - nons fly, it's 
 
 
 blood-red pen -nons fly! And, hark! how o'er your fields are 
 
 call - ing, The sav - age in - va - ders to - day: The 
 
 U=ta_U 
 
 child you cherish they will slay; All your comrades soon will be 
 
 m 
 
 fall -ing. 
 
 To arms ! The foe is there ! Oh, 
 ^=^=^^g^^H ^4^= 
 
 cit 
 
 i - zens, pre - pare I March on! March on I 
 
 
 And with his blood 
 
 en - rich our meadows fair 1
 
 XVI 
 
 SONGS OF THE GREAT TERROR 
 
 "THE officials note that large numbers of sinister- 
 looking men pass the barriers inwards. . . . The 
 general aspect of the mob changes ; it contains now a 
 quantity of strangers from all parts of the country, 
 mostly in rags and armed with great sticks, whose 
 look is very menacing. . . . Vagabonds, ragged 
 fellows, many almost naked, with appalling faces 
 beings one does not remember to have seen by 
 daylight, a frightful physiognomy, a hideous at- 
 tire. . . ." 
 
 Thus Taine. And so, in a few words, we have a 
 picture of that ominous time just before the dammed- 
 up fury of centuries rose to engulf the existing powers, 
 good and evil alike. "Beings one does not remember 
 to have seen by daylight." Of what deadly signifi- 
 cance is that phrase ! These were the days when the 
 strange and fiendish night-birds might fly in the broad 
 sunlight, when Vice had no need to skulk in alley-ways, 
 and when the spirits of Murder and Madness gloated 
 over the goodly harvest to come. For it was the
 
 318 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 memorable spring of 1794, the beginning of the 
 Great Terror. 
 
 So much has been written of this frightful but ab- 
 sorbing period of French history, that it would be 
 absurd to venture even a casual account of it here. It 
 is not the Revolution with which we have to do so much 
 as its songs, of which there was an amazingly large 
 crop. As in every great national movement, the peo- 
 ple's emotions were poured into music. Find a nation 
 who does not sing its great moments and you will find 
 a dumb people. 
 
 Constant Pierre says that there were nearly three 
 thousand lyrics born of the Revolution. Everyone 
 sang, the nobles and the citizens, the butchers and the 
 butchered, the prisoners and the gaolers. The songs 
 they sang covered the entire range of emotions awak- 
 ened by the Terror, but in each and all one quality 
 predominated, a wild and savage gaiety. There is 
 not a song of this period without a thrill in it. 
 
 Most of them were merely new verses set to old airs, 
 but not only were the tunes chosen of a peculiarly 
 stirring character, but the words written for them were 
 of the sort to galvanise a Gregorian chant into some- 
 thing spirited and electrifying. 
 
 For us the songs have the additional fascination, 
 albeit of a gruesome order, of their terrible associa- 
 tions. No one to-day can hear "La Cannaguole" and 
 "Ca ira" without a mental picture of a crowd of howl-
 
 SONGS OF THE GREAT TERROR 319 
 
 ing, singing savages, carrying on a work of demoniac 
 destruction and brutality, while the heavens rang with 
 these infectious melodies, and with the grimly signifi- 
 cant words: 
 
 "Ah! 9a ira, qa. ira, a ira." 
 
 or 
 
 "Oui, je suis sans culotte, moi!" 
 
 The spirit of the times is truthfully mirrored in the 
 Revolutionary songs, both the savagery of the peo- 
 ple and the debonnair courage of the aristocrats. Some 
 of the lyrics composed by the nobles in prison are of 
 the sort to quicken the pulses for very admiration of 
 such splendid carelessness. 
 
 They sang all the vaudeville melodies and popular 
 songs which they could remember, and then they in- 
 vented new ones. The words of these Royalist lyrics 
 were usually of the order that particularly enraged 
 their gaolers, exhibiting the courtesy, gay spirits and 
 utter indifference to discomforts, dangers and inferior 
 persons, which had so incensed and piqued the Com- 
 munists from the beginning. 
 
 Pierre says that "One made songs about the scanty 
 prison fare; another upon prison life in general." 
 One wrote a poem begging his friends after he had 
 gone to the guillotine, to spill, "instead of tears, a few 
 flagons of Bordeaux !" 
 
 Their verses were full of references to their ap- 
 proaching execution, and to the horrors of the Revo-
 
 320 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 lution, but always treated in a light, reckless and jest- 
 ing vein. Their comments on their situation were in- 
 variably cheerful or ironic, and most of the lines seem 
 sparkling with a feverish and reckless nonchalance. 
 There is hardly a melancholy song among them all. 
 The saddest one known to us was written by a mother 
 whose baby girl was born in prison. 
 
 One of the most renowned Royalist songs was 
 "Pauvre Jacques," by the Marquise de Travenet. 
 Among the composers of these lyrics we find the names : 
 Ducourneau, Coittant, Montjourdain, Duromeau, 
 Ducos, Fontaine, Goujon, etc. 
 
 Among the few songs common to both Royalists and 
 Revolutionists were two airs by Andre Gretry : the first, 
 "Richard, 6 mon roi," from his opera "Richard Coeur 
 de Lion," and the other the melody of a quartet from 
 "Lucile," beginning: 
 
 "Oh peut on etre mieux 
 
 Qu'au sein de sa famille ? 
 (Where could one be better 
 Than in the bosom of one's family?)" 
 
 Both of these melodies were sung at a famous ban- 
 quet at Versailles at the very beginning of the Revo- 
 lution, in 1789, and were immensely popular with the 
 Court. But the Communists picked up both songs, 
 and became particularly fond of "Ou peut on etre 
 mieux qu'au sein de sa famille?" singing it with 
 ferocious irony, while they hacked their way into Roy-
 
 SONGS OF THE GREAT TERROR 321 
 
 alist dwellings. The satire of this use of it is so keen 
 that one wonders to hear of the Sans Culottes having 
 thought of it. 
 
 They also appropriated "Malbrouck s'en va-t-en 
 guerre," though it was closely associated with Marie 
 Antoinette, who sang it often, and with the little Dau- 
 phin, for whom it had been used as a cradle-song by 
 his Picardy nurse. Fitzgerald says that Barras sang 
 "Malbrouck," and Marat also, and that "Charlotte 
 Corday probably knew it by heart." 
 
 But it is their own characteristic songs which we 
 find most interesting for every reason, the three great 
 lyrics of the Terror, "La Carmagnole," "Ca ira," and 
 the "Marseillaise." 
 
 "La Carmagnole" was a dance song, which is said 
 to have come from Provence. Some persons, Gretry 
 among others, believed it to have been a sailor's song 
 originating in Marseilles ; others consider it simply a 
 country dance-air to which patriotic and insurgent 
 verses were set. 
 
 The original stanza, written in August, 1792, was 
 something like this: 
 
 "The cannon's roar begins to sound, 
 Make ready for the battle-ground: 
 
 Now soldiers in the grey, 
 
 And citizens so gay, 
 All dance the Carmagnole; 
 Hark to the roar, hark to the roar! 
 All dance the Carmagnole!
 
 322 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 Hearken once more: 
 The cannon's roar!" 
 
 The stanza invented during the Great Terror, the 
 summer of 1794, was of a different sort : 
 
 "Yes, I'm a Sans Culotte, am I, 
 To vex the Royalists I try; 
 Long live the Marseillaise 
 And Breton laws and ways! 
 Come! Dance the Carmagnole, 
 Hark to the roar, hark to the roar! 
 Come! Dance the Carmagnole; 
 Hearken once more: 
 The cannon's roar!" 
 
 They also set to the "Carmagnole" air the famous 
 verses ridiculing "Madame Veto," as they called Marie 
 Antoinette. 
 
 Louis having enraged the National Assembly by in- 
 sisting upon the reservation of his right to veto any 
 bill which he disliked, the people had nick-named 
 him "Veto." The Queen was called Madame Veto to 
 the last. The first stanza of the poem referring to 
 
 her is: 
 
 "Madame Veto once proudly said 
 That she all Paris would behead. 
 That stroke, though, never falls, 
 Thanks to our cannon-balls. 
 Oh, dance the Carmagnole! 
 Hark to the roar, hark to the roar! 
 Oh, dance the Carmagnole, 
 Hearken once more, 
 The cannon's roar!"
 
 SONGS OF THE GREAT TERROR 323 
 
 The melody begins in this fashion : 
 
 -I* * 
 -g-i-l 
 
 Oui, je - sols sans cu - lot - te, moi, Oui, 
 
 je - sms sans cu - - lot - te. moll 
 
 It was sung, and danced to, and marched to all over 
 Paris, and Royalists shivered when they heard echoing 
 down the street the seemingly innocent refrain which 
 had come to stand for horror incarnate : 
 
 "Dansons la Carmagnole, 
 Vive le son 
 Du cannon !" 
 
 Almost more terrible, in its close association with 
 every step of the Terror, is "Ca ira." This was one 
 of the first songs of the Revolution, and was sung by 
 the Parisian citizens who presented themselves at Ver- 
 sailles in 1789 to demand a hearing. 
 
 Later it became the accompaniment of some of the 
 most hideous deeds of the Red June and July. The 
 following stanzas show the first and last stages of its 
 poetic development, for, of course, verses were added 
 constantly to express the humour of the hour : 
 
 (Sung in 1789): 
 "Ah, ca ira, ca ira, ca ira! 
 Aloud all day everyone repeats it: 
 Ah, ca ira, ca ira, ?a ira ! 
 Though knaves be stubborn we shall succeed!"
 
 324 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 (Sung in 1794): 
 
 "Ah, 9a ira, ca ira, ca ira! 
 Take the proud aristocrats and kill them! 
 Ah, ca ira, ca ira, 9a ira! 
 The aristocrats must all be hanged!" 
 
 The phrase u a ira" is difficult to translate. It 
 means, of course, "That will go," and was intended to 
 express assured and insolent confidence. 
 
 While in America General Lafayette had often 
 heard Benjamin Franklin exclaim, when asked for news 
 of the Continental army: "Ca ira (It will go) !" Gen- 
 eral Lafayette liked the phrase, and one day he re- 
 peated it to Ladre, a street-singer of Paris. Ladre 
 built upon it the first stanzas of the famous Revolu- 
 tionary marching song. 
 
 The melody was a popular air called "Carillon 
 National," which had been composed by Becourt, a 
 drummer in the Opera Orchestra. Poor Queen Marie 
 Antoinette had liked it immensely in the old days ! 
 
 The savage doggedness of the rhythm is eminently 
 in keeping with the words, and the actual tune is most 
 infectious and full of movement: 
 
 etc. 
 
 Ahl c;a - 1 - ra, <;a - 1 - ra, qa - i - ra! A - loud all day. 
 
 There is a certain grim attraction about these gay 
 little songs with their horrible pasts. The fearful joy
 
 SONGS OF THE GREAT TERROR 325 
 
 in horrors which is born of a love for the supremely 
 dramatic, and which lurks in the souls of most of us, 
 responds to the fateful melodies of the "Carmagnole" 
 and "Ca ira." The "Marseillaise," greatest of all 
 Revolutionary songs, has been washed comparatively 
 clean by some years of honest patriotism ; but the other 
 frightful little lyrics have never lost a blood-stain. 
 They remain demoniac and ghoulish, with tinkling 
 laughter on the surface, but the weight of all the guilt 
 in Purgatory on their small souls. It requires but a 
 narrow play of fancy to imagine, when we sing these 
 airs, that secretly they are recalling, with an evil joy, 
 the days and nights of that Red Summer, when the 
 people danced and sang the Carmagnole among the 
 dead and dying, and surged through Paris in terrible, 
 relentless billows of humanity to the tune of "Ca ira." 
 
 Other songs of the Terror were "Le Chant du De- 
 part" (words by Chenier and music by Mehul), "Chant 
 du Retour" and "Chant de Victorie" (also by Mehul), 
 Pere de 1'Univers" (words by Desorgues and music by 
 Gossec), "Cadet Rousselle," "Fanfare la Tulipe," 
 "Recit du Caporal," "Chanson de Roland," etc. 
 
 The Communists were very musical in an unbridled 
 and untrained fashion. They listened with delight to 
 the Opera Comique artists, Chenard, Narbnune, 
 Chateaufort, Valliere, etc., whom they made sing for 
 them until they were exhausted. 
 
 On one occasion they routed out the great master
 
 326 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 Cherubini, who was living in Paris, to satisfy their 
 melodious tastes ! Naumann says : "He was dragged 
 from his house and paraded about the streets by a band 
 of Sans Culotte ruffians, who finally made him provide 
 music for the accompaniment of their orgies. . . ." 
 
 We now come to the "Marseillaise," which is the 
 national hymn of France to-day, rather incongru- 
 ously, considering the circumstances, as Mr. Fitzger- 
 ald has pointed out ! 
 
 The writer of both words and music was Claude 
 Joseph Rouget de Lisle. He came of a Royalist fam- 
 ily, was educated at the Mezieres School of Royal En- 
 gineers, and was a brilliant soldier. 
 
 At the time when the "Marseillaise" was composed, 
 April, 1792, he was first lieutenant in an artillery 
 regiment stationed at Strassburg. He grew very in- 
 timate with the mayor, Baron de Dietrich, a delightful 
 and entertaining Alsatian, and spent much of his time 
 with him and his family. 
 
 On the night of April 24th, de Lisle was dining at 
 the Dietrich house. They were all much excited over 
 the recent commands from Luckner for the troops 
 quartered at Strassburg to join him. In talking the 
 matter over, Dietrich expressed his regret that the men 
 had no patriotic song to sing as they started upon 
 the march. That de Lisle had a decided musical gift 
 was well known to them all, and suddenly the Baron 
 was seized with an inspiration. Madame Ritter de-
 
 SONGS OF THE GREAT TERROR 327 
 
 clares that, owing to the war times, the fare was very 
 meagre, their dinner that night consisting of "a few 
 slices of ham and garrison bread." The Baron, after 
 a rueful glance at the scanty feast, asked Rouget de 
 Lisle if he thought that a bottle of rare Rhine wine 
 could inspire him? And on de Lisle's begging to 
 know what he meant, Dietrich told him that he should 
 have the last bottle of wine in the cellar if he would 
 try to write a patriotic song on the strength of it. 
 De Lisle promised to do his best. "The ladies ap- 
 proved," continues Madame Ritter, "and sent for the 
 last bottle of wine which the house could boast." The 
 wine was drunk with appropriate toasts, and de Lisle 
 went home to his lodgings. 
 
 Then, with the aid of violin and piano, paper, 
 pens and ink, much humming, and many hours of try- 
 ing over and rearranging, he evolved a song. After 
 which, being utterly exhausted, he went to sleep with 
 his head on his desk. Next morning he took what he 
 had written to the Baron. Dietrich was delighted, 
 and arranged to have it sung publicly at an early date. 
 It was sung by several different persons, and created 
 enormous enthusiasm wherever it was heard. But it 
 was only chance which made it the great national song 
 of France. 
 
 A few months after its composition it was sung in 
 Marseilles, by Mireur. So tremendous an effect did it 
 have upon the public that it was impossible to fill the
 
 328 
 
 demands for printed copies. The Volunteers were 
 just leaving Marseilles for their march to Paris, and 
 they adopted it as their chanson de marche. So when 
 the hundreds of new revolutionists entered Paris they 
 were singing Rouget de Lisle's song. 
 
 It began life under the title "A War Song for the 
 Army of the Rhine ; dedicated to the Marechal Luck- 
 ner," but it was soon known as the "Hymn of the 
 Marseillaise," and finally as simply the Marseillaise. 
 
 With its adoption by the Sans Culottes Rouget de 
 Lisle had nothing to do. He was a strict Royalist, 
 and not only was cashiered from the army for refus- 
 ing to subscribe to the Constitutional abolition of the 
 Throne, but was imprisoned twice, and suffered every 
 possible oppression at the hands of the very citizens 
 who sang his composition with so much fervour ! 
 
 Once when he was trying to escape capture among 
 the Jura Mountains, the deadly signal of approach- 
 ing imprisonment and perhaps death was the sound 
 of his own song growing ever louder on the wind ! 
 
 "What do people mean," demanded that uncompro- 
 mising Royalist, his mother, "by associating our 
 name with the Revolutionary hymn those brigands 
 sing?" 
 
 Rouget de Lisle had a hard and unappreciated 
 career, and died in 1830, in the direst poverty ; though 
 at the very end of his life he was made a member of 
 the Legion of Honour.
 
 SONGS OF THE GREAT TERROR 329 
 
 The best translation of the original stanza of the 
 "Marseillaise" was made by John Oxenf ord : 
 
 "Come, children of your country, come: 
 
 New glory dawns upon the world! 
 Our tyrants, rushing to their doom, 
 
 Their crimson standards have unfurled. 
 Already on our plains we hear 
 
 The murmurs of a savage horde, 
 
 They threaten with the murd'rous sword 
 Your comrades and your children dear. 
 Then up and from your ranks 
 
 The hireling foe withstand, 
 March on, march on, his craven blood 
 
 Must fertilise the land!" 
 
 There have been great numbers of stories written 
 about the composition of the "Marseillaise," but the 
 foregoing seems to be better substantiated than the 
 others. It has even been asserted that Rouget de Lisle 
 did not write the song at all. Alexander Boucher, 
 however, who put in the strongest claim of authorship, 
 had not even taken the trouble to have his dates ac- 
 curate; and no one has ever believed his story for a 
 moment. 
 
 With the Thermidor reaction, a new song came into 
 favour, "Le Reveil du Peuple," the words being by 
 Souriquere de Saint Marc, and the music by Pierre 
 Gaveaux, conductor at the Opera. 
 
 It represented the close of the Reign of Terror, and 
 has been called the "Marseillaise of the Thermidor."
 
 330 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 When it was first sung it was interrupted by constant 
 shouts of "Du pain! Du pain! (Bread! Bread!)" 
 one of the early war-cries of the Revolution. But 
 it grew in favour as the violence of public feeling 
 abated. 
 
 The day came when, on the commencement of the 
 "Marseillaise" at the Opera, numbers of persons 
 sprang to their feet crying: "We do not want the 
 'Marseillaise' any longer. Give us the 'Reveil du 
 Peuple' !" 
 
 Thus was the end, like the beginning, of the Great 
 Terror celebrated in song. 
 
 But the "Marseillaise," unlike the other Revolu- 
 tionary airs, was a song born to live. Since it has been 
 accepted as the national anthem of France, it has 
 nobly expiated its early life of lawlessness and crime, 
 and inspired many a noble effort of genuine courage 
 and patriotism. Yet it will always bear about it the 
 haunting memory of those mouths of 1794. 
 
 "It received from the circumstances amid which it 
 arose," wrote Lamartine, "an especial character that 
 renders it at once solemn and sinister ; glory and crime, 
 victory and death, are mingled in its strains." 
 
 It is true that with all its fieriness of inspiration, and 
 its magnificence of patriotic feeling, the "Marseillaise" 
 will never be disassociated in our minds from the 
 great national Tragedy in which it played so dark 
 a part. Beautiful and soul-stirring it is, and full
 
 SONGS OF THE GREAT TERROR 331 
 
 of that strong national spirit which makes for great- 
 ness, but to us, despite our love for it, there will always 
 be an echo of violent voices in its music. There will 
 always come with it a vision of crowded streets and 
 lantern light that too often showed a blur of red on 
 pavement or threshold; or a vision of sunlight flash- 
 ing in the merciful steel of the guillotine, and the 
 jeering countenances of the citizens and citoyennes 
 who had come to see the thing well done; a vision 
 painted in sombre and lurid hues, the red of rage and 
 the black of tragedy, a vision of the mighty, marvel- 
 lous, thrilling pitiless Terror. 
 
 Of all the descriptions of the "Marseillaise" ever 
 written there is none so fine as that of Heinrich Heine. 
 His sensitive appreciation seized upon the vivid qual- 
 ities of the great song, and inspired him with images 
 and phrases such as only he knew how to combine. 
 And this is what he wrote in his own inimitable style, 
 the purest prose extant : 
 
 "A strong joy surges over me as I sit writing! 
 Music resounds under my window, and in the elegiac 
 rage of its large melody I recognise that hymn with 
 which the handsome Barbaroux and his companions 
 once greeted the city of Paris. What a song! It 
 thrills me with fiery delight, it kindles within me the 
 glowing star of enthusiasm and the swift rocket of 
 desire. Swelling, burning torrents of song rush from 
 the heights of freedom, in streams as bold as those
 
 S32 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 with which the Ganges leaps from the heights of the 
 Himalayas! I can write no more, this song intoxi- 
 cates me. Louder and nearer advances the powerful 
 chorus : 
 
 "'Am annes citoyensP"
 
 AN AFTER-WORD
 
 AN AFTER-WORD 
 
 IT has been the author's effort to indicate in the pre- 
 ceding pages the men who have in the most marked 
 degree influenced the development of song. In such an 
 attempt, where personal opinion and taste play so 
 large a part in the choice of composers, a writer is 
 inevitably the recipient of much criticism and censure. 
 This fact leads the author to avail herself of the pres- 
 ent opportunity to state that, in most cases, she has 
 taken pains to substantiate her own judgment by the 
 views of critics and historians whose standpoints can- 
 not be questioned. In regard to such departures as the 
 inclusion among the song-makers such men as Lully, 
 Stradella and John of Fornsete, the author considers 
 that she will require no justification beyond a careful 
 study, first of the works of these composers, and sec- 
 ond, of the lyrical productions immediately following 
 their periods of activity. 
 
 The development of music, and especially of lyric 
 music, has been a matter of such subtle and slow grada- 
 tions that the task of particularising, enumerating, 
 and selecting the dominant factors in the progress, 
 has presented many difficulties. The outline here sub-
 
 336 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 mitted is the result of much research and more consider- 
 ation, but makes no claim nor pretense of covering the 
 ground either adequately or fully. If the sign-posts 
 here pointed out should lead some student into a far 
 more comprehensive and thorough understanding of 
 the history of Song than it has been the author's privi- 
 lege to achieve, the aim and end of this book will have 
 been more than fulfilled. 
 
 It remains only for the author to acknowledge the 
 help which she has received from the following 
 books : 
 
 Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Grove). 
 
 Cyclopaedia of Music and Musicians (Scribner's). 
 
 Biographic Universelle des Musiciens (F. J. Fetis). 
 
 The Encyclopaedias. 
 
 Century Dictionary. 
 
 General History of Music (Dr. Charles Burney). 
 
 General History of Music (John Hawkins). 
 
 History of Music (William Chapell). 
 
 History of Music (Hope). 
 
 History of Music (J. E. Matthews). 
 
 History of Music (George Hogarth). 
 
 History of Music (Emil Naumann). 
 
 Lives of Troubadours (Ida J. Farnell). 
 
 Troubadours and Courts of Love (Rowbotham). 
 
 Troubadours at Home (Justin H. Smith). 
 
 The Troubadours (F. Hueffer). 
 
 Troubadours and Trouveres (H. W. Preston).
 
 AN AFTER-WORD 337 
 
 History of Prover^al Poets (Fauriel. Trans. 
 Adler). 
 
 Anciens Poetes Francois (Fauchet). 
 
 French Literature (Saintsbury). 
 
 Anthology of French Song (Henry Carrington, 
 Dean of Becking). 
 
 Anthologie Francoise (Ed. Meusnier de Querlon). 
 
 Histoire du Chatelain de Coucy (Ed. Crapelet). 
 
 Ancient English Metrical Romances (Joseph Rit- 
 son). 
 
 Memoirs Historiques sur Raoul de Coucy (Jean 
 Benjamin de la Borde). 
 
 Chansons du Chatelain de Coucy (Ed. par Michel 
 et Peme). 
 
 Description du Chateau Coucy (Violett-le-Duc). 
 
 Histoire du Lied (Edouard Scheere). 
 
 Walther von der Vogelweide: two articles in "La 
 Guide Musical" (May de Rudder). 
 
 How Music Developed (W. J. Henderson). 
 
 Music in England (Frederic Louis Ritter). 
 
 Harmonistes du XII. e et XIII. e Siecles (Charles 
 Edmond Coussemaker). 
 
 History of France (Guizot). 
 
 History of France (Crowe). 
 
 Histoire de Navarre (Favy). 
 
 Histoire de Blanche de Castille (Berger). 
 
 CEuvres Completes du Trouvere Adam de La Halle 
 (Charles Edmond Coussemaker).
 
 338 MAKERS OF SONG 
 
 Theatre Frai^ais au Moyen Age (Monmerque et 
 Michel). 
 
 History of Spanish Literature (George Ticknor). 
 
 Recovery of Spain (Henry Edward Watts). 
 
 Study in National Music (Carl Engel). 
 
 Altdeutsches Liederbuch (Boehme). 
 
 Essai sur la Musique Ancienne et Moderne (De la 
 Borde). 
 
 Hungarian Song Album (Ed. Madame Berger Hen- 
 derson). 
 
 Des Bohemiens et de leur Musique en Hongrie 
 (Franz Liszt). 
 
 Essai sur 1'Histoire de la Musique en Italic (Le 
 Comte Gregorie Orlov). 
 
 Music of the Seventeenth Century (C. Hubert H. 
 Parry). 
 
 Lully, Homme d' Affaires (Edmond Radet). 
 
 La Musique Scandinave avant de XIX. e Siecle 
 (article in "Revista Musicale" by Albert Soubies). 
 
 Histoire de la Musique et de ses Effets (Pierre Bour- 
 delot:Ed. Bonnet). 
 
 Delle Opere di Alessandro Stradella (Angelo Cate- 
 lani ) . 
 
 Sketches of Music (Eastcott). 
 
 Supplemente Enthaltend Quellen zu Handel's Wer- 
 ken: No. 3 (Stradella) (Ed. Friedrich Chrys- 
 lander. ) 
 
 Beauties of Purcell (Ed. John Clarke).
 
 AN AFTER-WORD 339 
 
 Purcell, in Series of "Masters in Music." 
 Purcell (William H. Cummings). 
 Stories of Famous Songs (S. J. A. Fitzgerald). 
 Notes sur les Chansons de la periode Revolutionnaire 
 article in "Le Revue Musicale" (Constant Pierre).
 
 ML 
 
 9-fcoo 
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 
 from which it was borrowed. 
 
 THJ 
 
 RET'DJA 
 
 50r/i-3,'68 (H9242s8 > 9482
 
 3 1205 00720 8067 
 
 A 000 639 049 6