ful
of family ties, so that we may charitably suppose that she did the best
she could for the ruined Raymond. We do not know that she assisted at
his humiliation,--barefooted, and in his shirt, he was led to the door
of Notre Dame and made to swear absolute submission to the Church--but
we cannot go wrong in assuming that some of the wise provisions of the
treaty of Paris were of her suggesting. The provisions were very wise
indeed, securing to the French crown almost everything that could be
hoped; in our wildest moments of enthusiasm, however, we could not
accuse Blanche of having tempered policy with mercy. As a summary of the
situation, we may state that Raymond contracted to' surrender to Louis
Beaucaire, Nimes, Carcassonne, and Beziers, with other territories on
the Mediterranean to the west of the Rhone; that Toulouse and its
territory must revert to his daughter Jeanne, who was to be espoused by
one of the brothers of Louis IX.; that the dominions remaining to him
should also revert to Jeanne, in failure of other heirs of his body.
Failing heirs of Jeanne, the domains acquired as her dower were to
revert to the crown of France. More complete ruin for Raymond could
hardly have been compassed. It was the end of Provence both as a
political and an artistic entity.

We have alluded several times to the famous Thibaud IV., called _Le
Chansonnier_, Count of Champagne. His relations with Blanche of Castille
are matter both of history and of legend; it behooves us to try to sift
the one from the other and to present some account of the loves of
Blanche and Thibaud.

Thibaud's mother, Blanche de Navarre, Countess of Champagne, had to play
a role not unlike that of her cousin Blanche de Castille; she acted as
regent in the name of her son, and it was due to her good management
that he was allowed to inherit his patrimony. This was surely an age of
woman, with Berengere ruling in Castille, Queen Blanche in France, and
another Blanche, of the same family, in Champagne. Thibaud was of a
gallant temperament, priding himself upon his knightly accomplishments,
but not less upon his talent as a poet; for he was one of those
imitators of the troubadours whom we might almost class with the
troubadours themselves. Of his gifts as a poet we shall not speak here;
in the histories of French literature will be found the record of many
of his chansons. As a man, it is altogether probable that Thibaud did
not suffer from an over-scrupu