ar, Provence was filled with rich and populous
cities, brilliant feudal courts abounded, and noble lords and ladies not
only encouraged song and poetry, but strove to become proficient in the
_gay science_, as it was called, for their own diversion.

Under such conditions, it is not surprising to find that women occupy no
unimportant place in society and that their influence is far-reaching.
Love and its pursuit were the chief concern of the upper classes; and it
was but natural, when the intellectual condition of the time and its
many limitations are taken into consideration. What was there to
consume the leisure hours in that far-away time? There were no books,
there were no newspapers, as there are now, accurate knowledge was
impossible in scientific study, there was no theatre or opera--in short,
there were none of the things which form the usual means of relaxation
and amusement to-day; and so, as a matter of course, yielding to a most
human instinct, the tender passion became an all-absorbing topic, and
served without exception as the inspiration for poetic endeavor. Love
they could know and feel, and of it could they sing with understanding,
because they felt it to be real and personal, and subjectively true at
least. Of the great external world, however, their knowledge was
exceedingly crude; and the facts in nature had become so strangely
distorted, through centuries of ignorance and superstition, that the
solemnly pronounced verities of the time were but a burlesque upon the
truth. Belief in the existence of the antipodes was considered by
ecclesiastical authority as a sure proof of heresy, the philosopher's
stone had been found, astrology was an infallible science, and the air
was filled with demons who were ever waiting for an opportunity to steal
away man's immortal soul. Geography did not exist except in fancy;
history could be summed up in the three magic words, Troy, Greece, and
Rome; and the general notions current regarding the world and its
formation were fantastic in the extreme. In the realm of natural history
wondrous facts had come to light, and it was averred that a stag lived
to an age of nine hundred years; that a dove contemplated herself with
her right eye and God with her left; that the cockatrice kills animals
by breathing upon them; that a viper fears to gaze upon a naked man;
that the nature of the wolf is such that if the man sees him first, the
wolf is deprived of force and vigor, but if