he end was near. One day, Guillem was summoned from the palace
into the dark wood by his master, but when Raimon returned Guillem did
not come with him; in his stead was a servant, who carried something
concealed beneath his cloak. After the dinner, which had been attended
with constant jest and laughter, Raimon informed his wife that she had
just eaten the heart of the luckless troubadour! Summoning her words
with a quick self-control, the Lady Margarida vowed that never after
would she taste of meat, whereat Raimon grew red with rage and sought to
take her life. But she fled quickly to a high tower and threw herself
down to death. That is the tragedy, but this fidelity in death received
its reward; for when the king heard the tale, and who did not, as it was
soon spread abroad, Raimon was stripped of all his possessions and
thrown into a dungeon, while lover and lady were buried together at the
church door at Perpignan, and a yearly festival was ordained in their
honor.

For many hundreds of years after the decay of all this brilliant life in
southern France, the statement was repeated that courts of love had been
organized in gay Provence, which were described as assemblies of
beautiful women, sitting in judgment on guilty lovers and deciding
amorous questions, but the relentless search of the modern scholar has
proved beyond a doubt that no such courts ever existed. A certain code
of love there was most certainly, of which the troubadours sang, and
whose regulations were matters of general conduct as inspired by the
spirit of courtesy and gallantry which was current at the time, and very
often were questions relating to the tender passion discussed _in
extenso_ by the fairest ladies of the south, but more than that cannot
be said with truth. The fiction is a pretty one, and among those who are
said to have presided at these amorous tribunals are Queen Eleanor, the
Countess of Narbonne, and the Countess of Champagne, and Richard Coeur
de Lion has even been mentioned in this capacity. The courts were held
at Pierrefeu, Digne, and Avignon according to tradition, women alone
could act as judges, and appeals might be made from one court to
another. This tradition but goes to show that after the decay of the
Provencal civilization, its various ideas and ideals were drawn up into
formal documents, that the spirit of the age might be preserved, and
they in turn were taken by following generations in good faith as
coexistent