ets, though chants and canticles would
have better beseemed a churchman.

The pleasance was all abloom with flowers, for the month was May, but
the ladies in their gauzy robes of delicate rainbow hues were lovelier
far than the favourites of Flora.

Eleanor having announced the terms of the contest, she and her three
sisters displayed the flowers which they had chosen as themes for the
controversy, and the challengers drew lots for order of precedence, with
the result that Barral des Baux came first, Aldobrandino second, Raymond
of Toulouse third, and Richard last.

Barral had composed and committed to memory a _sirvente_ or song of
battle which he proposed to write out, paper and quill being permitted
him in deference to his broken jaw. Great was his discomfiture to find
that it fitted not to the theme prescribed, but he cut his cloth to the
new pattern to the best of his ability. He retained the most effective
portions of his poem, its high-sounding phrases, and picturesque
descriptions of marshalling knights, the very category of whose arms,
plumed helms, hauberks, blazoned shields, flaunting pennons, inlaid
gauntlets, cross-hiked swords, golden spurs, and caparisoned steeds was
in itself a pageant. True he gave these champions as a motive for their
deeds of high emprise the demonstration of the supremacy of the
differing and rival charms of the four sisters as typified by the
flowers they affected; but he implied too plainly that those of the
peach-bloom were alone worthy of such contention. Himself he figured as
her accepted knight, hacking, slaying, scaling fortresses, pillaging,
burning, putting to torture or ransoming prisoners, and scorning with
brutal insults her sisters' flowers. This _sirvente_ which was
apparently composed during a brief interval during which the jongleurs
amused the company, was read in a sonorous voice by Archbishop Boniface.
But had Barral's desire been to antagonise all the daughters of Raymond
Berenger he could not better have succeeded, and when the Archbishop
took his seat a glance at the face of Queen Eleanor told des Baux that
he had lost the prize.

Aldobrandino was no more fortunate. He cast his poem in the form of a
_serena_ or night song, and spoke sadly and sentimentally of the evening
of old age, dusky and drear, and of that night of death which he saw
approaching. Strangely enough, he made no plea for present happiness,
but begged the flowers, or their ladies, to drop te