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It was no longer the idle baron sighing for his lady-love, but the songs of a nation of hardy warriors, celebrating the prowess of their ancestors with all the exaggerations that fancy could supply. The Langue d'oui became the vehicle of literature only in the twelfth century, a hundred years subsequent to the Romance Provencal.
The Provencal was called the Langue d'oc, and the Wallon the Langue d'oui, from the affirmative word in each language, as the Italian was then called the Langue de si, and the German the Langue de ya. The invasion of the Normans, in the tenth century, supplied new elements to the Romance Wallon. They adopted it as their language, and stamped upon it the impress of their own genius.
Its poetry, which differed from the love chansons of the South, was the song of brave warriors, recounting the heroic deeds of their ancestors. The Langue d'oui, as this Northern speech was called, became, in the twelfth century, the universal medium of literature.
The priest being English, was hardly more easily understood than his flock; and her lady spoke little but langue d'oui, the Northern French, which was as little serviceable in dealing with her Spanish and Provencal as with the rude West-Saxon- English.
The Langue d'oui was, from its origin, deficient in that rhythm which exists in the Italian and Spanish languages. It was formed rather by an abbreviation than by a harmonious transformation of the Latin, and the metrical character of the language was gradually lost.
Eustacie was saved from hearing the gossip by her ignorance of the Provencal, which was the only languages of all but the highest and most cultivated classes, the hostess had very little langue d'oui, and never ventured on any complicated discourse; and Isaac Gardon, who could speak both the oc and oui, was not a person whom it was easy to beset with mere hearsay or petty remonstrance, but enough reached him at last to make him one day say mildly, 'My dear child, might not the little one dispense with her ribbon while we are here?
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