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Bernart de Ventadour is even smaller than Guiraut de Bornelh by a thumb's length; but he had a servant for his father who shot well with the long bow while his mother tended the furnace." The satiric sirventes soon found imitators: the Monk of Montaudon produced a similar composition. Like many other troubadours, Peire ended his life in a monastery.
But a hand was laid soothingly upon his shoulder, and that told him. He took heart to whisper that he had a mother in Paris. "I will write to her," said Montaudon. "She will be proud when she receives the letter." Then Lieutenant Fevrier, being French, took the General's hand and kissed it, and the General, being French, felt his throat fill with tears.
The Monk of Montaudon in his satirical sirventes says of Arnaut: "He has sung nothing all his life, except a few foolish verses which no one understands"; and we may reasonably suppose that Arnaut's poetry was as obscure to many of his contemporaries as it is to us.
The Monk of Montaudon, Peire Raimon of Toulouse, Uc de San Circ, Uc Brunet and other troubadours of less importance also enjoyed Alfonso's patronage. Guiraut de Bornelh sent a poem to the Catalonian court in terms which seemed to show that the simple style of poetry was there preferred to complicated obscurities.
General Jarras was writing at a table when Fevrier was admitted to his office. The Chief of the Staff inclined his lamp-shade so that the light fell full upon Fevrier's face, and the action caused the lieutenant to rejoice. So much care in the choice of the officer meant so much more important a duty. "The General Montaudon tells me," said Jarras, "that you are an obedient soldier."
And he ran and stumbled and fell and picked himself up and ran again until he reached the Belletonge farm. "The General," he cried, and so to the General a mud-plastered figure with a white, tormented face was admitted. "What is it?" asked Montaudon. "What will this say?" Lieutenant Fevrier stood with the palms of his hands extended, speechless like an animal in pain.
The Lieutenant hurried thither, for the Belletonge farm opposite the woods of Colombey was the headquarters of the General of his division. "I have been instructed," said General Montaudon, "to select an officer for a special duty. I have selected you."
Thus the troubadour ranks included all sorts and conditions of men; monks and churchmen were to be found among them, such as the monk of Montaudon and Peire Cardenal, though the Church looked somewhat askance upon the profession. Women are also numbered among the troubadours; Beatrice, the Countess of Die, is the most famous of these.
He heard the lamentations of his friends, and the firing of the platoon. He saw General Montaudon in tears. He was shaken with emotion. But Jarras's next words fell upon him like cold water. "You will parade your fifty men unarmed. You will march out of the lines, and to-morrow morning as soon as it is light enough for the Prussians to see you come unarmed you will desert to them.
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