We sit down on the parched hill-side by a heap of stones, and let the genius of the place work its spells. And busily it begins to weave as the afternoon light throws its glamour over the grey of rock and ruin, while a little wind comes up from the Crau and plays across the grass.
Raimbaut de Vacqueiras--Guilhelm des Baux--the mere names of these two strong personalities seem almost to summon them to their old haunts. Fancy kindles with this glowing sun and this tremendous scene; the forlorn city begins to stir and breathe, and then suddenly--some distant sounds from below seem strangely like the clatter of horses' hoofs--a twelfth-century cavalcade on its way to the castle!
And there are voices. They come up faintly through the sunshine, the voices of phantom riders who are hastening up the steep incline.
If at this precise moment Guilhelm des Baux and his troubadour friend with their followers are not where they seem to be, that is a mere incident of Time, and what is Time? An unreality, a mode of human thought. And so the insistent sense of the gay procession is not entirely a dream!
Certainly it is insistent! The clatter stops half way at the little _Place_ in front of the church of St. Vincent, and there some of the company appear to go up the hill to the fortress.
One instinctively listens. Are they exchanging parting words or jests with one of their number who stays behind? Perhaps Alazais herself is leaving or entering her prison of a home and the gallant troubadour has knelt to kiss her hand. It would be all in the day's work of those times.
Possibly Raimbaut de Vacqueiras was seriously in love with her. One may be allowed the supposition.
We half shrink from it, however, when it comes to the point, for it would have meant so tragic a story.
If it was not one of the Princes of Les Baux who served up the heart of her troubadour-lover, Guilhelm de Cabestaing,[23] as a dish to his wife, it was quite in their most approved manner.
The luckless wife having, all unconscious, tasted of the dish, her lord informed her what it was and asked her how she liked it.
"I like it so well," she replied, "that henceforth I will taste no other," and she flung herself headlong from the castle window.