5. V.
These dear words aroused him from his swoon. He opened
his eyes upon the light, but it was only to close them for ever.
But they had gained all that was precious in that one opening.
The single glance around him, by the dying troubadour, showed
him all that he had sought. Her holy and sweet face was the
first that he beheld. Her eyes smiled encouragement and love.
It was her precious embrace that succored his sinking frame.
These tender offices, let it not be forgotten, were not, in those
days, inconsistent with the purest virtue. The young maiden
was frequently nurse and physician to the stranger knight. She
brought him nourishment and medicine, dressed his wounds, and
scrupled at no act, however delicate, which was supposed necessary
to his recovery. Our countess had been taught to perform
these offices, not merely as acts of duty, but as acts of devotion.
It is probable that a deeper interest in the sufferer before her
gave a warmer solicitude to her ministrations. She had heard
the whole story of our troubadour, and of the influence which
she had possessed in rousing him from his apathy into life, even
though that awakening had been, finally, fatal to life itself.
Of his graces and virtues she knew before, and many were the
admirers who had already taught her how sweet and passionate,
and how purely due to herself, were the songs and sonnets of
Rudel. It was even whispered that their offices were by no
means necessary to her knowledge. There were those who
insisted that there had been some strange spiritual commerce
between the parties, though so many leagues asunder. The
story ran that Geoffrey Rudel had been as much the object of
her dreaming fancies as she had been of his. They said that
while he beheld her in the inspiring vision of the noonday, in
his garden at Blaye, she herself, in a state of prolonged trance
at Tripoli, was conscious of his presence, and of her own interest
in his fate, elsewhere. It is certain that she betrayed no
surprise when she heard his story from mortal lips. She betrayed
no surprise at his coming, and she was among the first
to attend the bedside of the dying man. He felt her presence,
as one, even in sleep, feels the sudden sunshine. He breathed
freely at her approach, as if the flitting soul were entreated back
for a moment, by her charms, to its prison-house of mortality.
She embraced him as he lapsed away, while her eyes, dropping
the biggest tears, were lifted up to heaven in resignation, but
with grief. He, in that mysterious moment, gazed only upon
her. His fading glance was filled with exultation. His hope
was realized. He expired, thrice happy, since he expired in
her arms. The prophetic vision had deceived him in no single
particular. She was one of the first to receive and welcome
him. His reception had been one of state and sympathizing
ceremonial. He beheld, even as he died, the very groups which
his dream had shown him. There were the severe and stately
aspects of the Knights of the Temple — there again were the
humbler Brothers of the Hospital. Princes and barons drew
nigh in armor and resting upon their shields, as at a solemn service;
and he was in the midst, the figure to whom all eyes were
addressed, and she, the nearest to his heart, was also the nearest
to his person. The love and the peace which she had promised
him completed the full consciousness of his exulting spirit.
All these things had really come to pass. But the stately
ceremonial, which his flattering fancies had persuaded him was
his bridal, was in truth his funeral. Dying, thus surrounded,
he felt that it was a bridal also. In the brief communion which
his eyes enjoyed with those of her he loved, he felt that their
souls were united. She said to him, as plainly as eyes could
speak — “The love and the peace thou seekest, shall they not
be thine?” and in this happy faith he yielded up his spirit on
her bosom. He was magnificently buried among the Knights
Templars at Tripoli. Scarcely had this last ceremonial taken
place, when the woman he had so worshipped made a sign,
which seemed to confirm the previous rumors of their strange
spiritual sympathies. Her heart was certainly more deeply
interested in his fate than might well have been the case, had
their mutual souls not communed before. The very day of his
death, she who had lived a princess, in the very eye of pleased
and wondering nations, suddenly retired from the world. She
buried her head, if not her secret, beneath the hood of the
cloister. “They were placed to sleep apart,” says the ancient
chronicle, “but, by the Virgin's grace, they wake together!”
An old Provençal author, whose name is unknown, writes:
“The Viscount Geoffrey Rudel, in passing the seas to visit his
lady, voluntarily died for her sake.” His passion has been
deemed worthy of the recording muse of Petrarch, who says:
“By the aid of sails and oars, Geoffroi Rudel obtained the boon
of death which he desired.” We have furnished the ample
history of this event. In one of the ancient metaphysical discussions
so common in the Courts of Love, during the prevalence
of chivalry, one of the questions proposed for discussion was as
follows: —
“Which contributes most powerfully to inspire love — sentiment
or sight? — the heart or the eyes?”
The case was at once decided in favor of sentiment when the
story of our troubadour was told. Once more, this narrative is
no fiction, though of the purest school of fiction. Its facts are
all to be found in the sober records of a period, when, however,
society was not quite sober.
