University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

“Thou wilt mock me no more!” he muttered fiercely, as he
half rose from the body now stiffening fast. But his fierce vengeance
was by no means completed. As if a new suggestion
had seized upon his mind, while his hand rested upon the heart
of the troubadour, he suddenly started and tore away the garments
from the unconscious bosom. Once more he struck it
deeply with the keen and heavy blade. In a few moments he
had laid it open. Then he plunged his naked hand into the
gaping wound, and tore out the still quivering heart. This he
wrapped up with care and concealed in his garments. With another
stroke he smote the head from the body, and this he also
concealed, in fragments of dress torn from the person of his victim.
With these proofs of his terrible revenge, he made his way, under
cover of the dusk, in secret to the castle. What remains to be
told is still more dreadful — beyond belief, indeed, were it not that

the sources of our history are wholly above discredit or denial.
The cruel baron, ordering his cook into his presence, then gave
the heart of the troubadour into his keeping, with instructions to
dress it richly, and after a manner of dressing certain favorite
portions of venison, of which Marguerite was known to be particularly
fond. The dish was a subject of special solicitude with
her husband. He himself superintended the preparation, and
furnished the spices. That night, he being her only companion
at the feast, it was served up to his wife, at the usual time of
supper. He had assiduously subdued every vestige of anger,
unkindness, or suspicion, from his countenance. Marguerite was
suffered to hear and see nothing which might provoke her apprehensions
or arrest her appetite. She was more than usually
serene and cheerful, as, that day and evening, her lord was
more than commonly indulgent. He, too, could play a part
when it suited him to do so; and, like most men of stern will
and great experience, could adapt his moods and manners to that
livelier cast, and more pliant temper, which better persuade the
feminine heart into confidence and pleasure. He smiled upon
her now with the most benevolent sweetness; but while he earnestly
encouraged her to partake of the favorite repast which she
so much preferred, he himself might be seen to eat of any other
dish. The wretched woman, totally unsuspicious of guile or evil,
undreaming of disaster, and really conscious of but little self-reproach,
ate freely of the precious meat which had been placed
before her. The eyes of Raymond greedily followed every
morsel which she carried to her lips. She evidently enjoyed the
food which had been spiced for her benefit, and as she continued
to draw upon it, he could no longer forbear to unfold the exultation
which he felt at the entire satisfaction of his vengeance.

“You seem very much to like your meats to-night, Marguerite.
Do you find them good?”

“Verily,” she answered, “this venison is really delicious.”

“Eat then,” he continued, “I have had it dressed purposely
for you. You ought to like it. It is a dish of which you have
always shown yourself very fond.”

“Nay, my lord, but you surely err. I can not think that I
have ever eaten before of anything so very delicious as this.”

“Nay, nay, Marguerite, it is you that err. I know that the

meat of which you now partake, is one which you have always
found the sweetest.”

There was something now in the voice of the speaker that
made Marguerite look up. Her eyes immediately met his own
and the wolfish exultation which they betrayed confounded
and made her shudder. She felt at once terrified with a nameless
fear. There was a sudden sickness and sinking of her heart.
She felt that there was a terrible meaning, a dreadful mystery
in his looks and words, the solution of which she shrunk from
with a vague but absorbing terror. She was too well acquainted
with the sinister expression of that glance. She rallied herself
to speak.

“What is it that you mean, my lord? Something dreadful!
What have you done? This food —”

“Ay, this food! I can very well understand that you should
find it delicious. It is such as you have always loved a little
too much. It is but natural that you should relish, now that it
is dead, that which you so passionately enjoyed while living.
Marguerite, the meat of that dish which you have eaten was
once the heart of Guillaume de Cabestaign!”

The lips of the wretched woman parted spasmodically. Her
jaws seemed to stretch asunder. Her eyes dilated in a horror
akin to madness. Her arms were stretched out and forward.
She half rose from the table, which she at length seized upon
for her support.

“No!” she exclaimed, hoarsely, at length. “No! no! It is
not true. It is not possible. I will not — I dare not believe it.”

“You shall have a witness, Marguerite! You shall hear it
from one whom, heretofore, you have believed always, and who
will find it impossible now to lie. Behold! This is the head
of him whose heart you have eaten!”

With these dreadful words, the cruel baron raised the ghastly
head of the troubadour, which he had hitherto concealed beneath
the table, and which he now placed upon it. At this horrible
spectacle the wretched woman sunk down in a swoon, from
which, however, she awakened but too quickly. The wan and
bloody aspect of her lover, the eyes glazed in death but full
still of the tenderest expression, met her gaze as it opened upon
the light. The savage lord who had achieved the horrid butchery

stood erect, and pointing at the spectacle of terror. His
scornful and demoniac glance — the horrid cruelty of which he
continued to boast — her conscious innocence and that of her
lover — her complete and deep despair — all conspired to arm
her soul with courage which she had never felt till now. In the
ruin of her heart she had grown reckless of her life. Her eye
confronted the murderer.

“Be it so!” she exclaimed. “As I have eaten of meat so
precious, it fits not that inferior food should ever again pass
these lips! This is the last supper which I shall taste on earth!”

“What! dare you thus shamelessly avow to me your passion?”

“Ay! as God who beholds us knows, never did woman more
passionately and truly love mortal man, than did Marguerite of
Roussillon the pure and noble Guillaume de Cabestaign. It is
true? I fear not to say it now! Now, indeed, I am his only,
and for ever!”

Transported with fury at what he heard, Raymond drew his
dagger, and rushed to where she stood. But she did not await
his weapon. Anticipating his wrath, she darted headlong through
a door which opened upon a balcony, over the balustrade of
which, with a second effort, she flung herself into the court below.
All this was the work of but one impulse and of a single
instant. Raymond reached the balcony as the delicate frame
of the beautiful woman was crushed upon the flag-stones of the
court. Life had utterly departed when they raised her from the
ground!

This terrible catastrophe struck society everywhere with consternation.
At a season, when not only chivalry, but the church,
gave its most absolute sanction to the existence and encouragement
of that strange conventional love which we have sought to
describe, the crime of Raymond provoked a universal horror.
Love, artificial and sentimental rather than passionate, was the
soul equally of military achievement and of aristocratic society.
It was then of vast importance, as an element of power, in the
use of religious enthusiasm. The shock given to those who
cherished this sentiment, by this dreadful history, was felt to all
the extremities of the social circle. The friends and kindred of
these lovers — the princes and princesses of the land — noble
lords, knights and ladies, all combined, as by a common impusle,

to denounce and to destroy the bloody-minded criminal. Alphonso,
king of Arragon, devoted himself to the work of justice.
Raymond was seized and cast into a dungeon. His castle was
razed to the ground, under a public decree, which scarcely anticipated
the eager rage of hundreds who rushed to the work of
demolition. The criminal himself was suffered to live; but he
lived, either in prison or in exile, with loss of caste and society
and amidst universal detestation!

Very different was the fate of the lovers whom man could no
more harm or separate. They were honored, under the sanction
of Alphonso, with a gorgeous funeral procession. They
were laid together, in the same tomb, before the church of Per
pignan, and their names and cruel history were duly engraven
upon the stone raised to their memory. According to the Provençal
historians, it was afterward a custom with the knights of
Roussillon, of Cerdagne, and of Narbonnois, every year to join
with the noble dames and ladies of the same places, in a solemn
service, in memory of Marguerite of Roussillon, and William of
Cabestaign. At the same time came lovers of both sexes, on a
pilgrimage to their tomb, where they prayed for the repose of
their souls. The anniversary of this service was instituted by
Alphonso. We may add that romance has more than once
seized upon this tragic history, out of which to weave her fictions.
Boccacio has found in it the material for one of the stories
of the Decameron, in which, however, while perverting history,
he has done but little to merit the gratulation of Art. He has
failed equally to do justice to himself, and to his melancholy
subject.