COURTS OF LOVE

Italians, rich in money, purchased lands at a vile price, and became powerful in the country of their adoption. Such were the Riquetis of whom Mirabeau was a descendant, the Albertazzis, the Forbinis, and the Fortias. Little is known of their origin, and hence was the source of this secondary nobility of Provence less pure than that of its original aristocracy.

The life of Jeanne of this dynasty, Queen of Jerusalem and Sicily, and Countess of Apulia, Provence and Forcalquier, constitutes a drama in itself. Wedded at seven years of age to her cousin André, son of the King of Hungary, she became enamoured of Louis of Anjou, Prince of Tarenta, and she was aided and abetted in her intrigue by a woman of the people, and called by them "La Catanaise," from her Catalonian origin, and who, in consequence, obtained an undue ascendancy over her mistress. Her husband André was ultimately hung, on the occasion of an insurrection, outside the windows of Caserta. Jeanne was suspected of having been privy to the plot, and her old seneschale “La Catanaise" was among those who were implicated in the murder. Certain it is that after André's death Jeanne wedded the Prince of Tarența, who was held to have been at the head of the regicidal plot. Louis of Hungary raised an army to revenge his brother's murder, and the Neapolitans, under the Prince of Tarenta, fled at the mere sight of the black or mourning banners of the Hungarians. Jeanne took refuge in Provence, where she sold the city of Avignon to the Pope, in order to raise money for the recovery of Naples. This she was enabled to effect with the aid of the galleys of the Marseillois and the chivalry of Provence; and the Prince of Tarenta dying soon after, she wedded "Jaimes" of Aragon in third nuptials. But while enjoying herself at Naples, Provence became a focus of dissension. The cities threw off all jurisdiction; Charles IV. of Germany had himself crowned at Arles; the Duke of Leicester, son of Edward III., subjected the country as far as Nîmes in virtue of the claims derived from Eleonora of Aquitania, while the Duke of Anjou paraded the fleurs-de-lis in other directions. The Provençal chivalry, however, remained true to Jeanne, who had taken a fourth husband in the person of Otho of Brunswick. The marriage had, however, the effect of alienating the affections of many. The popes and the Neapolitans alike viewed the increase of power of the Germans beyond the Alps with great distrust. These bad feelings were increased when Jeanne nominated Louis, Count of Anjou, as her successor. The Pope consecrated Charles Durazzo, whose appointment was supported both by the Neapolitans and the Hungarians. It was in vain that the fleet of Marseilles once more set sail for Naples, Otho of Brunswick was defeated by the Hungarians, and Jeanne fell into the hands of Durazzo, who imprisoned her in the castle of Murano, where, according to some accounts, she was hung out of a window in reprisal for the death suffered by her first husband André, according to others she was stifled between two mattresses. The memory of the fair Jeanne was, notwithstanding her frailty and vindictiveness, held in much veneration in Naples and in Provence. She was a person of great energy as well as of violent passions; she did much to improve the condition of the people as well as of towns, and she always bore herself with magnanimity and fortitude. Leonardo da Vinci has left us a portrait of her person, and there exists another attached to

a charter of the monastery of Saint Victor, which is engraved in Ruffi, and which represents her seated on a throne, or antique arm-chair, with two lions rampant at her feet. The ruins of the château, so called of Queen Jeanne, are still to be seen near Naples, and Dumas makes them the scene of one of the opening chapters of his latest romance "La San Felice."

The Counts of Anjou ruled in Provence from 1382 to 1430, but seldom dwelt there. The dynasty was, Capefigue tells us, as of the race of Franks or Françiots, "deeply detested in Provence. Louis, who succeeded to Jeanne, could not even speak the langue d'Oc. The most distinguished of the race was René of Anjou, Count of Guise, and titular King of Provence. René fought under the Maid of Orleans, was made prisoner by the Count de Vaudemont, became Count of Provence, and, like all his predecessors, aimed, but unsuccessfully, at re-establishing the claims of the dynasty to the throne of Naples. René was most remarkable, however, for his devotion to the fine arts and to literature, as also for his magnificence and taste. He was succeeded at his death by Charles III., Duke of Anjou and Maine, at whose decease, Louis XI., King of France, was recognised as legitimate inheritor of the county, but Provence was not formally annexed to the crown till the time of Charles VIII. Louis XII. still used the title of Count of Provence"last vestiges," says Capefigue, "of a fallen nationality"—" mere formula that survived to political reality in the life of a nation!" The last feudal, communal and municipal liberties were effaced in the time of Louis XIV., and the Revolution, by introducing the system of departmental divisions, extinguished even the name of provincial nationalities; but, says Capefigue, we are still Provençaux: if we wished to deny it, our accent, more patriotic than ourselves, would attest it to all. We may forget the past, our fair countesses and our courts of love, but we cannot accustom ourselves to the livery of the north. Provence is not dead, we feel it by the beating of our hearts, when we perceive the crenelated towers of Avignon, the first stage in the old country!"

It is not a little remarkable that the excessive system of centralisation, adopted by the existing government in France, should be producing its natural fruit in a revival of provincial history, reminiscences, and associations. We observed upon this fact only lately when treating of the so-called "White Terror;" the old nationalities of Provence, Burgundy, Brittany, and others, are weary of being absorbed in the capital. They begin to retrace the chivalry and festivities of their provincial courts of old, to dwell upon their pristine wealth and independence, to exalt their feats of valour and heroism, and to establish comparisons, which the proverb says are always odious, and which in the present case are dangerous to the future peace of the world. Each ruler in his turn knows full well that there is only one way of upholding unity among the provinces, and that is by a foreign war. When the "glory" of France is concerned, Provençals, Burgundians, Brétons, and Gascons are all of one mind.

CURIOSITIES OF INDO-EUROPEAN TRADITION AND FOLK-LORE.*

PUBLIC attention has latterly been attracted to a subject which, but for the patient labours of some distinguished scholars, including the brothers Grimm, would have long since faded away and been lost in the mists of antiquity. Myths belong to that period of the intellectual history of man when the imagination is unceasingly exercised and the reason is undeveloped, when poets may flourish and philosophers are unknown. Dispersed over the length and breadth of the European continent, the myths were altered in compliance with the exigencies of climate and the mental peculiarities of the various races. But nowhere has the alteration been so great as to efface the strong family likeness which pervades the popular tales and traditions which have been transmitted to us as heir-looms from the remotest antiquity. It would not be an uninteresting exercise of the fancy to speculate on the probable changes that may yet be effected in popular traditions and folk-lore when borne by the representatives of the various nationalities to the distant home of the emigrant, and when they shall receive a complexional hue from perhaps the snows of a Canadian winter, or from the vast territories of the Australian continent, unmusical with the warbling of birds, and rich beyond imagination with auriferous treasures. Once the ocean arrested the onward progress of the Indo-European races, checking their spirit of discovery and of conquest. But this barrier has now proved ineffectual, and the migrating spirit which had slumbered for centuries has awakened, and is now operating as vigorously as when the Oriental peoples first swept over the continent of Europe.

The Irish, the Scotch, and the German nationalities may receive special mention relatively to the preservation by them of tradition and folk-lore. With them and the inhabitants of Brittany, have the ancient superstitions lingered longest. They were grave or gay, dark or sprightly, according to the physical aspects of each nation. The wild Highland scenery of Scotland, the imposing solitude and gloom of its glens and rugged mountains, round whose tops the fierce blasts of winter blew with unmitigated violence, desolating the mountain sides, and then dying away in hollow moanings in the numerous caverns, gave a gloomy and solemn colouring to the superstitions of Scotland. Those of Germany were, perhaps, of a lighter character. This is ascribable to the mode in which the physical aspects of their country strike the imagination of the Germans. Their credulity peopled their large and gloomy forests with wild huntsmen and wood-demons. The lofty crag, pinnacled with the ruins of castle or tower, had its legend. Had a gap in a mountain to be accounted for, it was generally spoken of as the work of giants or genii; and who, when in an unbending mood, and as a further exercise of their superhuman strength, would appear to have delighted to hurl a Cyclopean mass of rock to an inconceivable distance, or to carry it to the top of a lofty mountain, and there leave it, as it were a stony gauntlet which the hands of puny men could never hope to take up. Hidden

* Chapman and Hall. 1863.

treasures were entrusted to the guardianship of dwarfs and dragons, that kept watch and ward over their charge in gloomy caverns, which betimes opened and disclosed their riches to some person who had unwittingly fixed a sprig of springwort in his hat, or carried a hazel switch which had been cut at a certain time from a tree which grew in a peculiar situation. Along the banks of the silvery Rhine are well known places where fairies hold their revels.

In Ireland (for we purposely omit England, whose steam monsters have long since eaten up all the English fairies, and outstripped the wildest of her wild huntsmen), superstitions reflected the mercurial character of the people. Alternately merry or sad, the Irishman reverenced the "good people," danced when he could to their music, or, with amazement, beheld them fighting, whilst they flourished their elfish shillelaghs with as much skill as he and his faction would exhibit at pattern or fair. The fates, too, were friendly to him, and gave him warning of the approach of death by the cry of the banshee or the appearance of his second self, the fetch, at the close of evening. Plentifully dispersed throughout Ireland are places reputed sacred to the fairies: the rath, the magic circle in the grass, the pleasant meadow by the streamlet's bank; these, and many other places, are pointed to and regarded with as much reverence as the cell of the hermit, the pillar stone of the saint, the holy well, the waters of which are so medicinal for both body and soul.

With imaginations too deeply and firmly impressed with those things for them ever to be effaced, the emigrants sail for the new country. What changes Indo-European tradition and folk-lore may undergo whilst being suited to the grand and more widely-varied aspects of nature in the New World it is impossible to surmise. We must leave the realms of conjecture for the realms of fact, and return to the shores of our own empire, and there inspect the treasures of tradition which have been lavished with Oriental magnificence. For a long time it was popularly believed that the tales current in Northern Europe had their originals in the myths of ancient Greece and Rome. But as philosophical studies advanced this error was exploded, and a higher antiquity for the tales was proved and claimed. It is a curious fact, that a tale which has been popularly recited throughout the length and breadth of Europe, in the language of each nation, was lately found written on papyrus, within a tomb of ancient Egypt, and can be traced back to a period as remote as the Israelitish captivity under the Pharaohs.

In the introductory chapter of the book before us the author alludes to the common ancestry of European nations, and the common origin of their mythologies:

"It is indisputable that the principal races of Europe who are known in history, as well as the high-caste Hindoos and ancient Persians, all belong to the same stock; and that the common ancestors of this Aryan or Indo-European race once dwelt together in the Upper Opus, now under the dominion of the Khan of Bokhara."

Further investigation of the subject necessarily led to what we have already premised. The study of comparative philology led to the study of comparative mythology, and the result has been most satisfactory and highly interesting. The vocabulary of rude nations is essentially meta

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phorical. Objects which are not familiar receive their names from those which are familiar; hence, as a cloud keeps off the rays of the sun, when a barbarian sees a parasol for the first time, he naturally calls it a cloud. Again:

The sun,

for instance, was a radiant wheel, or a golden bird, or an eye, an egg, or a horse; and it had many other names. At sunrise or sunset, when it appeared to be squatting on the water, it was a frog; and out of this name, at a later period, when the original metaphor was lost sight of, there grew a Sanscrit story, which is found also in German and Gaelic, with a change of gender. The Sanscrit version is that Bhekî (the frog) was a beautiful girl, and that one day, when sitting near a well, she was discovered by a king, who asked her to be his wife. She consented, on condition that he should never show her a drop of water. One day, being tired, she asked the king for water; the king forgot his promise, brought her water, and Bhekî disappeared.'* That is to say the sun disappeared when it touched the water."

We quote the following, which, if not new, may yet be interesting to some of our readers:

"In Northern Europe, the word Arbhus became changed, in conformity with the laws of the Germanic languages, into Albs, Alb, or Alp; plural Elbe, Elfen; English Elf, Elves. The Maruts (spirits of the winds) also survived under the name of Mârt, or Mahr. The English Nightmare French Cauchemar, is one of them, and the whole family formed the retinue of Odin, when he rode abroad as the Wild Huntsman.”

The myth of Prometheus is prettily explained in pages 43, 44. The thief who had stolen fire from heaven, was in reality but the inventor of a fire-kindling instrument. Great must have been the scandal which the people, in their persistence to light fires to celebrate the return of Pagan festivals, gave to the early Christians. But the Church, finding that she could not abolish those heathen customs, took them under her protection, and instead of honouring a Pagan deity they were made to celebrate a Christian saint. The Bealtine season chimed in with the festival of St. John, and the Yul fire was succeeded by the yule log of Christmas. Sanctioned by the Church, those customs were interwoven in the religious habits of the people, and she saw no reason why they should remain Pagans because they chose to celebrate Pagan customs. Besides these, there were other fires lighted occasionally, over which the Church never obtained supervision, They were lighted at rare intervals only; when famine was in the land, disease among the cattle, or an epidemic carried off the people. They were called "need fires," and were produced by friction. The practice of lighting them lingered amongst us until the eighteenth century, and we shall have occasion to notice a singular instance of their revival in the middle of the nineteenth century; nor would we be justified in asserting that a custom, which had been so deeply rooted in the minds of the people, is yet wholly extinct. When the world was in its youth, and its education but commenced, it was popularly believed that the sun was a great fire-wheel, the fires of which were, in the evening, extinguished in the ocean, and, in the morning, were rekindled by friction. Hence, in almost all cases in which the agency of fire inter

* Saturday Review, Feb. 23, 1861.