Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/44

CHAPTER II

LE GAI SABER

The formation of the Provençal tongue—Vernacular ballads and songs: brought into church—Recitative and formal music—Rhythmic music of the people: traces of it in ancient times: S. Ambrose writes hymns to it—People sing folk-songs in church—Hymns composed to folk-airs—The language made literary by the Troubadours—Position of women—The ideal love—Ideal love and marriage could not co-exist—William de Balaun—Geofrey Rudel—Poem of Pierre de Barjac—Boccaccio scouts the Chivalric and Troubadour ideals.

WHAT the language of the Ligurians was we do not know. Among them came the Phoenicians, then the Greeks, next the Romans. The Roman soldiery and slaves and commercials did not talk the stilted Latin of Cicero, but a simple vernacular. Next came the Visigoths and the Saracens. What a jumble of peoples and tongues! And out of these tongues fused together the Langue d'oc was evolved.

It is remarkable how readily some subjugated peoples acquire the language of their conquerors. The Gauls came to speak Latin. The Welsh—the bulk of the population was not British at all; dark-haired and dark-eyed, they were conquered by the Cymri and adopted their tongue. So in Provence, although there is a strong strain of Ligurian blood, the Ligurian tongue is gone

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