especially to a horrible picture representing the famous
Clemence Isaure, the reputed foundress of the poetical
contest, presiding on one of these occasions. I won-
dered whether Clemence Isaure had been anything
like this terrible Toulousaine of to-day, who would
have been a capital figure-head for a floral game.
The lady in whose honor the picture I have just men-
tioned was painted is a somewhat mythical personage,
and she is not to be found in the "Biographie Uni-
verselle." She is, however, a very graceful myth; and
if she never existed, her statue does, at least, - a
shapeless effigy, transferred to the Capitol from the
so-called tomb of Clemence in the old church of La
Daurade. The great hall in which the Floral Games
are held was encumbered with scaffoldings, and I
was unable to admire the long series of busts of the
bards who have won prizes and the portraits of all
the capitouls of Toulouse. As a compensation I was
introduced to a big bookcase, filled with the poems
that have been crowned since the days of the trou-
badours (a portentous collection), and the big butcher's
knife with which, according to the legend, Henry,
Duke of Montmorency, who had conspired against the
great cardinal with Gaston of Orleans and Mary de ??????
Medici, was, in 1632, beheaded on this spot by the
order of Richelieu. With these objects the interest of
the Capitol was exhausted. The building, indeed,
has not the grandeur of its name, which is a sort
of promise that the visitor will find some sensible
embodiment of the old Roman tradition that once