tolerant shrug, knowing "their doctrine could be held of no sane man."

* * * * *

APRIL 30, 1293--MAY 1, 1323

"_Pus vezem de novelh florir pratz, e vergiers reverdezir rius e fontanas
esclarzir, ben deu quascus lo joy jauzir don es jauzens_."


It would in ordinary circumstances be my endeavor to tell you, first of
all, just whom the following tale concerns. Yet to do this is not
expedient, since any such attempt could not but revive the question as to
whose son was Florian de Puysange?

No gain is to be had by resuscitating the mouldy scandal: and, indeed,
it does not matter a button, nowadays, that in Poictesme, toward the end
of the thirteenth century, there were elderly persons who considered the
young Vicomte de Puysange to exhibit an indiscreet resemblance to Jurgen
the pawnbroker. In the wild youth of Jurgen, when Jurgen was a
practising poet (declared these persons), Jurgen had been very intimate
with the former Vicomte de Puysange, now dead, for the two men had much
in common. Oh, a great deal more in common, said these gossips, than the
poor vicomte ever suspected, as you can see for yourself. That was the
extent of the scandal, now happily forgotten, which we must at outset
agree to ignore.

All this was in Poictesme, whither the young vicomte had come a-wooing
the oldest daughter of the Comte de la Foret. The whispering and the
nods did not much trouble Messire Jurgen, who merely observed that he