A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Isaure, Clemence, or Clemenza
ISAURE, CLEMENCE, or CLEMENZA,
A lady of Toulouse, in France, celebrated for her learning. She instituted the Jeux Floraux, or Floral Games, in that city, where prizes were bestowed on the successful poetical competitors. She was born in 1464, and was the daughter of Ludovico Isaure, who died when Clemence was only five years old.
Some years afterwards the romance of her life began. Near her garden dwelt Raoul, a young troubadour, who fell in love with her for her genius and beauty, and communicated his passion in songs in which her name and his were united. The maiden replied with flowers, whose meaning Raoul could easily interpret. He was the natural son of Count Raymond, of Toulouse, and followed his father to the war against the Emperor Maximilian. In the battle of Guigenaste both were slain, and Clemence resolved to take the veil. Before doing so, however, she renewed the poetic festival which had been established by the gay company of the seven troubadours, but had been lone forgotten, and assigned as prizes for the victors the five different flowers, wrought in gold and silver, with which she had replied to her lover's passion. She fixed on the first of May as the day for the distribution of the prizes; and she herself composed an ode on spring for the occasion, which acquired for her the surname of the Sappho of Toulouse. Her character was tinged with melancholy, which the loss of her lover probably heightened; and her poems partake of this plaintive style. Her works were printed at Toulouse in 1506. They remained a long time in oblivion, and perhaps never would have seen the light but for the fortunate discovery of M. Alexandre Dumenge. There are extant two copies of this precious volume, which is entitled "Dictats de Dona Clamenza Isaure;" it consists of cantos or odes; the principal and most finished is called "Plainte d'Amour."
The queen of poetry, as her contemporaries entitled her, died in the first year of the great reign of Frances the First and Leo the Tenth. Her mortal remains were deposited in the choir of the church of Notre Dame, at Toulouse. A bronze tablet, inscribed with a highly eulogistic tribute to her fame, still remains, at the foot of a statue of Clemence. After the lapse of three centuries, it required nothing less than the convulsions of the French Revolution of 1789 to suspend the floral games; they were reinstated under Napoleon, as a municipal institution, in 1806. The memory of Clemence Isaure lived "green with immortal bays;" for centuries the Toulousians had made her their boast—but "all that beauty, all that wit e'er gave," could find no grace with the patriots of 1793, That intelligent body of citizens voted Clemence Isaure an "aristocrat," and, as such, sentenced her bronze monument .to be melted down, and used for vulgar purposes. Fortunately, the honest artisan to whom the work was consigned, had a feeling which saved this venerable relic. At the risk of his head, he substituted some other bronze, and concealed the tablet till a time of political safety arrived.