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326 be decreed, as a prize, to the author of the best poem in the Provençal language."—Sismondi on the Literature of the Troubadours.

But there is a more romantic though less true account of the origin of the Golden Violet; the foundress of this picturesque ceremony was said to have been Clemence Isaure; but Sismondi seems to doubt even her existence.

"If the celebrated Clemence Isaure, whose eulogy was pronounced every year in the assembly of the Floral Games, and whose statue, crowned with flowers, ornamented their festivals, be not merely an imaginary being, she appears to have been the soul of these little meetings before either the magistrates had noticed them, or the public were invited to attend them. But neither the circulars of the Sobrigaza Companhia, nor the registers of the magistrates, make any mention of her; and notwithstanding all the zeal with which, at a subsequent period, the glory of founding the Floral Games has been attributed to her, her existence is still problematical."—Sismondi.