CLEISIENCE, ISAIIRE, a French poetess, born near Toulouse, but at what time has been a matter of much dispute. The first known writer who spoke of her is Guillaume Benoit, a jurist of the fifteenth century, who says that she instituted the floral games, "jeux items," at Toulouse, which were held yearly on the 1st of May, and that she instituted prizes for those who distinguished themselves in various kinds of poetry. The prizes were a gold violet, a silver eglantine, and a gold souci or marigold. This distribution of prizes continued till the Revolution. The capitouls or echevins of Toulouse distributed the prizes, on which occasion an euloginm was recited in memory of Clemence Tenure, and leer statue in the Hotel do Ville was crowned with flowers. In 1527, Etienne Dolet, a writer and printer at Lyon, who new hanged and burnt for heresy in 1546, wrote an eulogium of Clemente in Latin verse, with the title, ' Do Muliere qtifidarn earn Ludes literarioa Tolosa' constituit: These writers were followed by numerous others, and among them De Thou and the President 13erthier, who wrote about Clemente, and placed her existence in the 14th century. Catch however in his '146moires du Languedoc,' ex pressed doubts on the subject, and treated the existence of Clemente as fabulous. Dom Vaiaaette, 'Histoire du Languedoc,' supports the personality of Clemonce, and her foundation of the prizes, as proved by tradition, instruments, and public, documents in the Hotel do Ville of Toulouse. In 1775 a Memoir appeared, in which Clemeneo Tenure
is stated to have lived in the latter half of the 15th century. This controversy seems to have originated in having attributed to Clemence Isaure the original foundation of the poetical academy known by the name of the floral games. But that academy was founded long before Isaure by the troubadours, and was called the college of la gaffe science,' or 'gal seavoir.' The first authenticated meeting on record dates from the year 1323 ; they then assembled in a garden outside of Toulouse. The registers of this college, till about 1500, make no mention of Isaure. It may be about this latter period that she founded the prizes of gold and silver flowers, from which the academy took its more recent name. A quarto black letter volume of short poetic pieces was published at Toulouse in 1505, entitled 'Hides de Dona Clemensa Isaure.' The accounts of Isaure's life and adventures which arc found in several compilations appear very problematic. (Encyclo pedic Method ique, Ilistoire, art. lsaure ; Moreri, .Arouv. Biog. Noulet, de Dame Cleincrice Iaaure, substiluec d M. D. la Vierge Marie, Toulouse, 1852)