Two lengthy complaintes in the Voir Dit, the one written by Toute Belle (v. 5812–6003/5885–6076) and the other Guillaume’s response (v. 6043–174/6116– 247), bring us directly back to Toute Belle’s apprenticeship. The complaintes are an important exception to the infrequency of their poetic exchanges (but not of letters) after the dit’s midpoint. Toute Belle learns that Guillaume has questioned her love and, distressed, wonders why. Picking up on Guillaume’s earlier comparison of her to Semiramis (v. 4814–15/4887–8, 5838–9/5911– 12), she catalogues women who proved their loyalty to unfaithful men (VD, v. 5833–8/5906–11). Toute Belle has begun to draw on the resources available in poetries and elsewhere. The fables that she chooses to exemplify her love are straightforward comparisons of diverse exemplary loves to her own love for Guillaume: Jason and Medea, Dido and Eneas, Biblis and Cadmus, Helen and Paris. She moves on to cast natural phenomena as adynata, that is, as unnatural and therefore marvelous occurrences. Should she prove inconstant, it would be as unnatural as any other unnatural occurrence: neither sun nor moon will shine again and, as a result, no trees will produce leaves, rivers will return to their sources, the constellations of the Zodiac will wage war on one another, chaos will reign universally as the world’s ordonnance unravels (VD, v. 5844–59/5917–32). Other well-known figures appear to buttress her argument: Ulysses, Venus, Cephalus, Pygmalion, Adonis. Toute Belle’s use of the exemplary mode is as obvious as it is skillful by fourteenth-century standards.

Guillaume’s response is submissive. Her love would indeed inspire the best of men, including Tristan, Paris, and Lancelot. So outstanding is she as an ‘exemplaire / Des biens qu’on puet dire, penser et faire’ (VD, v. 6119– 20/6192–3) [exemplar of the good qualities that one can name, think, and put into action] that the judgment of Paris would implicitly go to her while Venus, Pallas, and Juno would, without protest or envy, become her maidservants (v. 6136–42/6209–15).