After years of wandering across Europe, playing the fool, singing and strumming the lute for bishops and princes, as well as in the bawdiest of country taverns, I, Charles Coypeau Dassoucy, the last of the roving troubadours, have returned to Paris, my beloved native city. My once golden locks have turned to silver. I have four less teeth. My keen eyes now require the aid of Florentine spectacles. But on the plus side, I return with fifty rousing drinking songs, a collection of verses, and what's best, five hundred shiny gold pistols, which I managed to spirit out of the clutches of that murderous Duke of Mantua and his henchmen.