joyful, popular—­democratic as you would say, Gabriel; there was no Inquisition, nor suspicion of heresy to embitter the soul with fanaticism and fear.  All the coarse wind and stringed instruments that the artisans had in the towns, or the labourers in the fields, came into the churches, and the organ was accompanied by violas, violins, bagpipes, flutes, guitars and lutes.  The plain song was the established liturgy almost throughout Europe; but the people disliked it, and interspersed it with songs, and at the great festivals, religious hymns were sung, adapted to the popular melodies then in fashion, such as ‘The song of the armed man,’ ’Morencia, give me a kiss,’ ‘I know not what confuses me,’ ‘Weep for me, lady,’ ’Bad luck to him who married you,’ and others in the same style.  And Rome, you will ask, and the Church?  What did it say about such disorders?  The Church lived without artistic perception:  it never had any.  What are the boundaries between religious and profane music?  From the sixteenth to the seventeenth century all critics have asked themselves this question, but the Church let them talk, accepting everything without remark.  Now and again Rome made itself heard by a Papal bull, to which no one paid any attention, because the Pontiff was incapable of saying this is religious art, and the other is profane.  Palestrina was entrusted with the task of reforming church music; the Pope showed himself disposed not to leave anything but plain song, and to suppress even that if necessary.  The mass of Papa Marcelo and other melodies was the result of this, but things did not advance much.  It was necessary in order that music should be purified inside the Church that the great secular musical movement should begin with the Italian Monteverde, with the Frenchman Rameau, and with the Germans Sebastian Bach and Handel; what splendid times, Gabriel!  And just think what genius followed:  Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Mehuel, Boieldieu, and, above all, our good friend Beethoven.”

[Footnote 1:  The stave.]

The Chapel-master was silent for a little as though the name of his idol imposed on him a religious silence.  Presently he continued.

“All this avalanche of art passed over the Church, and she, according to her habit, appropriated everything that was most to her taste; in any country the Catholic religion adopted the music most in accordance with its traditions—­in Spain we have been saturated with the Italian style since the days of Palestrina, and German or French music never came to us.  We were first of all fuguists and contrapuntists; but after the ‘Stabat Mater’ of Rossini we felt the attraction of theatrical melody so strongly that we have never wished to taste a fresh dish.  Religious music in Spain has run parallel with Italian opera, a thing of which the canons are ignorant; they would be furious if at the mass you played them anything by Beethoven, which they would consider profane, but they listen with mystic unction to fragments which