talk of things which they do not understand.  Madame, I believe I know my office as well as another, and beg all the world to know that God is as well served in this parish according to its condition as in any place within a hundred leagues of it.  I know very well that the other cures chant the Passion quite differently.  I could easily chant it like them if I would; but they don’t understand their business at all.  I should like to know if it becomes those rogues of Jews to speak as loud as our Lord?  No, no, madame; rest assured that in my parish it is my will that God be master, and he shall be as long as I live, and let others do in their parishes according to their understanding.”

  [153] “Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that should come
        upon him, went forth, and said unto them, ’Whom seek
        ye?’ They answered him, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’”—­Gospel
        of S. John, xviii, 4, 5.

This is another of Des Periers’ comical tales at the expense of the clerical orders:  There was a priest of a village who was as proud as might be because he had seen a little more than his Cato.  And this made him set up his feathers and talk very grand, using words that filled his mouth in order to make people think him a great doctor.  Even at confession he made use of terms which astonished the poor people.  One day he was confessing a poor working man, of whom he asked:  “Here, now, my friend, tell me, art thou not ambitious?” The poor man said, “No,” thinking this was a word which belonged to great lords, and almost repented of having come to confess to this priest; for he had already heard that he was such a great clerk and that he spoke so grandly that nobody understood him, which he knew by the word ambitious; for although he might have heard it somewhere, yet he knew not at all what it meant.  The priest went on to ask:  “Art thou not a gourmand?” Said the labourer, who understood as little as before:  “No.”  “Art thou not superbe” [proud]?  “No.”  “Art thou not iracund” [passionate]?  “No.”  The priest, seeing the man always answer, “No,” was somewhat surprised.  “Art thou not concupiscent?” “No.”  “And what are thou, then?” said the priest.  “I am,” said he, “a mason—­here’s my trowel.”

* * * * *

Readers acquainted with the fabliaux of the minstrels (the Trouveres) of Northern France know that those light-hearted gentry very often launched their satirical shafts at the churchmen of their day.  One of the fabliaux in Barbazan’s collection relates how a doltish, thick-headed priest was officiating in his church on Good Friday, and when about to read the service for that day he discovered that he had lost his book-mark ("mais il ot perdu ses festuz.")[154] Then he began to go back and turn over the leaves, but until Ascension Day he found not the Passion service.  And the assembled peasants fretted and complained that he made them fast too long, since it was time