through all classes, from the count at the top, to the jugleors and menestreus at the bottom.  The individual rebelled against restraint; society wanted to do what it pleased; all disliked the laws which Church and State were trying to fasten on them.  They longed for a power above law,—­or above the contorted mass of ignorance and absurdity bearing the name of law; but the power which they longed for was not human, for humanity they knew to be corrupt and incompetent from the day of Adam’s creation to the day of the Last Judgment.  They were all criminals; if not, they would have had no use for the Church and very little for the State; but they had at least the merit of their faults; they knew what they were, and, like children, they yearned for protection, pardon, and love.  This was what the Trinity, though omnipotent, could not give.  Whatever the heretic or mystic might try to persuade himself, God could not be Love.  God was Justice, Order, Unity, Perfection; He could not be human and imperfect, nor could the Son or the Holy Ghost be other than the Father.  The Mother alone was human, imperfect, and could love; she alone was Favour, Duality, Diversity.  Under any conceivable form of religion, this duality must find embodiment somewhere, and the Middle Ages logically insisted that, as it could not be in the Trinity, either separately or together, it must be in the Mother.  If the Trinity was in its essence Unity, the Mother alone could represent whatever was not Unity; whatever was irregular, exceptional, outlawed; and this was the whole human race.  The saints alone were safe, after they were sainted.  Every one else was criminal, and men differed so little in degree of sin that, in Mary’s eyes, all were subjects for her pity and help.

This general rule of favour, apart from law, or the reverse of law, was the mark of Mary’s activity in human affairs.  Take, for an example, an entire class of her miracles, applying to the discipline of the Church!  A bishop ejected an ignorant and corrupt priest from his living, as all bishops constantly had to do.  The priest had taken the precaution to make himself Mary’s man; he had devoted himself to her service and her worship.  Mary instantly interfered,—­ just as Queen Eleanor or Queen Blanche would have done,—­most unreasonably, and never was a poor bishop more roughly scolded by an orthodox queen!  “Moult airieement,” very airily or angrily, she said to him (Bartsch, 1887, p. 363):—­

Ce saches tu certainement
 Se tu li matinet bien main
 Ne rapeles mon chapelain
 A son servise et a s’enor,
 L’ame de toi a desenor
 Ains trente jors departira
 Et es dolors d’infer ira.

Now know you this for sure and true,
 Unless to-morrow this you do,
—­And do it very early too,—­
 Restore my chaplain to his due,
 A much worse fate remains for you! 
 Within a month your soul shall go
 To suffer in the flames below.