liberties which we cannot or ought not to take.  The doctrines of the Church are too serious and too ancient to be wilfully misstated, and the doctrines of what is called Mariolatry were never even doctrines of the Church.  Yet it is true that, in the hearts of Mary’s servants, the Church and its doctrines were at the mercy of Mary’s will.  Gaultier de Coincy claimed that Mary exasperated the devils by exercising a wholly arbitrary and illegitimate power.  Gaultier not merely admitted, but frankly asserted, that this was the fact:—­

Font li deables:—­“de cest plait,
 Mal por mal, assez miex nous plest
 Que nous aillons au jugement
 Li haut jugeur qui ne ment. 
 C’au plait n’au jugement sa mere
 De droit jugier est trop avere;
 Mais dieu nous juge si adroit,
 Plainement nous lest notre droit. 
 Sa mere juge en tel maniere
 Qu’elle nous met touz jors arriere
 Quant nous cuidons estre devant. . . . . . . . 
 En ciel et en terre est plus Dame
 Par un petit que Diex ne soit. 
 Il l’aimme tant et tant la croit,
 N’est riens qu’elle face ne die
 Qu’il desveile ne contredie. 
 Quant qu’elle veut li fait acroire,
 S’elle disoit la pie est noire
 Et l’eue trouble est toute clere: 
 Si diroit il voir dit ma mere!”

“In this law-suit,” say the devils,
 “Since it is a choice of evils,
 We had best appeal on high
 To the Judge Who does not lie. 
 What is law to any other,
 ’T is no use pleading with His Mother;
 But God judges us so true
 That He leaves us all our due. 
 His Mother judges us so short
 That she throws us out of court
 When we ought to win our cause. . . . . . . . . 
 In heaven and earth she makes more laws
 By far, than God Himself can do,
 He loves her so, and trusts her so,
 There’s nothing she can do or say
 That He’ll refuse, or say her nay. 
 Whatever she may want is right,
 Though she say that black is white,
 And dirty water clear as snow:—­
 My Mother says it, and it’s so!”

If the Virgin took the feelings of the Trinity into consideration, or recognized its existence except as her Son, the case has not been reported, or, at all events, has been somewhat carefully kept out of sight by the Virgin’s poets.  The devils were emphatic in denouncing Mary for absorbing the whole Trinity.  In one sharply disputed case in regard to a villain, or labourer, whose soul the Virgin claimed because he had learned the “Ave Maria,” the devils became very angry, indeed, and protested vehemently:—­

Li lait maufe, li rechinie
 Adonc ont ris et eschinie. 
 C’en font il:—­“Merveillans merveille! 
 Por ce vilain plate oreille
 Aprent vo Dame a saluer,
 Se nous vorro trestous tuer
 Se regarder osons vers s’ame. 
 De tout le monde vieut estre Dame! 
 Ains nule dame ne fu tiez. 
 II est avis qu’ele soit Diex
 Ou qu’ele ait Diex en main bornie. 
 Nul besoigne n’est fournie,
 Ne terrienne ne celestre,
 Que toute Dame ne veille estre. 
 Il est avis que tout soit suen;
 Dieu ne deable n’i ont rien.”