There is still one cycle of satire which almost belongs to the middle ages, though it only became developed at their close, and became most popular after they were past. There existed, at least as early as the beginning of the thirteenth century, a legendary story of an interview between three living and three dead men, which is usually told in French verse, and appears under the title of "Des trois vifs et des trois morts." According to some versions of the legend, it was St. Macarius, the Egyptian recluse, who thus introduced the living to the dead. The verses are sometimes accompanied with figures, and these have been found both sculptured and painted on ecclesiastical buildings. At a later period, apparently early in the fifteenth century, some one extended this idea to all ranks of society, and pictured a skeleton, the emblem of death, or even more than one, in communication with an individual of each class; and this extended scene, from the manner of the grouping--in which the dead appeared to be wildly dancing off with the living--became known as the "Dance of Death." As the earlier legend of the three dead and the three living was, however, still often introduced at the beginning of it, the whole group was most generally known--especially during the fifteenth century--as the "Danse Macabre," or Dance of Macabre, this name being considered as a mere corruption of Macarius. The temper of the age--in which death in every form was constantly before the eyes of all, and in which people sought to regard life as a mere transitory moment of enjoyment--gave to this grim idea of the fellowship of death and life great popularity, and it was not only painted on the walls of churches, but it was suspended in tapestry around people's chambers. Sometimes they even attempted to represent it in masquerade, and we are told that in the month of October, 1424, the "Danse Macabre" was publicly danced by living people in the cemetery of the Innocents, in Paris--a fit place for so lugubrious a performance--in the presence of the Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Burgundy, who came to Paris after the battle of Verneuil. During the rest of the century we find not unfrequently allusions to the "Danse Macabre." The English poet Lydgate wrote a series of stanzas to accompany the figures, and it was the subject of some of the earliest engravings on wood. In the posture and accompaniments of the figures representing the different classes of society, and in the greater or less reluctance with which the living accept their not very attractive partners, satire is usually implied, and it is in some cases accompanied with drollery. The figure representing death has almost always a grimly mirthful countenance, and appears to be dancing with good will. The most remarkable early representation of the "Danse Macabre" now preserved, is that painted on the wall of the church of La Chaise Dieu, in Auvergne, a beautiful fac-simile of which