In the Coventry play of "Noah's Flood," when Noah has received the directions from an angel for the building of the ark, he leaves the stage to proceed to this important work. On his departure, Lamech comes forward, blind and led by a youth, who directs his hand to shoot at a beast concealed in a bush. Lamech shoots, and kills Cain, upon which, in his anger, he beats the youth to death, and laments the misfortune into which the latter has led him. This was the legendary explanation of the passage in the fourth chapter of Genesis: "And Lamech said ... I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt; if Cain shall be avenged seven-fold, truly Lamech seventy and seven-fold." It is evident that this is a piece of scriptural story which has nothing to do with Noah's flood, and accordingly, in the Coventry play, we are told in the stage directions, that it was introduced in the place of the "interlude,"[89] as if there were a place in the machinery of the pageant where the episode, which was not an integral part of the subject, was performed, and that this part of the performance was called an interlude, or play introduced in the interval of the action of the main subject. The word _interlude_ remained long in our language as applied to such short and simple dramatic pieces as we may suppose to have formed the drolleries of the mysteries. But they had another name in France which has had a greater and more lulling celebrity. In one of the early French miracle-plays, that of "St. Fiacre," an interlude of this kind is introduced, containing five personages--a brigand or robber, a peasant, a sergeant, and the wives of the two latter. The brigand, meeting the peasant on the highway, asks the way to St. Omer, and receives a clownish answer, which is followed by one equally rude on a second question. The brigand, in revenge, steals the peasant's capon, but the sergeant comes up at this moment and, attempting to arrest the thief, receives a blow from the latter which is supposed to break his right arm. The brigand thus escapes, and the peasant and the sergeant quit the scene, which is immediately occupied by their wives. The sergeant's wife is informed by the other of the injury sustained by her husband, and she exults over it because it will deprive him of the power of beating her. They then proceed to a tavern, call for wine, and make merry, the conversation turning upon the faults of their respective husbands, who are not spared. In the midst of their enjoyments, the two husbands return, and show, by beating their wives, that they are not very greatly disabled. In the manuscript of the miracle-play of "St. Fiacre," in which this amusing episode is introduced, a marginal stage direction is expressed in the following words, "_cy est interposé une farsse_" (here a farce is introduced). This is one of the earliest instances of the application of the term _farce_ to these short dramatic facetiæ. Different opinions have been