The school of scepticism to which Des Periers belonged had now fallen into equal discredit with Catholics and Protestants, and the latter looked upon Marguerite herself, who had latterly conformed outwardly with Romanism, as an apostate from their cause. Henri Estienne, in his "Apologie pour Herodote," speaks of the "Cymbalum Mundi" as an infamous book. [98] A cheap and convenient edition of the "Cymbalum Mundi," edited by the Bibliophile Jacob (Paul Lacroix), was published in Paris in 1841. I may here state that similar editions of the principal French satirists of the sixteenth century have been printed during the last twenty-five years. Bonaventure des Periers left behind him another work more amusing to us at the present day, and more characteristic of the literary tastes of the court of Marguerite of Navarre. This is a collection of facetious stories, which was published several years after the death of its author, under the title of "Les Contes, ou Les Nouvelles Récréations et Joyeux Devis de Bonaventure des Periers." They have some resemblance in style to the stories of the Heptameron, but are shorter, and rather more facetious, and are characterised by their bitter spirit of satire against the monks and popish clergy. Some of these stories remind us, in their peculiar character and tone, of the "Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum," as, for an example, the following, which is given as an anecdote of the curé de Brou:-- "This curé had a way of his own to chant the different offices of the church, and above all he disliked the way of saying the Passion in the manner it was ordinarily said in churches, and he chanted it quite differently. For when our Lord said anything to the Jews, or to Pilate, he made him talk high and loud, so that everybody could hear him, and when it was the Jews or somebody else who spoke, he spoke so low that he could hardly be heard at all. It happened that a lady of rank and importance, on her way to Châteaudun, to keep there the festival of Easter, passed through Brou on Good Friday, about ten o'clock in the morning, and, wishing to hear service, she went to the church where the curé was officiating. When it came to the Passion, he said it in his own manner, and made the whole church ring again when he said _Quem quæritis_? But when it came to the reply, _Jesum Nazarenum_, he spoke as low as he possibly could. And in this manner he continued the Passion. The lady, who was very devout, and, for a woman, well informed in the holy scriptures, and attentive to the ecclesiastical ceremonies, felt scandalised at this mode of chanting, and wished she had never entered the church. She had a mind to speak to the curé, and tell him what she thought of it; and for this purpose sent for him to come to her after the service. When he came, she said to him, 'Monsieur