She then goes to him at the house of Simon the Leper, a very rich man, who was giving him a grand supper, although the women were never admitted at these feastings, especially among the Pharisees. She pours a large pot of perfumes upon his legs, wipes them with her beautiful fair hair, and kisses them. I shall not inquire whether the picture which the author draws of Magdalen's holy transports is not more worldly than devout; whether the kisses given are not expressed rather too warmly; nor whether this fine hair with which she wipes her hero's legs, does not remind one too strongly of Trimalcion, who, at dinner, wiped his hands with the hair of a young and beautiful slave. He must himself have felt that his pictures might be fancied too glowing; for he anticipates criticism by giving some pieces from a sermon of Massillon's on Magdalen. One passage is as follows: "Magdalen had sacrificed her reputation to the world. Her bashfulness and her birth at first defended her against the emotions of her passion; and it is most likely, that to the first shaft which assailed her, she opposed the barrier of her modesty and her pride; but when she had lent her ear to the serpent, and consulted her own wisdom, her heart was open to all assaults of passion. Magdalen loved the world, and thenceforward all was sacrificed to this love; neither the pride that springs from birth, nor the modesty which is the ornament of her sex, is spared in this sacrifice; nothing can withhold her; neither the railleries of worldlings, nor the infidelities of her infatuated lovers, whom she fain would please, but by whom she cannot make herself esteemed--for virtue only is estimable; nothing can make her ashamed; and like the prostitute in the "Apocalypse," she bears on her forehead the name of mystery; that is, she was veiled, and was no longer known but in the character of the foolish passion." I have sought this passage in Massillon's sermons, but it certainly is not in the edition which I possess. I will venture to say more--it is not in his style. The author of the "_Christiade_" should have informed us where he picked up this rhapsody of Massillon's, as he should have told us where he read that the Albigenses dared to impute to Jesus Christ an unworthy intercourse with Mary Magdalen. As for the marchioness, she is not again mentioned in the work. The author spares us her voyage to Marseilles with Lazarus, and the rest of her adventures.