diversity of local colouring naturally imparted to these productions contributed materially to the growth of the early French drama. The miracles of Ste Geneviève and St Denis came directly home to the inhabitants of Paris, as that of St Martin to the citizens of Tours; while the early victories of St Louis over the English might claim a national significance for the dramatic celebration of his deeds. The local saints of Provence were in their turn honoured by miracles dating from the 15th and 16th centuries. It is less easy to trace the origins of the comic medieval drama in France, connected as they are with an extraordinary variety of associations for professional, pious and pleasurable purposes. The _ludi inhonesti_ in which the students of a Paris college (Navarre) were in 1315 debarred from engaging cannot be proved to have been dramatic performances; the earliest known secular plays presented by university students in France were moralities, performed in 1426 and 1431. These plays, depicting conflicts between opposing influences--and at bottom the struggle between good and evil in the human soul--become more frequent from about this time onwards. Now it is (at Rennes in 1439) the contention between _Bien-avisé_ and _Mal-avisé_ (who at the close find themselves respectively in charge of _Bonne-fin_ and _Male-fin_); now, one between _l'homme juste_ and _l'homme mondain_; now, the contrasted story of _Les Enfants de Maintenant_, who, however, is no abstraction, but an honest baker with a wife called Mignotte. Political and social problems are likewise treated; and the _Mystère du Concile de Bâle_--an historical morality--dates back to 1432. But thought is taken even more largely of the sufferings of the people than of the controversies of the Church; and in 1507 we even meet with a hygienic or abstinence morality (by N. de la Chesnaye) in which "Banquet" enters into a conspiracy with "Apoplexy," "Epilepsy" and the whole regiment of diseases.