On the tavern bench the pardoner is still seated. There come Chaucer, the knight, the squire, the friar, the host—old acquaintances. We are by ourselves, no one need be afraid to speak, the foaming ale renders hearts expansive; and the unseen coils of that tortuous soul unfold to view, he gives the summary of a whole life, the theory of his existence, the key to his secrets. What matters his frankness? he knows that it cannot hurt him; time and again has the bishop brought his practices to light, but the crowd always troops around him. And who knows if his companions—who knows if his more enlightened companions, to whom he shows the concealed springs of the automaton—will, to-morrow, believe it lifeless? their memory, their reason will tell them so, yet still their heart will doubt. If custom is the half of belief, theirs is well-rooted; how much more that of the multitude! And the pardoner himself, do you suppose that he always sees clearly what he is, do you think that his scepticism is absolute? he for whom nothing is holy, whose very existence is a perpetual mockery of sacred things, he also has his hours of doubt and terror, he trembles before that formidable power which he said he held in his hands, and of which he has made a toy; he does not possess it, but others may, and he stands aghast; the monster looks upon himself and is afraid. Very easy it was to lead the popular belief into the channel of the marvellous. Decrees had been deemed necessary to prevent the conjuring up of spectres or ghosts in those long watches passed with the dead; disobedience {334} was attempted, people believed they succeeded. In presence of the horrible a strange reaction of the heart would take place, a wind of madness passed predisposing men to see and believe anything, a nervous and demoniacal merriment seized upon all, and dances and lascivious games were started. Dancing went on in the cemeteries during the solemn vigils of religious feasts, there was dancing also during the watch for the dead. The Council of London, in 1342, prohibited “the superstitious customs which cause prayer to be neglected, and unlawful and indecent meetings” held in such places.[455] The Council of York, in 1367, also forbade “those guilty games and follies, and all those perverse customs . . . which transform a house of tears and prayers, into a house of laughing and excess.” The palmers’ gild of Ludlow allowed its members to go to night-watches of the dead, provided that they abstained from raising apparitions and from indecent games.[456] As to professional sorcerers, the belief in them was so profound that they were sent to the stake, as happened to Petronilla of Meath, convicted of having manufactured powders with “spiders and black worms like scorpions, mingling with them a certain herb called milfoil, and other detestable herbs and worms.”[457] She had also made such incantations that “the faces of certain women seemed horned like the