Readers acquainted with the _fabliaux_ of the minstrels (the Trouveres) of Northern France know that those light-hearted gentry very often launched their satirical shafts at the churchmen of their day. One of the _fabliaux_ in Barbazan's collection relates how a doltish, thick-headed priest was officiating in his church on Good Friday, and when about to read the service for that day he discovered that he had lost his book-mark ("_mais il ot perdu ses festuz_.")[154] Then he began to go back and turn over the leaves, but until Ascension Day he found not the Passion service. And the assembled peasants fretted and complained that he made them fast too long, since it was time for the festival. "Had he but said them the service," interjects the _fableur_, "should I make you a longer story?" So much did they grumble on all sides, that the priest began on them and fell to saying very rapidly, first in a loud and then in a low tone of voice, "_Dixit Dominus Domino meo_" (the Lord said unto my Lord); "but," says the _fableur_, "I cannot find here any sequel." The priest having read the text as chance might lead him, read the vespers for Sunday;--and you must know he travailed hard, that the offerings should be worth something to him. Then he fell to crying, "Barabbas!"--no crier could have cried a ban so loud as he cried to them; and everyone began to confess his sins aloud (i.e., struck up "_mea culpa_") and cried, "Mercy!" The priest, who read on the sequence of his Psalter, once more began to cry out, saying, "Crucify him!" So that both men and women prayed God that he would defend them from torment. But it sorely vexed the clerk, who said to the priest, "Make an end"; but he answered, "Make no end, friend, till 'unto the marvellous works'"--referring to a passage in the Psalter. The clerk then said that a long Passion service boots nothing, and that it is never a gain to keep the people too long. And as soon as the offerings of the people were collected he finished the Passion.--"By this tale," adds the _raconteur_, "I would show you how--by the faith of Saint Paul!--it as well befits a fool to talk folly and sottishness as it becomes a wise man to speak wisely. And he is a fool who believes me not."[155]--A commentary, this, which recalls the old English saying, that "it is as great marvel to see a woman weep as to see a goose go barefoot." [154] _Festueum_, the split straw so used in the Middle Ages. [155] See Meon's edition of Barbazan's _Fabliaux et Contes_, ed. 1808, tome ii, p. 442, and a prose _extrait_ in Le Grand d'Aussy's collection, ed. 1781, tome iv, p. 101, "Du Pretre qui dit la Passion." * * * * *