[Sidenote: Theatrical effects.] [Sidenote: A strange coin.] More excusable were the theatrical effects which were intended, without actually deceiving, to heighten the religious devotion of worshippers. Thus, every Pentecost or Whit-Sunday, in the midst of the service an angel was seen to descend from the lofty ceiling of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, attended by two smaller angels, and bearing a silver vase containing water for the use of the celebrant of the high mass.[114] For this somewhat harmless piece of spectacular display a justification might be sought in the religious impressions which the people were supposed to derive most easily through the senses; but nothing could be urged in defence of much that the clergy tolerated or encouraged. Superstitions of heathen origin were suffered to reign undisturbed. Pagan statues were openly worshipped. An Isis received homage and was honored with burning candles. An Apollo at Polignac was a centre of religious veneration, and even the unsavory surroundings, when the spot where it stood was transformed into a stable, could not deter an anxious crowd of devotees from prostrating themselves before it.[115] What better could be expected in an age and country in which the people were imposed upon by reports that prehistoric coins had been discovered bearing the strange legend: "I believe in Jesus _to be born_ among animals and of a Virgin"?[116] [Sidenote: Indecent processions.] It was not astonishing that the church itself did little to remove the barbarism prevailing among the common people, for, in point of fact, buffoonery, immodesty, and cruelty had intruded into the very ceremonial of religion. Never were there more disgusting exhibitions of the low state of the public morals than when the occurrence of pestilence, drought, or some other signal visitation of the displeasure of heaven induced a clergy scarcely less rude than the laity to institute propitiatory processions. On such occasions children of both sexes, or perhaps grown men and women, with bare feet, and wearing for their only clothing a sheet that scarcely concealed their forms, passed through the streets of the towns, or wearily trudged from village to village, responsively singing the litanies of the Virgin or the saints, and loudly repeating the refrain, _Ora pro nobis_.[117] Often shameful indecency and a reckless disregard of human life were displayed. In one of the villages of Champagne, during the protracted drought of 1556, the sacred scenes of the Passion were publicly enacted in the streets. The person of our Lord was represented by a young man in a state of entire nudity and bound with cords, who at every step was scourged by his companions, personating the Roman soldiers. The picture was true to life, and the blows so far from unreal that the prime actor in the scandalous performance fell a victim to the inhuman treatment and died within a few days. The fruits of practices so coarse and debasing were