[9] See J. Grimm, _Rechts Alterthümer_, and my _Origines du Droit_. Thence come those wonderful feasts, the fairest of the Middle Ages; feasts of _Innocents_, of _Fools_, of the _Ass_. It is the people itself, moreover, which, in the shape of an ass, draws about its own image, presents itself before the altar, ugly, comical, abased. Verily, a touching sight! Led by Balaam, he enters solemnly between Virgil and the Sibyl;[10] enters that he may bear witness. If he kicked of yore against Balaam, it was that before him he beheld the sword of the ancient law. But here the law is ended, and the world of grace seems opening its two-leaved gate to the mean and to the simple. The people innocently believes it all. Thereon comes that lofty hymn, in which it says to the ass what it might have said to itself:-- “Down on knee and say _Amen_! Grass and hay enough hast eaten. Leave the bad old ways, and go! * * * * * For the new expels the old: Shadows fly before the noon: Light hath hunted out the night.” [10] According to the ritual of Rouen. See Ducange on the words _Festum_ and _Kalendæ_: also Martène, iii. 110. The Sibyl was crowned and followed by Jews and Gentiles, by Moses, the Prophets, Nebuchadnezzar, &c. From a very early time, and continually from the seventh to the seventeenth century, the Church strove to proscribe the great people’s feasts of the Ass, of Innocents, of Children, and of Fools. It never succeeded until the advent of the modern spirit. How bold and coarse ye are! Was it this we asked of you, children rash and wayward, when we told you to be as children? We offered you milk; you are drinking wine. We led you softly, bridle in hand, along the narrow path. Mild and fearful, ye hesitated to go forward: and now, all at once, the bridle is broken; the course is cleared at a single bound. Ah! how foolish we were to let you make your own saints; to dress out the altar; to deck, to burden, to cover it up with flowers! Why, it is hardly distinguishable! And what we do see is the old heresy condemned of the Church, _the innocence of nature_: what am I saying?--a new heresy, not like to end to-morrow, _the independence of man_. Listen and obey!--You are forbidden to invent, to create. No more legends, no more new saints: we have had enough of them. You are forbidden to introduce new chants in your worship: inspiration is not allowed. The martyrs you would bring to light should stay modestly within their tombs, waiting to be recognised by the Church. The clergy, the monks are forbidden to grant the tonsure of civil freedom to husbandmen and serfs. Such is the narrow fearful spirit that fills the Church of the Carlovingian days.[11] She unsays her words, she gives herself the lie, she says to the children, “Be old!” [11] See the Capitularies, _passim_. * * * * *