Nevertheless, there are some forms of divining which the Church counts as innocent. Any time you desire you can consult the holy books. With proper prayer and circumspection you should open the Bible at random and note the tenor of the first passage that meets your eye. Is it favorable to your condition, or unfavorable? The pious Simon de Montfort thus consulted the "sacred lots" ere taking the cross for the Albigensian crusade. Chapters of canons use this method to see what the omens are concerning a candidate for a bishopric. According to jongleurs' tales, even popes thus seek for an oracle ere taking any important step in the government of the Church, although these stories are wisely doubted. A more precise method of augury is the "_Sortes Apostolorum_." Fifty-six sentences (expressing sentiments good or bad) are written on parchment; a string is attached to each and allowed to protrude while the sentences are covered up. You say a prayer, seize a string at random, then follow it down to read its sentiment. In this way the saints and not the devil will reveal the future to you. Undoubtedly the peasants carry their belief in bad omens or unlucky actions too far. Conon and Adela laugh heartily at some of their notions. To avoid bad luck, Georges, when weaning a calf, always pulls it away from its mother by the tail backward. He never begins plowing until he has walked thrice around the plow with a lighted candle. Jeanne never spins or sews on Thursdays or Fridays, lest she make the Virgin weep. In the springtime a bone from the head of a mare should be set out in the garden to drive off the caterpillars. Time fails to list these rustic beliefs; besides, they vary from village to village. But what peasant has not as many thereof as he has hairs in his head? [Sidenote: Universal Adoration of Relics] There is one pious matter shared in alike by great and humble and highly approved by the Church, although the wiser ecclesiastics deprecate some of its excesses--the worship of holy relics. Saints' relics abound. Where is the monastery, church, or even castle without them? Sometimes they rest in golden caskets in the very place where the holy personages departed this life. Sometimes they have been brought from Rome or Palestine by pious pilgrims; very often they come as gifts. The direct purchase of relics is somewhat sacrilegious, but you can present a king, duke, or great ecclesiastic with a good relic just as you give him some hawks or ermine skins--as a reward for favors past or expected. The Pope is always sending desirable relics to bishops and abbots whom he wishes to honor; and, as all know, after the Latins sacked Constantinople in 1204 there was hardly a shrine in all France which did not get the skull, a few ribs, or even the entire body of some Eastern saint. The booty in relics in fact, was almost as important as that of gold and jewels.