For a hundred and fifty years, the Virgin and Queens ruled French taste and thought so successfully that the French man has never yet quite decided whether to be more proud or ashamed of it. Life has ever since seemed a little flat to him, and art a little cheap. He saw that the woman, in elevating herself, had made him appear ridiculous, and he tried to retaliate with a wit not always sparkling, and too often at his own expense. Sometimes in museums or collections of bric-a-brac, you will see, in an illuminated manuscript, or carved on stone, or cast in bronze, the figure of a man on his hands and knees, bestridden by another figure holding a bridle and a whip; it is Aristotle, symbol of masculine wisdom, bridled and driven by woman. Six hundred years afterwards, Tennyson revived the same motive in Merlin, enslaved not for a time but forever. In both cases the satire justly punished the man. Another version of the same story--perhaps the original--was the Mystery of Adam, one of the earliest Church plays. Gaston Paris says "it was written in England in the twelfth century, and its author had real poetic talent; the scene of the seduction of Eve by the serpent is one of the best pieces of Christian dramaturgy ... This remarkable work seems to have been played no longer inside the church, but under the porch":-- Diabolus. Jo vi Adam mais trop est fols. Eva. Un poi est durs. Diabolus. Il serra mols. Il est plus durs qui n'est enfers. Eva. Il est mult francs. Diabolus. Ainz est mult sers. Cure ne volt prendre de sei Car la prenge sevals de tei. Tu es fieblette et tendre chose E es plus fresche que n'est rose. Tu es plus blanche que crystal Que neif que chiet sor glace en val. Mal cuple en fist li Criatur. Tu es trop tendre e il trop dur. Mais neporquant tu es plus sage En grant sens as mis tun corrage For co fait bon traire a tei. Parler te voil. Eva. Ore ja fai. Devil. Adam I've seen, but he's too rough. Eve. A little hard! Devil. He'll soon be soft enough! Harder than hell he is till now. Eve. He's very frank! Devil. Say very low! To help himself he does not care; The helping you shall be my share; For you are tender, gentle, true, The rose is not so fresh as you; Whiter than crystal, or than snow That falls from heaven on ice below. A sorry mixture God has brewed, You too tender, he too rude. But you have much the greater sense, Your will is all intelligence. Therefore it is I turn to you. I want to tell you-- Eve. Do it now! The woman's greater intelligence was to blame for Adam's fall. Eve was justly punished because she should have known better, while Adam, as the Devil truly said, was a dull animal, hardly worth the trouble of deceiving. Adam was disloyal, too, untrue to his wife after being untrue to his Creator:-- La femme que tu me donas Ele fist prime icest trespass Donat le mei e jo mangai. Or mest vis tornez est a gwai Mal acontai icest manger. Jo ai mesfait par ma moiller.