Expenditure like this rests invariably on an economic idea. Just as the French of the nineteenth century invested their surplus capital in a railway system in the belief that they would make money by it in this life, in the thirteenth they trusted their money to the Queen of Heaven because of their belief in her power to repay it with interest in the life to come. The investment was based on the power of Mary as Queen rather than on any orthodox Church conception of the Virgin's legitimate station. Papal Rome never greatly loved Byzantine empresses or French queens. The Virgin of Chartres was never wholly sympathetic to the Roman Curia. To this day the Church writers--like the Abbe Bulteau or M. Rohault de Fleury--are singularly shy of the true Virgin of majesty, whether at Chartres or at Byzantium or wherever she is seen. The fathers Martin and Cahier at Bourges alone left her true value. Had the Church controlled her, the Virgin would perhaps have remained prostrate at the foot of the Cross. Dragged by a Byzantine Court, backed by popular insistence and impelled by overpowering self-interest, the Church accepted the Virgin throned and crowned, seated by Christ, the Judge throned and crowned; but even this did not wholly satisfy the French of the thirteenth century who seemed bent on absorbing Christ in His Mother, and making the Mother the Church, and Christ the Symbol. The Church had crowned and enthroned her almost from the beginning, and could not have dethroned her if it would. In all Christian art-- sculpture or mosaic, painting or poetry--the Virgin's rank was expressly asserted. Saint Bernard, like John Comnenus, and probably at the same time (1120-40), chanted hymns to the Virgin as Queen:-- O salutaris Virgo Stella Maris Generans prolem, Aequitatis solem, Lucis auctorem, Retinens pudorem, Suscipe laudem! Celi Regina Per quam medicina Datur aegretis, Gratia devotis, Gaudium moestis, Mundo lux coelestis, Spesque salutis; Aula regalis, Virgo specialis, Posce medelam Nobis et tutelam, Suscipe vota, Precibusque cuncta Pelle molesta! O Saviour Virgin, Star of Sea, Who bore for child the Son of Justice, The source of Light, Virgin always Hear our praise! Queen of Heaven who have given Medicine to the sick, Grace to the devout, Joy to the sad, Heaven's light to the world And hope of salvation; Court royal, Virgin typical, Grant us cure and guard, Accept our vows, and by prayers Drive all griefs away! As the lyrical poet of the twelfth century, Adam de Saint-Victor seems to have held rank higher if possible than that of Saint Bernard, and his hymns on the Virgin are certainly quite as emphatic an assertion of her majesty:-- Imperatrix supernorum! Superatrix infernorum! Eligenda via coeli, Retinenda spe fideli, Separatos a te longe Revocatos ad te junge Tuorum collegio!