The king, delighted at the protection afforded, takes the Christian into high favor, naturally to the disappointment of the hangman. He also decides to abjure his old faith, and his emirs feel it their feudal duty to follow his example, with the exception of one, who, however, is compelled to kneel before the saint’s image. In the midst of all this the image of Tervagant utters a frightful shriek, but is, by command of the king, cast out of the “Synagogue” in shame and disgrace while the Christian starts a _Te Deum_, in which the actors, and, perhaps, the spectators, join. In this play it will be observed that the old story is made to serve a new purpose. St. Nicholas is made an exponent of the virtue of Christianity as opposed to the Saracen faith. The story is developed with much supporting detail. The struggle between Christian and Saracen is represented with true crusading zeal, in the spirit which pervaded the contemporary romances of Charlemagne and his paladins. On the other hand, balancing with these scenes, noble in tone, were the low comedy scenes provided by the tavern revelers, drinking, casting dice, quarreling, and speaking a slang often unintelligible to the modern reader, in general affording remarkable genre pictures of French life in the early thirteenth century. In his two-sided development of the dramatic values in this story, the author established a method which one might have expected to be followed by his contemporaries, a method actually followed, a little later, in the development of the native English drama. In reality, however, the play occupies a solitary position in its own day and age. To the author must be given the credit of original creation, of being ahead of his time. But this credit the author must share with the story of his play, for has not the name of St. Nicholas through all the centuries, down to our own time, been constantly associated, not only with the idea of noble beneficence, but with a peculiar quality of good nature and fun? CHAPTER VIII ST. NICHOLAS AS PATRON SAINT