This feeling seems to have survived in a more or less vague and unconscious form in mediæval Europe. "In the tenth century," according to Dufour (_Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. VI., p. 11), "shoes _a la poulaine_, with a claw or beak, pursued for more than four centuries by the anathemas of popes and the invectives of preachers, were always regarded by mediæval casuists as the most abominable emblems of immodesty. At a first glance it is not easy to see why these shoes--terminating in a lion's claw, an eagle's beak, the prow of a ship, or other metal appendage--should be so scandalous. The excommunication inflicted on this kind of foot-gear preceded the impudent invention of some libertine, who wore _poulaines_ in the shape of the phallus, a custom adopted also by women. This kind of _poulaine_ was denounced as _mandite de Dicu_ (Ducange's Glossary, at the word Poulainia) and prohibited by royal ordinances (see letter of Charles V., 17 October, 1367, regarding the garments of the women of Montpellier). Great lords and ladies continued, however, to wear _poulaines_." In Louis XL's court they were still worn of a quarter of an ell in length. Spain, ever tenacious of ancient ideas, appears to have preserved longer than other countries the ancient classic traditions in regard to the foot as a focus of modesty and an object of sexual attraction. In Spanish religious pictures it was always necessary that the Virgin's feet should be concealed, the clergy ordaining that her robe should be long and flowing, so that the feet might be covered with decent folds. Pacheco, the master and father-in-law of Velasquez, writes in 1649 in his _Arte de la Pintura_: "What can be more foreign from the respect which we owe to the purity of Our Lady the Virgin than to paint her sitting down with one of her knees placed over the other, and often with her sacred feet uncovered and naked. Let thanks be given to the Holy Inquisition which commands that this liberty should be corrected!" It was Pacheco's duty in Seville to see that these commands were obeyed. At the court of Philip IV. at this time the princesses never showed their feet, as we may see in the pictures of Velasquez. When a local manufacturer desired to present that monarch's second bride, Mariana of Austria, with some silk stockings the offer was indignantly rejected by the Court Chamberlain: "The Queen of Spain has no legs!" Philip V.'s, queen was thrown from her horse and dragged by the feet; no one ventured to interfere until two gentlemen bravely rescued her and then fled, dreading punishment by the king: they were, however, graciously pardoned. Reinach ("Pieds Pudiques," _Cultes, Mythes et Religions_, pp. 105-110) brings together several passages from the Countess D'Aulnoy's account of the Madrid Court in the