Strange to say, neither the lewdness of the poets nor the grossness of the social habits of the times strikes one as more singular than the tone of the sermons which were delivered in Paris at the same period. One of the most famous preachers of the day was Maillard, who rose to eminence under Louis XI. His sermons on the luxury and corruptions of the times were very popular. We find him cursing the "burgesses" who, for the sake of gain, let their houses to prostitutes: "_Vultis vivere de posterioribus meretricum_," he cries, indignantly. He denounces with extraordinary virulence the "crimes of impudicity which are committed in churches," and which "the pillars and nave would denounce, if they had eyes and a voice." He did not spare his congregation. Turning fiercely to the women who sat before him, he apostrophized them: "Dicatis, vos, mulieres, posuistis, posuistis filias ad peccandum? vos, mulieres, per vestros traitus impudiæ, provocastis alios ad peccandum? Et vos, maquerellæ, quid dicitis?" He thunders against this latter class, the procuresses, who ought, he says, to be burned at the stake, especially when, as is often the case, they are both the mothers and the venders of their daughters. Words fail him to denounce the intercourse of abandoned women with ecclesiastics; he invokes the divine wrath upon those of his congregation _quæ dant corpus curialibus, monachis, presbyteris_. Both he and other famous preachers of the day pronounced maledictions upon lewd convents, which some of them say are mere seraglios for the bishops and monks, where every abomination is practiced. It was estimated that at this time, say the fifteenth century, when Paris was comparatively a small city, it contained five to six thousand prostitutes, who were said by an Italian to be far more beautiful and attractive than any prostitutes he had seen elsewhere. CHAPTER VII. FRANCE.--HISTORY FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO LOUIS XIII. The Court.--Louis IX. to Charles V.--Charles VI.--Agnes Sorel.--Louis XI.--Charles VIII.--Louis XII.--Francis I.--La Belle Feronniere.-- Henry II.--Diana de Poictiers.--Lewd Books and Pictures.--Catharine of Medicis.--Margaret.--Henry IV.--Mademoiselle de Entragues.--Henry III.--Mignons.--Influence of the Ligue.--Indecency of Dress.-- Theatricals.--Ordinance of 1560.--Police Regulations. The memoranda we have already given will enable the reader to form an idea of the state of society at large. It remains to say something of the court, which, in some respects, was France.