While mystics and visionaries were glorifying virginity, the Church, bent on governing the body as well as the soul, condemned opinions denying the lawfulness of marriage, which she had constituted a sacrament. Those who would anathematise all works of the flesh she held to be abominable and impious. A maid deserved praise for preserving her virginity, provided always that her motives were praiseworthy. Two hundred years before the reign of Charles VII, a young girl of Reims realised that a grave sin may be committed against the Church of God by refusing the solicitations of a clerk in a vineyard. Here is the damsel's story as related by the canon Gervais. "On a day, Guillaume with the White Hands, Uncle of King Philippe of France, for his pleasure rode forth from his town. A clerk of his following, Gervais by name, who was in the heat of youth, saw a maiden walking alone in a vineyard. He went to her, greeted her and asked: 'What are you doing in such great haste?' And with fitting words he courteously solicited her. "Without even looking at him, calmly and gravely she replied: 'God forbid, youth, that I should ever be yours or any man's, for if I were to lose my virginity and my body its purity, I should inevitably fall into eternal damnation.' "Such words caused the clerk to suspect that the maiden belonged to the impious sect of the Cathari, whom the Church was in those days pursuing relentlessly and punishing severely. One of the errors of these heretics was indeed to condemn all carnal intercourse. Impatient to resolve his doubts, Gervais straightway provoked the damsel to a discussion on the Church's teaching in this matter. Meanwhile, the Archbishop, Guillaume with the White Hands, turned his steed, and, followed by his monks, came to the vineyard where the clerk and the maiden were disputing together. When he learnt the cause of their disagreement he ordered the maiden to be seized and brought into the town. There he exhorted her, and, in charity, endeavoured to convert her to the Catholic Faith. "She would not submit, however. 'I am not well enough grounded in doctrine to defend myself,' she said to him. 'But in the town I have a mistress, who, with good reasons, will easily refute all your arguments. She it is who lodges in that house.' "The Archbishop Guillaume straightway sent to inquire after this woman; and, having questioned her, perceived that what the maiden had said concerning her was true. The very next day he convoked an assembly of clerks and nobles to judge the two women. Both of them were condemned to be burnt. The mistress contrived to escape, but promises and persuasions having failed to turn the maiden from the pernicious error of her ways, she was delivered up to the executioner. She died without shedding a tear, without uttering a complaint."[780] [Footnote 780: L. Tanon, _Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition en France_, Paris, 1893, in 8vo, p. 293.]