The ritual and services of the Church were not free from superstitious usages. The more the substance of religion died out in their hearts, the more the clergy adhered to the forms. Thus not to fast on Friday was a heinous sin; and at Angers, in 1539, those who were found to have eaten meat on that day were burned alive if they remained impenitent, and hanged if they repented. The poet Clement Marot narrowly escaped burning for having eaten pork in Lent. “If any one eats meat,” says Erasmus, they all cry out: “Heavens! the Church is in danger; the world is overrun with heretics.” They punish every one who “eats pork instead of fish.” In 1534 the Bishop of Paris gave the Countess of Brie permission to eat meat on “meagre” days, but only on condition that she ate in private and fasted regularly every Friday. Brantome relates that, during a procession in a certain country town, one woman attracted peculiar attention by her fervor, even to walking barefoot. She then went home to prepare her husband’s dinner. The smell of roast meat attracting the notice of some priests, they entered the house and caught her in the act of cooking, for which she was sentenced forthwith to go in penance through the streets carrying the half-roasted meat round her neck. The morals of the clergy were very relaxed, and they would hardly have thanked Lippomano if they had read his doubtful compliment.[189] But this is a subject upon which it would be as superfluous as it would be disagreeable to enlarge.