This is, in brief outline, the argument of two of the quaintest productions mediæval literature can show. The bold cynicism with which the delicate secrets of the dressing-room are revealed justly surprises us in a troubadour of noble family and liberal education; but much more are we astonished at the familiarity with which the Deity itself is mixed up with these worldly matters. It is true that, in the old Mysteries and Miracle-plays, tolerated and even countenanced by the Church, sacred topics are treated with a naïve simplicity strange to modern religious feeling. But the experienced eye can almost always discern the under-current of sacred awe at the bottom of the wildest outburst of popular imagination. Even the ‘Wanton Wife of Bath,’ whose tongue is a match for all the saints in heaven, ‘trembles at his sight,’ when the Saviour himself appears in his glory. This sacred tremor is entirely unknown to the Monk of Montaudon, who, moreover, as an artistic poet addressing a refined audience, is without the excuse of popular rudeness and ignorance. Yet I think we should be unjust in ascribing to him any conscious intention of blasphemy, or even irreverence. Supposing even he had been a sceptic, he was at the same time too much attached to life and its pleasures to parade his heresies at the risk of his neck. The only way of solving the psychological puzzle is to follow the ancient example of the monk’s superiors, and to make ample allowance for the reckless buoyancy of a poet’s fancy, difficult to check at a certain point when once let loose. To give an idea of the ease with which he moves in the celestial regions, I will quote the opening stanza of another poem, the tone of which reminds one somewhat of the ‘Prelude in Heaven’ of Goethe’s ‘Faust.’ It seems to have been written at a time when, after a prolonged stay at his monastery, the author was fain to set out on another expedition. Up to heaven I found my way Lately: you may trust my word, Welcome sweet bade me the Lord, He whose all-command obey Land and sea, and hill and dell.’ ‘Monk, why do you seek my throne? Tell me how fares Montaudon, Where thy pious brethren dwell? The drift of the poem is easily discernible. Some of his monastic brethren had evidently remarked upon the poet’s worldly ways; and to silence these, the very highest authority is now brought to bear on the subject. This is the reassuring answer the monk receives to his pretended conscientious scruples: ‘I like you to laugh and sing, for the world grows merrier, and Montaudon gains through it.’ By such an argument, coming from such a quarter, the sourest of ascetics was reduced to acquiescence.