‘There was a city,’ Peire Cardinal says, ‘I don’t know where, in which rain fell one day of such a kind, that all the inhabitants who were touched by it lost their reason. All went mad but one, who happened to be asleep in his house at the time. This one, when he woke, rose, and, as the rain had ceased, went out amongst the people, who were all raving mad. One had his clothes on, the other was naked; one was spitting up to the sky, another threw stones, another logs of wood, another tore his gown.... One thought he was a king, and put on noble airs; another jumped over benches. Some threatened, others cursed; some were crying, some laughing, others talking they knew not what about, others making grimaces. He who had kept his sense was much astonished, for he saw they were mad; and he looked up and down to see if he could discover any one reasonable, but in vain: there was none. And he was greatly surprised at them, but much more were they at him when they saw he remained reasonable. They were sure he must be mad, as he failed to do as they did.’ The surprise of the fools soon is converted into rage. They knock him down, and trample on him; they push him, and pull him, and beat him; at last, he is glad to escape into his house, thrashed, covered with mud, and more dead than alive. ‘This fable,’ the poet exclaims, ‘depicts the world and all who inhabit it; and our age is the city chokeful of madmen. The highest wisdom is to love and fear God, and to obey his commandments. But now that wisdom is lost, the rain has fallen: covetousness has come, and pride and viciousness, which have attacked all the people. And if God honours one amongst them, the others think him mad, and revile him, for God’s wisdom appears to them folly. But the friend of God, wherever he be, knows them to be the fools, for they have lost the wisdom of God; and they think him mad, because he has abandoned the wisdom of the world.’