The poem I am speaking of certainly leaves nothing to be desired as regards orthodoxy. It is written by Izarn, a monk, and a more striking specimen of monkish effrontery would be looked for in vain in any literature. So grotesque indeed is the cynicism displayed, that one almost suspects an ironical sceptic cleverly disguised in the mask of the zealot; but there are other features of the poem—little touches, for instance, of vanity and unctuous self-laudation—which place the author’s real purpose beyond a doubt. The ‘Novas del Heretge,’ or ‘Tale of the Heretic,’ is written in the form of a dialogue between the author and one Sicart de Figueiras, apparently an important member, or, as he calls himself, a ‘bishop,’ of the Albigeois sect. The opening lines are important to the historian of theology. They prove that the Neo-Manichean heretics believed, or at least were said by the Catholics to believe, in something very like metempsychosis. ‘Tell me,’ the monk begins, ‘in what school you have learned that the spirit of man, when it has lost its body, enters an ox, an ass, or a horned wether, a hog or a hen, whichever it sees first, and migrates from one to the other until a new body of man or woman is born for it?... This thou hast taught to deluded people whom thou hast given to the devil and taken away from God. May every place and every land that has supported thee perish!’ This style of spiritual vituperation was likely to prove but too effective, being as it was enforced by very material means of coercion. For the conversation, as we gather from the next-following lines, takes place in one of the prisons of the sacred tribunal. ‘The fire is alight,’ Izarn continues; ‘the people are assembled to see justice done, and if you refuse to confess you will certainly be burnt.’ Motives of much less force would be sufficient to overcome the resistance of the worthy Sicart. His conscientious scruples are indeed of the very slightest description; he is anxious only about the terms of his capitulation. ‘Izarn,’ he says, ‘if you assure me and give securities that I shall not be burnt or immured or otherwise destroyed, I don’t care what other punishment you may inflict; only save me from that.’ But he knows his captors too well to expect his life from motives of pity. Treachery is the price of his safety, and of that commodity he offers liberal measure. ‘Berit,’ he says, ‘and Peire Razol’ (two other spies, it may be conjectured) ‘don’t know half of what I do. I will tell you everything you ask both about believers and heretics, but you must promise me secrecy.’ Next follows a somewhat rambling explanation of the cause of his desertion, in which the souls of five hundred people whom he claims to have rescued from eternal perdition play a principal part. But he is particularly anxious to impress upon the monk that poverty has not been the motive of his action. ‘First of all,’ he says, ‘I want you to know that I have not presented