he ancient law. But here the law is ended, and the world of
grace seems opening its two-leaved gate to the mean and to the simple.
The people innocently believes it all. Thereon comes that lofty hymn,
in which it says to the ass what it might have said to itself:--

"Down on knee and say _Amen_!
Grass and hay enough hast eaten.
Leave the bad old ways, and go!

* * * * *

For the new expels the old:
Shadows fly before the noon:
Light hath hunted out the night."

[10] According to the ritual of Rouen. See Ducange on the
words _Festum_ and _Kalendae_: also Martene, iii. 110. The
Sibyl was crowned and followed by Jews and Gentiles, by
Moses, the Prophets, Nebuchadnezzar, &c. From a very early
time, and continually from the seventh to the seventeenth
century, the Church strove to proscribe the great people's
feasts of the Ass, of Innocents, of Children, and of Fools.
It never succeeded until the advent of the modern spirit.

How bold and coarse ye are! Was it this we asked of you, children rash
and wayward, when we told you to be as children? We offered you milk;
you are drinking wine. We led you softly, bridle in hand, along the
narrow path. Mild and fearful, ye hesitated to go forward: and now,
all at once, the bridle is broken; the course is cleared at a single
bound. Ah! how foolish we were to let you make your own saints; to
dress out the altar; to deck, to burden, to cover it up with flowers!
Why, it is hardly distinguishable! And what we do see is the old
heresy condemned of the Church, _the innocence of nature_: what am I
saying?--a new heresy, not like to end to-morrow, _the independence of
man_.

Listen and obey!--You are forbidden to invent, to create. No more
legends, no more new saints: we have had enough of them. You are
forbidden to introduce new chants in your worship: inspiration is not
allowed. The martyrs you would bring to light should stay modestly
within their tombs, waiting to be recognised by the Church. The
clergy, the monks are forbidden to grant the tonsure of civil freedom
to husbandmen and serfs. Such is the narrow fearful spirit that fills
the Church of the Carlovingian days.[11] She unsays her words, she
gives herself the lie, she says to the children, "Be old!"

[11] See the Capitularies, _passim_.

* * * * *

A fall indeed! But is this earnest? They had bidden