tributed to the Virgin, and, later, in the "Mysteries," and
the latter in tales of chivalry, where love is treated as a gift from
Heaven, and the recipients of it are idealised. Stories which seem to
contradict this, and to refute all accepted ideas of chivalry and
honour, are frequently original only in details, the bases being
borrowed from Oriental tales. Buddha's country, the land of the
Zenana, supplied much material of an exaggerated nature which in the
West became mere travesty.

It is always difficult to determine exactly the origin of anything so
subtle as a sentiment, especially one which gradually pervades and
influences a people. It is, in its way, at first like a soft breeze,
of which we can only see the effect. But as we try to discover some
definite, if only partial, reason for this interchange of simple human
relations between the Virgin and her votaries, we remember that St.
Francis, the embodiment of exalted human sentiment, had lived, and
that scholasticism, in that phase of it which treated the dialectical
subtleties of words as paramount, was on the wane. Hence spirit,
which had so long been restrained, and which is ever in conflict with
form, again prevailed, and mankind discovered that a loving Mother had
taken the place of a stately Queen in the Heavens. This attitude
towards the Virgin is revealed in the miracles attributed to her
agency. It is also shown in one of the greatest works of piety of the
thirteenth century, the _Meditations on the Life of Jesus Christ_,[36]
which, through the medium of the "Mysteries," introduced into sacred
pictorial art some of its most dramatic and appealing scenes. Where is
there to be found anything more tenderly human than the incident of
"Christ taking leave of His Mother" before His journey to Jerusalem to
consummate His mission?

[36] These meditations, attributed in the past, and by some
even now, to St. Bonaventura, are considered by other
scholars to be of Cistercian inspiration. P. Perdrizet, _La
Vierge de Misericorde_, 1908, p. 15.

This note of the womanly element in its fairest form, gradually
insinuating itself more and more, and permeating life, art, and
literature, is the key to the right understanding of the position
which woman had attained in the civilised world.

Before turning our special attention to Agnes Sorel, let us recall the
condition of France at the beginning of the fifteenth century.

When the lunatic King Charl