oemakers in the world.

At St John of the Lateran, at Rome, they boast of having his haircloth
mentioned in the Gospels. The Gospel speaks of his raiment of camel's
hair, but they endeavour to convert it into a horse-hair garment.(147)

They have also at the same church the altar before which he prayed in the
desert, as if altars were in those days erected on every occasion and in
every place. I wonder, indeed, that they have not ascribed to him the
saying of the mass.

At Avignon they show the sword with which he was beheaded, and at
Aix-la-Chapelle the sheet which was spread under him at that time. Is it
not absurd to suppose that the executioner would spread a sheet under one
whom he was about to kill?

But admitting that this should be the case, how have they obtained these
two objects? Is it likely that the man who put him to death, whether a
soldier or executioner, should have given away his sword and the sheet we
have mentioned, in order to be converted into relics?

ST PETER AND ST PAUL.

It is now time to speak of the apostles, and I shall begin with St Peter
and St Paul. Their bodies are at Rome; one part of them in the church of
St Peter, and the other in that of St Paul. We are told that St Sylvester
weighed their bodies in order to divide them into equal parts. Both their
heads are preserved also at Rome in St John of the Lateran. Besides the
two bodies we have just mentioned, many of their bones are to be found
elsewhere, as at Poitiers they have St Peter's jaw and beard. At Treves
there are several bones of the two apostles. At Argenton in Berri they
have St Paul's shoulder, and in almost every church dedicated to these
apostles there will be found some of their relics. At the commencement of
this treatise I mentioned that St Peter's brains, which were shown in this
town (Geneva), were found on examination to be a piece of pumice stone,
and I have no doubt that many of the bones considered to belong to these
two apostles would turn out to be the bones of some animal.

At Salvatierra they have St Peter's slipper. I do not know what shape it
is, or of what material it is made; but I conclude it to be similar to the
slippers of the same apostle shown at Poitiers, and which are made of
satin embroidered with gold. It would seem as if they had made him thus
smart after his death as a compensation for the poverty which he suffered
during his lifetime. Their bishops look now so showy in their pontificals,