264          MONT-SAINT-MICHEL AND CHARTRES
was inherited by them, even in England, down to the time of Queen
Elizabeth, who treated her bishops also like domestic servants; —
"matinet bien main ! " To the public, as to us, the justice of the rebuke
was nothing to the point; but that a friend should exist on earth or in
heaven, who dared to browbeat a bishop, caused the keenest personal
delight. The legends are clearer on this point than on any other. The
people loved Mary because she trampled on conventions; not merely
because she could do it, but because she liked to do what shocked every
well-regulated authority.  Her pity had no limit.,
One of the Chartres miracles expresses the same motive in language
almost plainer still. A good-for-nothing clerk, vicious, proud, vain,
rude, and altogether worthless, but devoted to the Virgin, died, and
with general approval his body was thrown into a ditch (Bartsch,
1887, p. 369): —
Mais celé ou sort tote pities
Tote douceurs tote amisties
Et qui les siens onques n'oublie
Son pecheor n'oblia mie.
"Her sinner!" Mary would not have been a true queen unless she
had protected her own. The whole morality of the Middle Ages stood
in the obligation of every master to protect his dependent. The herds-
men of Count Garin of Beaucaire were the superiors of their damoiseau
Aucassins, while they felt sure of the Count. Mary was the highest of
all the feudal ladies, and was the example for all in loyalty to her own,
when she had to humiliate her own Bishop of Chartres for the sake of
a worthless brute. " Do you suppose it does n't annoy me, ' ' she said,
"to see my friend buried in a common ditch? Take him out at once/!
I command ! tell the clergy it is my order, and that I will never forgive
them unless to-morrow morning without delay, they bury my friend
in the best place in the cemetery!": —
Cuidies vos donc qu'il ne m'enuit
Quant vos l'aves si adosse
Que mis l'aves en un fosse?