LES MIRACLES DE NOTRE DAME
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Primes deseur et puis desos,
Puis se remet sor ses génois,
Devers l'ymage, et si l'encline:
"He'" fait il, "très douce reme
Par vo pitié, par vo francise,
Ne despisies pas mon servise!"
Straining hard with might and main;
Then, falling on his knees again,
Before the image bows his face:
"By your pity! by your grace!"
Says he,   Ha! my gentle queen,
Do not despise my offering1 "
In his earnestness he exerted himself until, at the end of his strength,
he lay exhausted and unconscious on the altar steps. Pleased with his
own exhibition, and satisfied that the Virgin was equally pleased, he
continued these devotions every day, until at last his constant and
singular absence from the regular services attracted the curiosity of
a monk, who kept watch on him and reported his eccentric exercise
to the Abbot.
The mediaeval monasteries seem to have been gently administered.
Indeed, this has been made the chief reproach on them, and the excuse
for robbing them for the benefit of a more energetic crown and nobility
who tolerated no beggars or idleness but their own; at least, it is safe
to say that few well-regulated and economically administered modern
charities would have the patience of the Abbot of Clairvaux, who, in-
stead of calling up the weak-minded tombeor and sending him back to
the world to earn a living by his profession, went with his informant
to the crypt, to see for himself what the strange report meant. We
have seen at Chartres what a crypt may be, and how easily one might
hide in its shadows while mass is said at the altars. The Abbot and
his informant hid themselves behind a column in the shadow, and
watched the whole performance to its end when the exhausted tumbler
dropped unconscious and drenched with perspiration on the steps of
the altar, with the words: —
"Dame!" fait il, "ne puis plus ore,
Mais voire je reviendrai encore."
"Lady!' says he, 'no more I can
But truly I'll come back again!"
You can imagine the dim crypt; the tumbler lying unconscious
beneath the image of the Virgin; the Abbot peering out from the
shadow of the column, and wondering what sort of discipline he could