S o 4 THE DRAMA. 



magnificence, to the modern stage. There were some very quaint costumes 

 assigned by tradition to certain parts. Thus the devils were always in black, 

 and the angels in white, blue, and red ; while, as the priestly garment was 

 looked upon as the most worthy of respect, God was always represented with 

 cope and stole, and a bishop's mitre or a pope's tiara. The actors who had to 

 represent the dead dressed " as souls ; " that is to say, they covered themselves 

 with a veil white for the saved, red or black for the lost. In the Mistere du 

 Vieux Testament, in which it was desired to represent the blood of Abel shed 

 by Cain, the actor who had to represent this blood was wrapped in a large 

 red cloak, and writhed at the feet of the murderer, crying, " Vengeance ! " 



The mysteries, some of which contained seventy or eighty thousand lines, 

 would have taken several consecutive weeks to play through, so that, in order 

 to give players and the public breathing-time, an interval of several days 

 was given after each representation, and when the play was resumed the 

 attendance was as numerous as at the beginning. As M. Louandre justly 

 observes, " Could it be otherwise ? The public beheld in a living and 

 animated form the world of the past and of the future, the Paradise of their 

 first parents, and the Paradise in which they would one day contemplate their 

 God. They looked at all this with the eyes of faith, and the influence of this 

 sacred drama was not a triumph of art, but a miracle of belief. Of art, in 

 fact, there were but a few flashes in these compositions, at once barbarous and 

 artless, and in which were reflected the real and the fantastic world, sacred 

 history and profane." 



The miracles, which contained, like the mysteries, so many touching and 

 graceful passages, are filled with singular details, which the careful historian 

 should on no account overlook. This simple-minded and confused accumula- 

 tion of dissonant ideas did not exclude the shrewd humour which we find in 

 all the French poems of the fifteenth century. It is a mistake, therefore, to 

 say that the miracles contained neither satires on manners nor allusions to 

 contemporary events, and numerous instances might be cited in contradiction. 

 Thus, in the miracles composed and played in the reign of Charles VI., Queen 

 Isabeau of Bavaria, and her brother-in-law, the Duke of Orleans, are severely 

 assailed ; the court, too, is very roughly handled ; the military party is 

 inveighed against ; and even the clergy do not always escape. In many 

 parts of these popular pieces the noble inspiration of the poet bursts forlh 

 beneath the coarse envelope of an as yet imperfect language. It will be 



