CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY. 



543 



therefore, followed, and even outdone, by his imitators, amongst whom were 

 Geyler in Germany, and Robert Messier, Guillaume Pepin, Michel Menot, 

 and Olivier Maillard in France. These preachers, who were none the less 

 pious and sincere, went to the greatest lengths in their sermons, the Latin 

 context of which was interspersed with words and phrases in the vulgar 

 tongue, into which they foisted pell-mell proverbs, songs, jokes, apologues, 

 and ill-timed pleasantries. But their audiences were not, as a rule, particular 

 in this respect, and when Olivier Maillard was going to preach at his parish 



Fig. 403. Sermon upon the Vanity of Human Things. The Actor (or Author) instructs the 

 Supplicant opposite the Shop of a Goldsmith and Money-changer. Fac-simile of a Miniature 

 from the "Petite Traict6 de la Vanite des Choses Mondaines," composed in 1466. 

 Manuscript of the Period. In the Arsenal Library, Paris. 



of St. Jean-en-Greve the church was crowded by daybreak. No preacher 

 ever produced so potent an effect. At first his hearers laughed at his satirical 

 allusions, but they were in the end subdued and stirred by his eloquence, 

 which had its root in the most ardent faith. 



Olivier Maillard, whose sermons preached in Paris re-echoed throughout 

 France, afterwards travelled through the provinces, and preached in the 



