Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/191

176 clerks, the shopkeepers, the advocates—have dressing-rooms and parlours. Their houses have large gardens and orchards. There is plenty of room. There is, also, plenty of money. When the clerk's son goes to woo the draper's daughter, he and his mother make a great purchase of thick silks, choosing everything they like ("for, as for money, you know how little in need of that sort of drug these shopkeepers are"). The women dress in fine taffetas, in silks, even in velvet, "which once was only worn by women of good family." There is no dearth of good cheer, of comfort, even of luxury among these people, who may, none the less, be burned for heresy or witchcraft, or racked to death if they offend the law. The chief blot on this rich diffusion of wealth is the corruption of the clergy. The confessor, if all tales be true, is a real danger in every household. The convents and monasteries offered more serious perils to innocent youth than even the thoughtless world outside. Meanwhile society went smoothly on; deriving, perhaps, some satisfaction from the shortcomings of its spiritual pastors. It was a merry world, my Masters; but corrupt at the heart all the same.

The corruption, of course, is especially in evidence in the book before us; for it was Margaret's object to expose the radical dangers of a celibate priesthood, the worldliness of a Church avowedly malcontent with merely spiritual power, and the gross ignorances which the popularity of the begging friars had introduced even into the pulpit and the confessional. Margaret had it greatly at heart to reform the Catholic Church; and of course the need of reform is emphasized in her novels. But the sense of general well-being and good humour, of life and vigour and wealth, of a rising and