ceremonies of religion consisted in the grossest buffoonery, a prince
preferred death rather than cure himself by a remedy which offended his
chastity! Louis VIII. being dangerously ill, the physicians consulted,
and agreed to place near the monarch while he slept a young and
beautiful lady, who, when he awoke, should inform him of the motive
which had conducted her to him. Louis answered, "No, my girl, I prefer
dying rather than to save my life by a _mortal sin_!" And, in fact, the
good king died! He would not be prescribed for out of the whole
Pharmacopoeia of Love!

An account of our taste in female beauty is given, by Mr. Ellis, who
observes, in his notes to Way's Fabliaux, "In the times of chivalry the
minstrels dwelt with great complacency on the fair hair and delicate
complexion of their damsels. This taste was continued for a long time,
and to render the hair light was a great object of education. Even when
wig first came into fashion they were all flaxen. Such was the colour of
the Gauls and of their German conquerors. It required some centuries to
reconcile their eyes to the swarthy beauties of their Spanish and their
Italian neighbours."[16]

The following is an amusing anecdote of the difficulty in which an
honest Vicar of Bray found himself in those contentious times.

When the court of Rome, under the pontificates of Gregory IX. and
Innocent IV., set no bounds to their ambitious projects, they were
opposed by the Emperor Frederick; who was of course anathematised. A
curate of Paris, a humorous fellow, got up in his pulpit with the bull
of Innocent in his hand. "You know, my brethren (said he), that I am
ordered to proclaim an excommunication against Frederick. I am ignorant
of the motive. All that I know is, that there exist, between this Prince