_,
read the mass of the Requiem instead of the service of the Resurrection;
or that of yet another, who being so illiterate as to be unable to
pronounce readily the long words in his ritual always omitted them, and
pronounced the word Jesus, which he said was much more devotional.
There is a diverting tale of a foolish cure of Brou, which is well
worthy of reproduction, in _Les Contes; ou, les Nouvelles Recreations et
Joyeux Devis_, by Bonaventure des Periers--one of the best story-books
of the 16th century (Bonaventure succeeded the celebrated poet Clement
Marot as _valet-de-chambre_ to Margaret, queen of Navarre):
It happened that a lady of rank and importance, on her way to Chateaudun
to keep there the festival of Easter, passed through Brou on Good
Friday, about ten o'clock in the morning, and, wishing to hear service,
she went into the church. When the cure came to the Passion he said it
in his own peculiar manner, and made the whole church ring when he said,
"_Quem, quaeritis_?" But when it came to the reply, "_Jesum,
Nazarenum_,"[153] he spoke as low as he possibly could, and in this
manner he continued the Passion. The lady, who was very devout and, for
a woman, well-informed, in the Holy Scriptures [the reader will
understand this was early in the 16th century], and attentive to
ecclesiastical ceremonies, felt scandalised at this mode of chanting,
and wished that she had never entered the church.
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