xecuting figures in the radiant
assemblies of Heaven.

"One is soon accustomed to endure Masses of the kind called at Toledo
_Mussarabes_, during which the congregation dance and gambol in the
cathedral; but these capers presently lose the pious character that they
are supposed to bear; they become an incentive to the revelry of the
senses, and several Councils have prohibited them.

"In the seventeenth century sacred dances still survived in some
provinces; we hear of them at Limoges, where the Cure of St. Leonard and
his parishioners pirouetted in the choir of the church. In the
eighteenth century their traces are found in Roussillon, and at the
present day religious dancing still survives; but the tradition of this
saintly frisking is chiefly preserved in Spain.

"Not long since, on the day of Corpus Christi at Compostella, the
procession was led through the streets by a tall man who danced carrying
another on his shoulders. And to this day, at Seville, on the festival
of the Holy Sacrament, the choir-children turn in a sort of slow waltz
as they sing hymns before the high altar of the cathedral. In other
towns, on the festivals of the Virgin, a saraband is slowly danced round
Her statue, with striking of sticks, and the rattle of castanets; and to
close the ceremony by way of Amen the people fire off squibs.

"All this, however, is of no great interest, and I cannot help wondering
what meaning can have been attributed to cutting capers and spinning
round. I find it difficult to believe that _farandoles_ and _boleros_
could ever represent prayer; I can hardly persuade myself that it can be
an act of thanksgiving to trample peppers under foot or appearing to
grind at an imaginary coffee-mill with one's arms.

"In point of fact no one knows anything about the symbolism of dancing;
no record has come down to us of the meanings ascribed to it of old.
Church dancing is really no more than a gross form of rejoicing among
Southern races. We need mention it merely as noteworthy, and that is
all.

"Now, from a practical point of view, what has the influence of
symbolism been on souls?"

Durtal could answer himself.

"The Middle Ages, knowing that everything on earth is a sign and a
figure, that the only value of things visible is in so far as they
correspond to things invisible--the Middle Ages, when consequently men
were not, as we are, the dupes of appearances--made a profound study of
this science, and made it th