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The adherents of the traditional theology are 'intellectualists, and their conception of reality is 'static. The meaning of the latter charge may perhaps be best explained from Laberthonnière's brilliantly written essay, 'Le Réalisme Chrétien et l'Idéalisme Grec. The Greeks, he says, were insatiable in their desire to see, like children.
The Morien is for me a welcome piece of evidence in support of the theory that sees in the poem of Wolfram von Eschenbach the survival of a genuine variant of the Perceval story, differing in important particulars from that preserved by Chretien de Troyes, and based upon a French original, now, unfortunately, lost.
Even Chretien de Troyes, for example, who passed his life in exploiting the Breton romances for his own purposes, originated the saying "Les Gallois sont tous par nature Plus sots que betes de pature."
I would draw the attention of my readers to a passage in the Perceval of Chretien de Troyes, where Gawain, finding a wounded knight by the roadside, proceeds to treat him: "Et Mesire Gauvain savoit Plus que nuls homs de garir plaie; Une herbe voit en une haie Trop bonne pour douleur tolir De plaie, et il la va cueillir."
If it is difficult to establish a direct connection between these two latter, it is practically impossible to argue any connection between either group and the 'Tarot'; no one has as yet ventured to suggest the popularity of the works of Chretien de Troyes among the Gipsies! Yet the correspondence can hardly be fortuitous.
Can it be imagined that I would take the trouble to gather what grows on every hedge, because I have collected such fruits as the Nonpareil and the BON CHRETIEN ? On the other hand, how useful is such a faculty, if well exercised! To it we owe all those interesting apophthegms and memorabilia of the ancients, which Plutarch, Xenophon, and Valerius Maximus, have transmitted to us.
This supersession was adequately motivated by the supposed transgression of a fundamental Christian law, entailing as consequence the forfeiture of his crown. I would thus separate the doubling theme, as found in Chretien and Wolfram, from the wounded theme, equally common to these poets.
I reproach myself for them, I swear to you, as for a mortal sin, and I now, in my hours of repose, occupy myself only with my 'Methode des Controverses', and my book on the 'Perfection du Chretien. I remember that I am fifty-six years old, and that I have an incurable malady."
Virtue, moreover, was as natural to the Lavals as bravery on the field of battle, and whether it were in the retinue of Clovis, when the First Barons received the regenerating water of baptism, or on the immortal plain of Bouvines; whether it were by the side of Blanche of Castile, attacked by the rebellious nobles, or in the terrible holocaust of Crécy; whether it were in the fight of the giants at Marignan, or after Pavia during the captivity of the roi-gentilhomme; everywhere where country and religion appealed to their defenders one was sure of hearing shouted in the foremost ranks the motto of the Montmorencys: "Dieu ayde au premier baron chrétien!"
Le Quatrième Évangile, passim. Loisy, Les Évangiles Synoptiques, p. 214. Ibid. p. 218. Loisy, Les Évangiles Synoptiques, p. 223. The Programme of Modernism, pp. 82, 83. Ibid. p. 90. Loisy, Simples Réflexions, p. 211. Laberthonnière, Le Réalisme Chrétien et l'Idéalisme Grec, pp. 44, 45. Malachi, ii. 6. Le Roy, Dogme et Critique, p. 26. This is not carelessness on the part of the writer.
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