Yet it must be
admitted that the progress of civilization had previously done much
towards the removal of the most obnoxious of the abuses. The times,
happily, no longer existed, when, as in the XIIth century, the prelate,
with a degree of indecency scarcely to be credited, especially under an
ecclesiastical government, did not scruple to convert the wages of sin
into a source of revenue, as scandalous in its nature as it must have
been contemptible in its amount, by exacting from every prostitute a
weekly tax of a farthing, for liberty to exercise her profession[14].
Many uncouth and frivolous ecclesiastical rites and ceremonies of the
middle ages, which good sense had banished from most other parts of
France, where they once were common, still lingered in the archbishop's
seignory. Thus, at no very remote period, it was customary on the Feast
of Pentecost to cast burning flakes of tow from the vaulting of the
church; this stage-trick being considered as a representation of the
descent of the fiery tongues.
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