[792] [So called] "Coventry Mysteries," Trial of Christ.
[793] The French drama written on this subject is lost (it is, however, mentioned in the catalogue of a bookseller of the fifteenth century; see "Les Mystères," by Petit de Julleville, vol. ii. chap, xxiii., "Mystères perdus"); but the precision of details in the miniature is such that I had no difficulty in identifying the particular version of the story followed by the dramatist. It is an apocryphal life of Apollinia, in which is explained how she is the saint to be applied to when suffering toothache. This episode is the one Fouquet has represented. Asked to renounce Christ, she answers: "'Quamdiu vivero in hac fragili vita, lingua mea et os meum non cessabunt pronuntiare laudem et honorem omnipotentis Dei.' Quo audito jussit [imperator] durissimos stipites parari et in igne duros fieri et præacutos ut sic dentes ejus et per tales stipites læderent, radices dentium cum forcipe everentur radicitus. In illa hora oravit S. Apollinia dicens: 'Domine Jesu Christe, precor te ut quicumque diem passionis meæ devote peregerint ... dolorem dentium aut capitis nunquam sentiant passiones.'" The angels thereupon (seated on wooden stairs, in Fouquet's miniature) come down and tell her that her prayer has been granted. "Acta ut videntur apocrypha S. Apolloniæ," in Bollandus, "Acta Sanctorum," Antwerp, vol. ii. p. 280, under the 9th February.
See also the miniatures of a later date (sixteenth century) in the MS. of the Valenciennes Passion, MS. fi. 15,236 in the National Library, and the model made after one of them, exhibited in the Opéra Museum, Paris.
[794] What the place is—
... Vous le povez congnoistre
Par l'escritel que dessus voyez estre.
Prologue of a play of the Nativity, performed at Rouen, 1474; Petit de Julleville, "Les Mystères," vol. i. p. 397.
[795] "Digby Mysteries," ed. Furnivall, p. 127.
[796] "Mystère du vieil Testament," Paris, 1542, with curious cuts, "pour plus facile intelligence." Many other editions; one modern one by Baron J. de Rothschild, Société des Anciens Textes Français, 1878 ff.
[797] "Chester Plays," ii.
[798] "Adoncques doit Adam couvrir son humanité, faignant avoir honte. Icy se doit semblablement vergongner la femme et se musser de sa main." "Mystère du vieil Testament."