In fact they prospered so, that, in a few years they had everything that a convent of mendicant friars could desire. Nor were they idle during all the time they were acquiring these riches; they preached both in the town and in the neighbouring villages, and had such influence over the people that there was not a good christian who did not confess to them, they had such great renown for pointing out faults to sinners.
But of all who praised them and held them in esteem, the women were foremost, such saints did they deem them on account of their charity and devotion.
Now listen to the wickedness, deception, and horrible treason which these false hypocrites practised on the men and women who every day gave them so many good gifts. They made it known to all the women in the town that they were to give to God a tenth of all their goods.
“You render to your Lord such and such a thing; to your parish and priest such and such a thing; and to us you must render and deliver the tithe of the number of times that you have carnal connection with your husband. We will take no other tithe from you, for, as you know, we carry no money—for the temporal and transitory things of this world are nothing to us. We ask and demand only spiritual goods. The tithes which we ask and which you owe us are not temporal goods; as the Holy Sacrament, which you receive, is a divine and holy thing, so no one may receive the tithe but us, who are monks of the order of the Observance.”
The poor simple women, who believed the good friars were more like angels than terrestrial beings, did not refuse to pay the tithe. There was not one who did not pay in her turn, from the highest to the lowest, even the wife of the Lord was not excused.
Thus were all the women of the town parcelled out amongst these rascally monks, and there was not a monk who did not have fifteen or sixteen women to pay tithes to him, and God knows what other presents they had from the women, and all under cover of devotion.
This state of affairs lasted long without its ever coming to the knowledge of those who were most concerned in the payment of the new tithe; but at last it was discovered in the following manner.
A young man who was newly married, was invited to supper at the house of one of his relations—he and his wife—and as they were returning home, and passing the church of the above-mentioned good Cordeliers, suddenly the bell rang out the Ave Maria, and the young man bowed to the ground to say his prayers.
His wife said, “I would willingly enter this church.”
“What would you do in there at this hour?” asked her husband. “You can easily come again when it is daylight; to-morrow, or some other time.”