This attitude was quite logical, if not in the spirit of
religion and in contradiction to the principle of asceticism, yet in the
spirit of orthodoxy; for "whatever was not for her, was against her."
The brave, Janus-headed abbe was spokesman for the whole clergy, which
branded love not projected on God as _fornicatio_. In his recantation
Andreas upheld the previously-despised matrimonial state at the expense
of love; "love," he maintained, "destroys matrimony." Matfre did exactly
the same thing; after recapitulating in his _Breviari d'Amor_ all the
splendid achievements rooted in the cult of woman, he suddenly veered
round (at the 27,445th verse):
And Satan blows on their desire,
In monstrous flames leaps up the fire,
And maddened by the raging fiend,
From love of God and honour weaned,
They turn from their Creator's shrine
And call their mistresses divine.
With soul and body, mind and sense,
They worship woman's excellence.
Abandoned in her beauty revel,
And unawares adore the devil.
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