In the eighteenth century their traces are found in Roussillon, and at the present day religious dancing still survives; but the tradition of this saintly frisking is chiefly preserved in Spain.
"Not long since, on the day of Corpus Christi at Compostella, the procession was led through the streets by a tall man who danced carrying another on his shoulders.

And to this day, at Seville, on the festival of the Holy Sacrament, the choir-children turn in a sort of slow waltz as they sing hymns before the high altar of the cathedral.

In other towns, on the festivals of the Virgin, a saraband is slowly danced round Her statue, with striking of sticks, and the rattle of castanets; and to close the ceremony by way of Amen the people fire off squibs.
"All this, however, is of no great interest, and I cannot help wondering what meaning can have been attributed to cutting capers and spinning round.

I find it difficult to believe that _farandoles_ and _boleros_ could ever represent prayer; I can hardly persuade myself that it can be an act of thanksgiving to trample peppers under foot or appearing to grind at an imaginary coffee-mill with one's arms.
"In point of fact no one knows anything about the symbolism of dancing; no record has come down to us of the meanings ascribed to it of old.
Church dancing is really no more than a gross form of rejoicing among Southern races.

We need mention it merely as noteworthy, and that is all.
"Now, from a practical point of view, what has the influence of symbolism been on souls ?" Durtal could answer himself.
"The Middle Ages, knowing that everything on earth is a sign and a figure, that the only value of things visible is in so far as they correspond to things invisible--the Middle Ages, when consequently men were not, as we are, the dupes of appearances--made a profound study of this science, and made it the nursing mother and the handmaid of mysticism.
"Convinced that the only aim that it was incumbent on man to follow, the only end he could really need, was to place himself in direct communication with Heaven, and to out-strip death by merging himself, unifying himself to the utmost, with God, it tempted souls, subjecting them to a moderate claustral course, purged them of their earthly interests, their fleshly aims, and led them back again and again to the same purpose of renunciation and repentance, the same ideas of justice and love; and then to retain them, to preserve them from themselves, it enclosed them in a fence, placed God all about them, as it were, under every form and aspect." Jesus was seen in everything--in the fauna, the flora, the structure of buildings, in every decoration, in the use of colour.