by Sax Rohmer
When judgment was about to be pronounced a tremendous storm arose, so that the awesome noise of the thunder must have penetrated even to the abbé’s dungeon. He was found lying on the ground, with tongue out, and his face black, swollen, and hideous; and it was given out that the devil had strangled the sorcerer (but the friends of the Duc de Guyenne, we read, were very well able themselves to perform the office of the devil in this affair of intrigue).
The Duc de Bourgogne published, on the death of his ally, the Duc de Guyenne, a bloody manifesto against Louis XI. He accused the latter of having been the cause of the murder of his own brother by means of poisons, witchcraft, sorcery, and diabolical invocations. According to Argentré, an almost contemporary writer, who charges Louis XI with these crimes, we have the confession straight from the mouth of the fratricide. One day, whilst in the chapel of Notre Dame de Cléry, he is said to have addressed this prayer to the Virgin:
“Ah! good Lady, my little mistress, my great friend, in whom I always find comfort, I pray that thou wilt supplicate God for me, and be my advocate, that He will pardon me for the death of my brother, whom I caused to be poisoned by the hand of that bad abbé of Saint-Jean. — Obtain my pardon, good Lady, and I know what I will give thee!”
In the year 1571, the notorious sorcerer, Trois Échelles, was executed in the Place de Grève. He confessed before the King, Charles IX, and in the presence of Ambroise Paré, the Maréchaux Montmorency and Ritz, the Seigneur de Lansac, and Mirzille, chief physician to the King, that he performed marvels by the aid of a spirit to whom he was bound, and that this spirit had tormented him for three years. He beseeched the King to pardon him, promising to reveal his accomplices; and that he might recognize them, he looked to see if they bore the devil’s mark.
He conversed at length upon the Sabbath, the sacrifices which were offered, and on the lewd practices of women and devils. He spoke also of the composition of powders and ointments. Admiral de Coligny, who also was present, recollected that by means of these powders a valet had caused the death of two gentlemen by sprinkling their beds where they slept. He added that after their death they were found black and swollen.
The next case to which I beg leave to draw your attention is that of Loyse, daughter of Claude Maillat, of the village of Courières, aged eight years, who, on Saturday, June 15, 1598, was rendered impotent in all her limbs to such an extent that she was compelled to walk on all-fours, whilst her mouth was twisted in a most extraordinary manner. This continued until the 19th of July following, and her father and mother, convinced that she was possessed, took her to the Church of the Holy Saviour, where were discovered five demons whose names were given as Loup, Chat, Chien, Joly, and Griffon.
When the priest demanded of the girl who had been the cause of her troubles, she replied that it was a certain Françoise Secretain, at the same time pointing with her finger to one who assisted at the exorcism.
But the demons, according to Henri Boguet, would not leave her body. She was therefore taken back to the house of her parents, whom she begged to pray for her, saying that if they would do this she would very soon be delivered from the evil spirits. The hour of midnight was approaching when Loyse told her parents that two of the demons were dead, and that if they would continue to pray the others would meet with the same fate. Accordingly her parents remained all night in prayer, praying with an invincible ardour; and in the morning, at break of day, Loyse found her self suffering worse than ever. Nevertheless, throwing herself finally upon the floor, the demons left her body by the mouth in the form of large pellets — as big as one’s fist, and red as fire, except that Chat was black. Those which she had pronounced as dead left last of all, but with less violence.
All these demons then jumped three or four times around the fire, and disappeared; from which time onwards Loyse steadily recovered.
Françoise Secretain confessed in the first place to having caused five demons to enter the body of Loyse Maillat, and that she had for some time been in the service of the devil, who appeared to her in the shape of a black man; that the devil had approached her amorously in the forms of a cat, a dog, and a fowl, adding that the embrace of the Evil One was very cold; that she had attended the Sabbath on an infinite number of occasions, and the assembly of sorcerers below the village of Courières, in a place called Combes, near the water; that she had journeyed thither astride a white staff; that she, and others, had caused the death of one Loys Monneret, by means of a piece of bread which had been given him to eat, and which they had sprinkled with a powder provided by the devil; that she had caused the death of several cows, by touching them with her hand, or rather with a wand, at the same time uttering an incantation.
“The glory of God,” says our author, “was made manifest in the imprisonment of Françoise.”
The Italians who had come to the Court of France in the train of the Queen, Marie de Médicis, had a profound belief in the powers of magic. The famous Maréchal d’Ancre, Concini Concini, was killed by a pistol-shot on the drawbridge of the Louvre by Vitry, Captain of the Bodyguard, on April 24, 1617. The Parlement proceeded against the memory of the deceased soldier; and his wife, Leonora Galigai, was included in the accusation — one of sorcery directed against Marie de Médicis.
When the president, Courtin, demanded of her in what manner she had caused the enchantment of the Queen, she proudly replied:
“My witchcraft has been the power that a strong will should have over a weak will.”
At the procès were produced agnus deis (wax seals) which were said to be talismans, and a letter that Léonora had ordered to be written to the sorceress Isabella. In the room of the Maréchale were found three books of characters, five rolls of velvet for the purposes of invoking the spirits of the great, and amulets to be suspended from the neck.
It was proved also that the Maréchal and his wife made use of wax images, which they kept in coffins, that they consulted magicians, astrologers, and sorcerers, notably one Cosmo Rugieri, an Italian, and the same who was put to the question on the occasion of the death of Charles IX. It was also established beyond doubt that they (the Maréchal and his wife) had brought sorcerers, notably from Nancy, in order to sacrifice a cock, and that one of them had burned incense in the garden, and blessed the earth; that Galigai ate nothing on these occasions but cocks’ combs and the kidneys of a ram she had caused to be consecrated previously.
Léonora Concini was convicted of having been exorcised by Mathieu de Montmay, a charlatan who passed for a magician, in the Chapel of the Epiphany, a church of the Augustines. The monks of the convent were summoned, and the Maréchale d’Ancre confessed that she was exorcised at night, in their church, in order that her reputation might not suffer, as on occasions she was possessed. Upon this confession she was condemned to be beheaded, and her body to be burnt after death. The execution took place on July 8, 1617.
This affair serves to demonstrate the fearful beliefs which prevailed even in the houses of the principal officers of the Crown; consequently it is no matter for wonder that the lower classes saw sorcery in every ailment and witchcraft in every mishap.
In 1628, Desbordes, a valet-de-chambre of the Duc de Lorraine, Charles IV, was accused of having hastened the death of the Princess Christine, mother of the Duc, and of having caused divers maladies which the physicians attributed to sorcery. Charles IV had conceived grave suspicions against Desbordes, since the occasion of a hunting-party, when the valetde-chambre had served, without other preparation than that of opening a small bottle, a grand banquet to the Duc and his companions; and, to crown the marvel, had commanded three unfortunate thieves, who were dead, and whose corpses still hung from the gibbet, to come and render homage and then to return to the gallows! Also, it was said of him that upon another occasion he commanded persons represented upon the tapestry to detach themselves from it and to come out into the middle of the room. One is almost tempted to sympathize with the suspicions of the Duc.
Charles IV desired tha
t proceedings should be taken against Desbordes; and, accordingly, the valet was arrested and put to the question, being charged with having invoked the aid of sorcery. He made a partial confession and was condemned to be burnt at the stake.
This epoch, too, was notable for strange visions. Thus, the soldiers of the garrison of Lusignan declared that they saw two fiery horsemen fighting a single combat, about whom hovered a multitude of birds of sinister aspect, preceded by two torches and followed by the figure of a man making a noise like an owl!
IV. WITCH-FINDERS
With the increase of the sorcery epidemic uprose a class of persons whose business was the seeking out and burning of witches and sorcerers. Sprenger, in Germany, has the dubious honour of being the most active of these. He has laid down a regular form of trial, together with a course of examination by which his colleagues in other countries might discover the brand of Lucifer.
This individual alone made himself responsible for some 500 victims annually! Within three months, goo perished in Würzburg, 600 in Bamberg, and 500 in Geneva. One judge of Lorraine boasted that he had personally condemned 900; and the Archbishop of Trêves, ascribing the cold spring of 1586 to witchcraft, burned 118 women at one time.
Pricking was the favourite mode employed by the witch-finder to learn if the suspected person were one of Satan’s own, and the discharge of fourteen alleged witches by the Parlement of Paris, in 1589, appears to be the only notable instance of mercy throughout the whole black record. On this occasion, four commissioners — Pierre Pigray, the King’s surgeon, and Messrs. Leroi, Renard, and Falaiseau, the King’s physicians — were appointed to examine these witches in quest of the devil’s mark.
Pierre Pigray relates that the examination took place in the presence of two Court Counsellors. The witches were all stripped naked, and the physicians examined their bodies with great care, pricking them in all the marks they could find to learn if these were insensible to pain — a certain proof of guilt.
The poor women, however, were very sensible of the pricking, screaming when the pins were driven into them. “Many of them were quite indifferent about life, and one or two desired death as a relief from their sufferings.” They were released, however.
A French theological Professor, who wrote in 1720, notes the following symptoms as being infallible signs of a person having been bewitched:
2. Continual burning and lancinating pains, especially in the region of the heart, inability to retain food, and a sensation as if balls were rising and falling in the throat.
3. Suddenly falling ill of a grievous complaint, and wasting away without any apparent cause.
4. Medicines prescribed having the opposite effect from their known virtues and intensifying rather than modifying the disease.
To such an absurd extent were the proceedings against witches carried on the Continent, that it is related how, on one occasion, a sow and a litter of pigs were prosecuted. The whole family was found guilty and condemned to death; but the infant porkers were reprieved on account of their youth!
The following is transcribed from an old chap-book which had a wide circulation in the seventeenth century:
“To help a Person under an ill Tongue, and make the Witch appear, or the Effect cease.
“Cut off some of the Party’s Hair, just at the Nape of the Neck, clip it small and burn it to Powder, put the Powder in Sal-Armoniack, write the Party’s Name you suspect backwards, and put the Paper, dipt in Aqua Vitæ, into the other two, then set it over a gentle Fire; let the Party afflicted sit by it, and diligently watch it that it run not over to catch flame, speaking no Word, whatsoever Noise is heard, but take Notice of what Voice or Roaring is heard in the Chimney, or any part of the Room, and then write how often you hear it, and fix before each writing this Character, — and if the Party who afflicts you appear not Visible, though you may know the Voice, repeat it again, and if she appear in no visible shape, it may make her charm impotent, and give relief to the Afflicted Party.” Famous among witch-finders was James VI of Scotland; and, if his work on demonology has not rendered him immortal, by reason of his dealings with those suspected of witchcraft at least he is for ever execrable. The torturing of the young and handsome Gellie Duncan, and the infamous torments to which her reputed accomplice, Cunningham (Dr. Fian), was submitted, are but some of the items to the debit of James VI of Scotland.
Dr. Fian was far removed from a saintly character, but when his examination by James was concluded (restoratives having been administered again and again in order to render the victim conscious of renewed tortures) he was less a man than a bleeding mass, for even the bones of his legs had been crushed to pulp in the boot; his nails had been withdrawn by pincers and needles thrust into his eyes to the sockets.
Euphemia Macalzean (another alleged accomplice of poor Gellie Duncan) was doomed “to be burned in ashes, quick to the death.” This inhuman sentence was carried out on June 25, 1591.
In 1597 James published in Edinburgh his treatise on demonology. In the introduction he says:
“The fearful abounding at this time and in this country of these detestable slaves of the devil, the witches or enchanters, hath moved me, beloved reader, to dispatch in post this following treatise of mine, not in any wise, as I protest, to serve for a show of mine own learning and ingene, but only (moved of conscience) to press thereby... that the instrument... merits most severely to be punished, against the damnable opinions of two, principally in our age; whereof the one called Scot, an Englishman, is not ashamed in public print to deny that there can be such things as witchcraft....”
Other parts of his work James thoughtfully cast in the form of dialogue, to render it, in his own words, “more pleasant and facile”!
England and Scotland, then, soon competed with the Continental countries in the burning of witches, and Zachary Grey, the editor of Hudibras, says that he himself perused a list of three thousand victims executed during the session of the Long Parliament alone. 1634 is notorious for the trial of the “Lancashire Witches,” but it remained for Manningtree, Essex, about the year 1644, to present to the world a master witch-finder, in the vulgar person of Matthew Hopkins. Assuming the title of “Witch - finder General,” Hopkins toured the counties of Norfolk, Essex, Hants, and Sussex, in quest of witches. In one year he brought no fewer than sixty to the stake.
The method of detection upon which he pinned his faith was that of “swimming” — so highly recommended by James VI of Scotland. The right thumb of the suspected person was tied to the toe of the left foot, and vice versa. She was then wrapped in a blanket and placed on her back in a pond. If she floated — which we are told was generally the case when placed carefully upon the water — she was guilty, and was burned forthwith; if she sank, she was innocent!
Hopkins travelled like a gentleman, attended by his two assistants, always putting up at the principal inn of the town — at the cost of the authorities. He charged 20s per visit, with expenses, and 20s per head for each witch convicted.
He had carried on his outrageous trade for three years when the Rev. Mr. Gaul, of Houghton, published a pamphlet directed against the cruel rogue. In it he describes another method employed by Hopkins to detect a witch. He relates that the Witch-finder General used to place the suspected woman in the middle of a room, cross-legged upon a stool. Hopkins then caused her to be watched by his assistants for four-and-twenty hours, during which time she was kept without food or drink.
The interesting theory was that one of her imps would come during that time to suck her blood. As the imp might come in the form of a fly, of a wasp, or of any other insect, and as doors and windows were thoughtfully left open, visitations by imps were common under the circumstances. It was the duty of the watchers to kill any insect which appeared; if a fly escaped, it was her imp — the woman was guilty, she was sentenced to the stake, and Matthew Hopkins collected his modest fee of 20s from the local authorities.
Of Matthew Hopkins Butler says in Hudibras:
A lieger to the devil sent,
Fully empowered to treat about
Finding revolted witches out?
And has he not within a year
Hang’d threescore of them in one shire?
Some only for not being drown’d,
And some for sitting above ground
Whole days and nights upon their breeches,
And feeling pain, were hang’d for witches;
And some for putting knavish tricks
Upon green geese or turkey chicks;
Or pigs that suddenly deceased
Of griefs unnatural, as he guessed;
Who proved himself at length a witch,
And made a rod for his own breech.
One rejoices to learn that Matthew Hopkins was “swum,” according to his own recipe, in a Suffolk village-pond, and either drowned or subsequently executed.
In Scotland, at this period, witch-finders flourished under the generic title of “common prickers,” receiving, like the talented Hopkins, a fee for each conviction. John Kincaid, the common pricker of Dalkeith, in 1646, was caused by the magistrates to exercise his craft upon the person of one Janet Peaston.
“He found two marks of the devil’s making,” says Pitcairn, in Records of Justiciary, “for she could not feel the pin when it was put into either of the said marks... they were pins of three inches in length”!
Hundreds of innocent persons had suffered at the hands of the common prickers ere, in 1678,’ the Privy Council of Scotland sat to consider the appeal of an honest woman who had been indecently exposed by one of them, and expressed the opinion that “common prickers were common cheats.”
V. THE STAKE
Many persons were averse from witches being hanged, contending that burning was the better form of death because, the body of a witch being burnt, her blood was prevented thereby from “becoming hereditary to her Progeny in the same evill, which by hanging is not.”
