The empire of the devil nowhere shines forth with more lustre than in what is related of the Sabbath (witches' sabbath or assembly), where he receives the homage of those of both sexes who have abandoned themselves to him. It is there, the wizards and witches say, that he exercises the greatest authority, and appears in a visible form, but always hideous, misshapen, and terrible; always during the night in out-of-the-way places, and arrayed in a manner more gloomy than gay, rather sad and dull, than majestic and brilliant. If they pay their adoration in that place to the prince of darkness, he shows himself there in a despicable posture, and in a base, contemptible and hideous form; if people eat there, the viands of the feast are dirty, insipid, and destitute of solidity and substance—they neither satisfy the appetite, nor please the palate; if they dance there, it is without order, without skill, without propriety.
To endeavor to give a description of the infernal sabbath, is to aim at describing what has no existence and never has existed, except in the craving and deluded imagination of sorcerers and sorceresses: the paintings we have of it are conceived after the reveries of those who fancy they have been transported through the air to the sabbath, both in body and soul.
People are carried thither, say they, sitting on a broom-stick, sometimes on the clouds or on a he-goat. Neither the place, thetime, nor the day when they assemble is fixed. It is sometimes in a lonely forest, sometimes in a desert, usually on the Wednesday or the Thursday night; the most solemn of all is that of the eve of St. John the Baptist: they there distribute to every sorcerer the ointment with which he must anoint himself when he desires to go to the sabbath, and the spell-powder he must make use of in his magic operations. They must all appear together in this general assembly, and he who is absent is severely ill-used both in word and deed. As to the private meetings, the demon is more indulgent to those who are absent for some particular reason.
As to the ointment with which they anoint themselves, some authors, amongst others, John Baptista Porta, and John Wierius,[209] boast that they know the composition. Amongst other ingredients there are many narcotic drugs, which cause those who make use of it to fall into a profound slumber, during which they imagine that they are carried to the sabbath up the chimney, at the top of which they find a tall black man,[210] with horns, who transports them where they wish to go, and afterwards brings them back again by the same chimney. The accounts given by these people, and the description which they give of their assemblies, are wanting in unity and uniformity.
The demon, their chief, appears there, either in the shape of a he-goat, or as a great black dog, or as an immense raven; he is seated on an elevated throne, and receives there the homage of those present in a way which decency does not allow us to describe. In this nocturnal assembly they sing, they dance, they abandon themselves to the most shameful disorder; they sit down to table, and indulge in good cheer; while at the same time they see on the table neither knife nor fork, salt nor oil; they find the viands devoid of savor, and quit the table without their hunger being satisfied.
One would imagine that the attraction of a better fortune, and a wish to enrich themselves, drew thither men and women. The devil never fails to make them magnificent promises, at least the sorcerers say so, and believe it, deceived, without doubt, by their imagination; but experience shows us that these people are always ragged, despised, and wretched, and usually end their lives in a violent and dishonorable manner.
When they are admitted for the first time to the sabbath, the demon inscribes their name and surname on his register, which he makes them sign; then he makes them forswear cream and baptism, makes them renounce Jesus Christ and his church; and, to givethem a distinctive character and make them known for his own, he imprints on their bodies a certain mark with the nail of the little finger of one of his hands; this mark, or character, thus impressed, renders the part insensible to pain. They even pretend that he impresses this character in three different parts of the body, and at three different times. The demon does not impress these characters, say they, before the person has attained the age of twenty-five.
But none of these things deserve the least attention. There may happen to be in the body of a man, or a woman, some benumbed part, either from illness, or the effect of remedies, or drugs, or even naturally; but that is no proof that the devil has anything to do with it. There are even persons accused of magic and sorcery, on whom no part thus characterized has been found, nor yet insensible to the touch, however exact the search. Others have declared that the devil has never made any such marks upon them. Consult on this matter the second letter of M. de St. André, Physician to the King, in which he well develops what has been said about these characters of sorcerers.
The word sabbath, taken in the above sense, is not to be found in ancient writers; neither the Hebrews nor the Egyptians, the Greeks nor the Latins have known it.
The thing itself, I mean thesabbathtaken in the sense of a nocturnal assembly of persons devoted to the devil, is not remarked in antiquity, although magicians, sorcerers, and witches are spoken of often enough—that is to say, people who boasted that they exercised a kind of power over the devil, and by his means, over animals, the air, the stars, and the lives and fortunes of men.
Horace[211] makes use of the wordcoticiato indicate the nocturnal meetings of the magicians—Tu riseris coticia; which he derives fromCotys, orCotto, Goddess of Vice, who presided in the assemblies which were held at night, and where the Bacchantes gave themselves up to all sorts of dissolute pleasures; but this is very different from the witches' sabbath.
Others derive this term fromSabbatius, which is an epithet given to the god Bacchus, whose nocturnal festivals were celebrated in debauchery. Arnobius and Julius Firmicus Maternus inform us that in these festivals they slipped a golden serpent into the bosoms of the initiated, and drew it downwards; but this etymology is too far-fetched: the people who gave the name ofsabbathto the assemblies of the sorcerers wished apparently to compare them in derision to those of the Jews, and to what they practiced in their synagogues on sabbath days.
The most ancient monument in which I have been able to remarkany express mention of the nocturnal assemblies of the sorcerers is in the Capitularies,[212] wherein it is said that women led away by the illusions of the demons, say that they go in the night with the goddess Diana and an infinite number of other women, borne through the air on different animals, that they go in a few hours a great distance, and obey Diana as their queen. It was, therefore, to the goddess Diana, or the Moon, and not to Lucifer, that they paid homage. The Germans call witches' dances what we call the sabbath. They say that these people assemble on Mount Bructere.
The famous Agobard,[213] Archbishop of Lyons, who lived under the Emperor Louis the Debonair, wrote a treatise against certain superstitious persons in his time, who believed that storms, hail, and thunder were caused by certain sorcerers whom they called tempesters (tempestarios, or storm-brewers), who raised the rain in the air, caused storms and thunder, and brought sterility upon the earth. They called these extraordinary rainsaura lavatitia, as if to indicate that they were raised by magic power. In this place the people still call these violent rainsalvace. There were even persons sufficiently prejudiced to boast that they knew oftempêtiers, who had to conduct the tempests where they choose, and to turn them aside when they pleased. Agobard interrogated some of them, but they were obliged to own that they had not been present at the things they related.
Agobard maintains that this is the work of God alone; that in truth, the saints, with the help of God, have often performed similar prodigies; but that neither the devil nor sorcerers can do anything like it. He remarks that there were among his people superstitious persons who would pay very punctually what they calledcanonicum, which was a sort of tribute which they offered to these tempest-brewers (tempêtiers), that they might not hurt them, while they refused the tithe to the priest and alms to the widow, orphan, and other indigent persons.
He adds that he had of late found people sufficiently foolish enough to spread a report that Grimaldus, Duke of Benevento, had sent persons into France, carrying certain powders which they had scattered over the fields, mountains, meadows, and springs, and had thus caused the death of an immense number of animals. Several of these persons were taken up, and they owned that they carried such powders about with them and though they made them suffer various tortures, they could not force them to retract what they had said.
Others affirmed that there was a certain country named Mangonia, where there were vessels which were borne through the air and took away the productions; that certain wizards had cut down trees to carry them to their country. He says, moreover, that one day three men and a woman were presented to him, who, they said, had fallen from these ships which floated in the air. They were kept some days in confinement, and at last having been confronted with their accusers, the latter were obliged, after contesting the matter, and making several depositions, to avow that they knew nothing certain concerning their being carried away, or of their pretended fall from the ship in the sky.
Charlemagne[214] in his Capitularies, and the authors of his time, speak also of these wizard tempest-brewers, enchanters, &c., and commanded that they should be reprimanded and severely chastised.
Pope Gregory IX.[215] in a letter addressed to the Archbishop of Mayence, the Bishop of Hildesheim, and Doctor Conrad, in 1234, thus relates the abominations of which they accused the hereticStadingians. "When they receive," says he, "a novice, and when he enters their assemblies for the first time, he sees an enormous toad, as big as a goose, or bigger. Some kiss it on the mouth, some kiss it behind. Then the novice meets a pale man with very black eyes, and so thin that he is only skin and bones. He kisses him, and feels that he is cold as ice. After this kiss, the novice easily forgets the Catholic faith; afterwards they hold a feast together, after which a black cat comes down behind a statue, which usually stands in the room where they assemble.
"The novice first of all kisses the cat on the back, then he who presides over the assembly, and the others who are worthy of it. The imperfect receive only a kiss from the master; they promise obedience; after which they extinguish the lights, and commit all sorts of disorders. They receive every year, at Easter, the Lord's Body, and carry it in their mouth to their own houses, when they cast it away. They believe in Lucifer, and say that the Master of Heaven has unjustly and fraudulently thrown him into hell. They believe also that Lucifer is the creator of celestial things, that will re-enter into glory after having thrown down his adversary, and that through him they will gain eternal bliss." This letter bears date the 13th of June, 1233.
Footnotes:
[209] Joan. Vier. lib. ii. c. 7.
[210] A remarkably fine print on this subject was published at Paris some years ago; if we remember right, it was suppressed.
[211] Horat. Epodon. xviii. 4.
[212] "Quædam sceleratæ mulieres dæmonum illusionibus et phantasmatibus seductæ, credunt se et profitentur nocturnis horis cum Dianâ Paganorum deâ et innumerâ multitudine mulierum equitare super quasdam bestias et multa terrarum spalia intempestæ noctis silentio pertransire ejusque jussionibus veluti dominæ obedire."—Baluz. Capitular. fragment. c. 13. Vide et Capitul. Herardi, Episc. Turon.
[213] Agobard de Grandine.
[214] Vide Baluzii in Agobard. pp. 68, 69.
[215] Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xvii. p. 53, ann. 1234.
All that is said about witches going to the sabbath is treated as a fable, and we have several examples which prove that they do not stir from their bed or their chamber. It is true that some of them anoint themselves with a certain grease or unguent, which makes them sleepy, and renders them insensible; and during this swoon they fancy that they go to the sabbath, and there see and hear what every one says is there seen and heard.
We read, in the book entitledMalleus Maleficorum, or theHammer of the Sorcerers, that a woman who was in the hands of the Inquisitors assured them that she repaired really and bodily whither she would, and that even were she shut up in prison and strictly guarded, and let the place be ever so far off.
The Inquisitors ordered her to go to a certain place, to speak to certain persons, and bring back news of them; she promised to obey, and was directly locked up in a chamber, where she lay down, extended as if dead; they went into the room, and moved her; but she remained motionless, and without the least sensation, so that when they put a lighted candle to her foot and burnt it she did not feel it. A little after, she came to herself, and gave an account of the commission they had given her, saying she had had a great deal of trouble to go that road. They asked her what was the matter with her foot; she said it hurt her very much since her return, and knew not whence it came.
Then the Inquisitors declared to her what had happened; that she had not stirred from her place, and that the pain in her foot was caused by the application of a lighted candle during her pretended absence. The thing having been verified, she acknowledged her folly, asked pardon, and promised never to fall into it again.
Other historians relate[216] that, by means of certain drugs with which both wizards and witches anoint themselves, they are really and corporally transported to the sabbath. Torquemada relates, on the authority of Paul Grilland, that a husband suspecting his wifeof being a witch, desired to know if she went to the sabbath, and how she managed to transport herself thither. He watched her so narrowly, that he saw her one day anoint herself with a certain unguent, and then take the form of a bird and fly away, and he saw her no more till the next morning, when he found her by his side. He questioned her very much, without making her own anything; at last he told her what he had himself seen, and by dint of beating her with a stick, he constrained her to tell him her secret, and to take him with her to the sabbath.
Arrived at this place, he sat down to table with the others; but as all the viands which were on the table were very insipid, he asked for some salt; they were some time before they brought any; at last, seeing a salt-cellar, he said—"God be praised, there is some salt at last!" At the same instant, he heard a very great noise, all the company disappeared, and he found himself alone and naked in a field among the mountains. He went forward and found some shepherds; he learned that he was more than three leagues from his dwelling. He returned thither as he could, and, having related the circumstance to the Inquisitors, they caused the woman and several others, her accomplices, to be taken up and chastised as they deserved.
The same author relates that a woman, returning from the sabbath and being carried through the air by the evil spirit, heard in the morning the bell for theAngelus. The devil let her go immediately, and she fell into a quickset hedge on the bank of a river; her hair fell disheveled over her neck and shoulders. She perceived a young lad who after much entreaty came and took her out and conducted her to the next village, where her house was situated; it required most pressing and repeated questions on the part of the lad, before she would tell him truly what had happened to her; she made him presents, and begged him to say nothing about it, nevertheless the circumstance got spread abroad.
If we could depend on the truth of these stories, and an infinite number of similar ones, which books are full of, we might believe that sometimes sorcerers are carried bodily to the sabbath; but on comparing these stories with others which prove that they go thither only in mind and imagination, we may say boldly, that what is related of wizards and witches who go or think they go to the sabbath, is usually only illusion on the part of the devil, and seduction on the part of those of both sexes who fancy they fly and travel, while they in reality do not stir from their places. The spirit of malice and falsehood being mixed up in this foolish prepossession, they confirm themselves in their follies and engage others in the same impiety; for Satan has a thousand ways of deceiving mankind and of retaining them in error. Magic, impiety, enchantments, areoften the effects of a diseased imagination. It rarely happens that these kind of people do not fall into every excess of licentiousness, irreligion, and theft, and into the most outrageous consequences of hatred to their neighbors.
Some have believed that demons took the form of the sorcerers and sorceresses who were supposed to be at the sabbath, and that they maintained the simple creatures in their foolish belief, by appearing to them sometimes in the shape of those persons who were reputed witches, while they themselves were quietly asleep in their beds. But this belief contains difficulties as great, or perhaps greater, than the opinion we would combat. It is far from easy to understand that the demon takes the form of pretended sorcerers and witches, that he appears under this shape, that he eats, drinks, and travels, and does other actions to make simpletons believe thatsorcerersgo to the sabbath. What advantage does the devil derive from making idiots believe these things, or maintaining them in such an error? Nevertheless it is related[217] that St. Germain, Bishop of Auxerre, traveling one day, and passing through a village in his diocese, after having taken some refreshment there, remarked that they were preparing a great supper, and laying out the table anew; he asked if they expected company, and they told him it was for those good women who go by night. St. Germain well understood what was meant, and resolved to watch to see the end of this adventure.
Some time after he beheld a multitude of demons who came in the form of men and women, and sat down to table in his presence. St. Germain forbade them to withdraw, and calling the people of the house, he asked them if they knew those persons: they replied, that they were such and such among their neighbors: "Go," said he, "and see if they are in their houses:" they went, and found them asleep in their beds. The saint conjured the demons, and obliged them to declare that it is thus they mislead mortals, and make them believe that there are sorcerers and witches who go by night to the sabbath; they obeyed, and disappeared, greatly confused.
This history may be read in old manuscripts, and is to be found in Jacques de Varasse, Pierre de Noëls, in St. Antonine, and in old Breviaries of Auxerre, as well printed, as manuscript. I by no means guarantee the truth of this story; I think it is absolutely apocryphal; but it proves that those who wrote and copied it believed that these nocturnal journeys of sorcerers and witches to the sabbath, were mere illusions of the demon. In fact, it is hardly possible to explain all that is said of sorcerers and witches going to the sabbath, without having recourse to the ministry of the demon; towhich we must add a disturbed imagination, with a mind misled, and foolishly prepossessed, and, if you will, a few drugs which affect the brain, excite the humors, and produce dreams relative to impressions already in their minds.
In John Baptist Porta Cardan, and elsewhere, may be found the composition of those ointments with which witches are said to anoint themselves, to be able to transport themselves to the sabbath; but the only real effect they produce is to send them to sleep, disturb their imagination, and make them believe they are going long journeys, while they remain profoundly sleeping in their beds.
The fathers of the council of Paris, of the year 829, confess that magicians, wizards, and people of that kind, are the ministers and instruments of the demon in the exercise of their diabolical art; that they trouble the minds of certain persons by beverages calculated to inspire impure love; that they are persuaded they can disturb the sky, excite tempests, send hail, predict the future, ruin and destroy the fruit, and take away the milk of cattle belonging to one person, in order to give it to cattle the property of another.
The bishops conclude that all the rigor of the laws enacted by princes against such persons ought to be put in force against them, and so much the more justly, that it is evident they yield themselves up to the service of the devil.
Spranger, in theMalleus Maleficorum, relates, that in Suabia, a peasant who was walking in his fields with his little girl, a child about eight years of age, complained of the drought, saying, "Alas! when will God give us some rain?" Immediately the little girl told him that she could bring him some down whenever he wished it. He answered,—"And who has taught you that secret?" "My mother," said she, "who has strictly forbidden me to tell any body of it."
"And what did she do to give you this power?"
"She took me to a master, who comes to me as many times as I call him."
"And have you seen this master?"
"Yes," said she, "I have often seen men come to my mother's house; she has devoted me to one of them."
After this dialogue, the father asked her how she could do to make it rain upon his field only. She asked but for a little water; he led her to a neighboring brook, and the girl having called the water in the name of him to whom she had been devoted by her mother, they beheld directly abundance of rain falling on the peasant's field.
The father, convinced that his wife was a sorceress, accused her before the judges, who condemned her to be burnt. The daughter was baptized and vowed to God, but she then lost the power of making it rain at her will.
Footnotes:
[216] Alphons. à Castro ex Petro Grilland. Tract. de Hæresib.
[217] Bolland, 5 Jul. p. 287.
This is an unheard-of example; a man and woman who declared themselves to be a sorcerer and sorceress. Louis Gaufredi, Curé of the parish of Accouls, at Marseilles,[218] was accused of magic, and arrested at the beginning of the year 1611. Christopher Gaufredi, his uncle, of Pourrieres, in the neighborhood of Beauversas, sent him, six months before he (Christopher) died, a little paper book, in 16mo., with six leaves written upon; at the bottom of every leaf were two verses in French, and in the other parts were characters or ciphers, which contained magical mysteries. Louis Gaufredi at first thought very little of this book, and kept it for five years.
At the end of that time, having read the French verses, the devil presented himself under a human shape, and by no means deformed, and told him that he was come to fulfil all his wishes, if he would givehimcredit for all his good works. Gaufredi agreed to the condition. He asked of the demon that he might enjoy a great reputation for wisdom and virtue among persons of probity, and that he might inspire with love all the women and young girls he pleased, by simply breathing upon them.
Lucifer promised him all this in writing, and Gaufredi very soon saw the perfect accomplishment of his designs. He inspired with love a young lady named Magdalen, the daughter of a gentleman whose name was Mandole de la Palud. This girl was only nine years old, when Gaufredi, on pretence of devotion and spirituality, gave her to understand that, as her spiritual father, he had a right to dispose of her, and persuaded her to give herself to the devil; and some years afterwards, he obliged her to give a schedule, signed with her own blood, to the devil, to deliver herself up to him still more. It is even said that he made her give from that time seven or eight other schedules.
After that, he breathed upon her, inspired her with a violent passion for himself, and took advantage of her; he gave her a familiar demon, who served her and followed her everywhere. One day he transported her to the witches' sabbath, held on a high mountainnear Marseilles; she saw there people of all nations, and in particular Gaufredi, who held there a distinguished rank, and who caused characters to be impressed or stamped on her head and in several other parts of her body. This girl afterwards became a nun of the order of St. Ursula, and passed for being possessed by the devil.
Gaufredi also inspired several other women with an irregular passion, by breathing on them; and this diabolical power lasted for six years. For at last they found out that he was a sorcerer and magician; and Mademoiselle de Mandole having been arrested by the Inquisition, and interrogated by father Michael Jacobin, owned a great part of what we have just told, and during the exorcisms discovered several other things. She was then nineteen years of age.
All this made Gaufredi known to the Parliament of Provence. They arrested him; and proceedings against him commenced February, 1611. They heard in particular the deposition of Magdalen de la Palud, who gave a complete history of the magic of Gaufredi, and the abominations he had committed with her. That for the last fourteen years he had been a magician, and head of the magicians; and if he had been taken by the justiciary power, the devil would have carried him body and soul to hell.
Gaufredi had voluntarily gone to prison; and from the first examination which he underwent, he denied everything and represented himself as an upright man. But from the depositions made against him, it was shown that his heart was very corrupted, and that he had seduced Mademoiselle de Mandole, and other women whom he confessed. This young lady was heard juridically the 21st of February, and gave the history of her seduction, of Gaufredi's magic, and of the sabbath whither he had caused her to be transported several times.
Some time after this, being confronted with Gaufredi, she owned that he was a worthy man, and that all which had been reported against him was imaginary, and retracted all she herself had avowed. Gaufredi on his part acknowledged his illicit connection with her, denied all the rest, and maintained that it was the devil, by whom she was possessed, that had suggested to her all she had said. He owned that, having resolved to reform his life, Lucifer had appeared to him, and threatened him with many misfortunes; that in fact he had experienced several; that he had burnt the magic book in which he had placed the schedules of Mademoiselle de la Palud and his own, which he had made with the devil; but that when he afterwards looked for them, he was much astonished not to find them. He spoke at length concerning the sabbath, and said there was, near the town of Nice, a magician, who had all sorts of garments ready for the use of the sorcerers; that on the day of the sabbath, there is a bell weighing a hundred pounds, four ells in width, and with a clapper of wood, which made the sound dull and lugubrious. Herelated several horrors, impieties, and abominations which were committed at the sabbath. He repeated the schedule which Lucifer had given him, by which he bound himself to cast a spell on those women who should be to his taste.
After this exposition of the things related above, the attorney-general drew his conclusions: As the said Gaufredi had been convicted of having divers marks in several parts of his body, where if pricked he has felt no pain, neither has any blood come; that he has been illicitly connected with Magdalen de la Palud, both at church and in her own house, both by day and by night, by letters in which were amorous or love characters, invisible to any other but herself; that he had induced her to renounce her God and her Church—and that she had received on her body several diabolical characters; that he has owned himself to be a sorcerer and a magician; that he had kept by him a book of magic, and had made use of it to conjure and invoke the evil spirit; that he has been with the said Magdalen to the sabbath, where he had committed an infinite number of scandalous, impious and abominable actions, such as having worshiped Lucifer:—for these causes, the said attorney-general requires that the said Gaufredi be declared attainted and convicted of the circumstances imputed to him, and as reparation of them, that he be previously degraded from sacred orders by the Lord Bishop of Marseilles, his diocesan, and afterwards condemned to make honorable amends one audience day, having his head and feet bare, a cord about his neck, and holding a lighted taper in his hands—to ask pardon of God, the king, and the court of justice—then, to be delivered into the hands of the executioner of the high court of law, to be taken to all the chief places and cross-roads of this city of Aix, and torn with red-hot pincers in all parts of his body; and after that, in thePlace des Jacobins, burned alive, and his ashes scattered to the wind; and before being executed, let the question be applied to him, and let him be tormented as grievously as can be devised, in order to extract from him the names of his other accomplices. Deliberated the 18th of April, 1611, and the decree in conformity given the 29th of April, 1611.
The same Gaufredi having undergone the question ordinary and extraordinary, declared that he had seen at the sabbath no person of his acquaintance except Mademoiselle de Mandole; that he had seen there also certain monks of certain orders, which he did not name, neither did he know the names of the monks. That the devil anointed the heads of the sorcerers with certain unguents, which quite effaced every thing from their memory.
Notwithstanding this decree of the Parliament of Provence, many people believed that Gaufredi was a sorcerer only in imagination; and the author from whom we derive this history says, that there aresome parliaments, amongst others the Parliament of Paris, which do not punish sorcerers when no other crimes are combined with magic; and that experience has proved that, in not punishing sorcerers, but simply treating them as madmen, it has been seen in time that they were no longer sorcerers, because they no longer fed their imagination with these ideas; while in those places where sorcerers were burnt, they saw nothing else, because everybody was strengthened in this prejudice. That is what this writer says.
But we cannot conclude from thence that God does not sometimes permit the demon to exercise his power over men, and lead them to the excess of malice and impiety, and shed darkness over their minds and corruption in their hearts, which hurry them into an abyss of disorder and misfortune. The demon tempted Job[219] by the permission of God. The messenger of Satan and the thorn in the flesh wearied St. Paul;[220] he asked to be delivered from them; but he was told that the grace of God would enable him to resist his enemies, and that virtue was strengthened by infirmities and trials. Satan took possession of the heart of Judas, and led him to betray Jesus Christ his Master to the Jews his enemies.[221] The Lord wishing to warn his disciples against the impostors who would appear after his ascension, says that, by God's permission, these impostors would work such miracles as might mislead the very elect themselves,[222] were it possible. He tells them elsewhere,[223] that Satan has asked permission of God to sift them as wheat, but that He has prayed for them that their faith may be steadfast.
Thus then with permission from God, the devil can lead men to commit such excesses as we have just seen in Mademoiselle de la Palud and in the priest Louis Gaufredi, perhaps even so far as really to take them through the air to unknown spots, and to what is called the witches' sabbath; or, without really conducting them thither, so strike their imagination and mislead their senses, that they think they move, see, and hear, when they do not stir from their places, see no object and hear no sound.
Observe, also, that the Parliament of Aix did not pass any sentence against even that young girl, it being their custom to inflict no other punishment on those who suffered themselves to be seduced and dishonored than the shame with which they were loaded ever after. In regard to the curé Gaufredi, in the account which they render to the chancellor of the sentence given by them, they say that this curé was in truth accused of sorcery; but that he had been condemned to the flames, as being arraigned and convicted of spiritual incest with Magdalen de la Palud, his penitent.[224]
Footnotes:
[218] Causes Célèbres, tom. vi. p. 192.
[219] Job i. 12, 13, 22.
[220] 2 Cor. xii. 7, 8.
[221] John xiii. 2.
[222] Matt. xxiv. 5.
[223] Luke xxi.
[224] The attentive reader of this horrible narrative will hardly fail to conclude that Gaufredi's fault was chiefly his seduction of Mademoiselle de la Palud, and that the rest was the effect of a heated imagination. The absurd proportions of the "Sabbath" bell will be sufficient to show this. If the bell were metallic, it would have weighed many tons, and awoodenbell of such dimensions, even were it capable of sounding, would weigh many hundred weight.
All that has just been said is more fitted to prove that the going of sorcerers and witches to the sabbath is only an illusion and a deranged imagination on the part of these persons, and malice and deceit on that of the devil, who misleads them, and persuades them to yield themselves to him, and renounce true religion, by the lure of vain promises that he will enrich them, load them with honors, pleasures, and prosperity, rather than to convince us of the reality of the corporeal transportation of these persons to what they call the sabbath.
Here are some arguments and examples which seem to prove, at least, that the transportation of sorcerers to the sabbath is not impossible; for the impossibility of this transportation is one of the strongest objections which is made to the opinion that supposes it.
There is no difficulty in believing that God may allow the demon to mislead men, and carry them on to every excess of irregularity, error, and impiety; and that he may also permit him to perform some things which to us appear astonishing, and even miraculous; whether the devil achieves them by natural power, or by the supernatural concurrence of God, who employs the evil spirit to punish his creature, who has willingly forsaken Him to yield himself up to his enemy. The prophet Ezekiel was transported through the air from Chaldea, where he was a captive, to Judea, and into the temple of the Lord, where he saw the abominations which the Israelites committed in that holy place; and thence he was brought back again to Chaldea by the ministration of angels, as we shall relate in another chapter.
We know by the Gospel that the devil carried our Saviour to thehighest point of the temple at Jerusalem.[225] We know also that the prophet Habakkuk[226] was transported from Judea to Babylon, to carry food to Daniel in the lion's den. St. Paul informs us that he was carried up to the third heaven, and that he heard ineffable things; but he owns that he does not know whether it was in the body or only in the spirit. He therefore doubted not the possibility of a man's being transported in body and soul through the air. The deacon St. Philip was transported from the road from Gaza to Azotus in a very little time by the Spirit of God.[227] We learn by ecclesiastical history, that Simon the magician was carried by the demon up into the air, whence he was precipitated, through the prayers of St. Peter. John the Deacon,[228] author of the life of St. Gregory the Great, relates that one Farold having introduced into the monastery of St. Andrew, at Rome, some women who led disorderly lives, in order to divert himself there with them, and offer insult to the monks, that same night Farold having occasion to go out, was suddenly seized and carried up into the air by demons, who held him there suspended by his hair, without his being able to open his mouth to utter a cry, till the hour of matins, when Pope St. Gregory, the founder and protector of that monastery, appeared to him, reproached him for his profanation of that holy place, and foretold that he would die within the year—which did happen.
I have been told by a magistrate, as incapable of being deceived by illusions as of imposing any such on other people,[229] that on the 16th of October, 1716, a carpenter, who inhabited a village near Bar, in Alsace, called Heiligenstein, was found at five o'clock in the morning in the garret of a cooper at Bar. This cooper having gone up to fetch the wood for his trade that he might want to use during the day, and having opened the door, which was fastened with a bolton the outside, perceived a man lying at full length upon his stomach, and fast asleep. He recognized him, and having asked him what he did there, the carpenter in the greatest surprise told him he knew neither by what means, nor by whom, he had been taken to that place.
The cooper not believing this, told him that assuredly he was come thither to rob him, and had him taken before the magistrate of Bar, who having interrogated him concerning the circumstance just spoken of, he related to him with great simplicity, that, having set off about four o'clock in the morning to come from Heiligenstein to Bar—there being but a quarter of an hour's distance between those two places—he saw on a sudden, in a place covered with verdureand grass, a magnificent feast, brightly illuminated, where a number of persons were highly enjoying themselves with a sumptuous repast and by dancing; that two women of his acquaintance, inhabitants of Bar, having asked him to join the company, he sat down to table and partook of the good cheer, for a quarter of an hour at the most; after that, one of the guests having cried out "Citò,Citò," he found himself carried away gently to the cooper's garret, without knowing how he had been transported there.
This is what he declared in presence of the magistrate. The most singular circumstance of this history is, that hardly had the carpenter deposed what we read, than those two women of Bar who had invited him to join their feast hung themselves, each in her own house.
The superior magistrates, fearing to carry things so far as to compromise perhaps half the inhabitants of Bar, judged prudently that they had better not inquire further; they treated the carpenter as a visionary, and the two women who hung themselves were considered as lunatics; thus the thing was hushed up, and the matter ended.
If this is what they call the witches' sabbath, neither the carpenter, nor the two women, nor apparently the other guests at the festival, had need to come mounted on a demon; they were too near their own dwellings to have recourse to superhuman means in order to have themselves transported to the place of meeting. We are not informed how these guests repaired to this feast, nor how they returned each one to their home; the spot was so near the town, that they could easily go and return without any extraneous assistance.
But if secrecy was necessary, and they feared discovery, it is very probable that the demon transported them to their homes through the air before it was day, as he had transported the carpenter to the cooper's garret. Whatever turn may be given to this event, it is certainly difficult not to recognize a manifest work of the evil spirit in the transportation of the carpenter through the air, who finds himself, without being aware of it, in a well-fastened garret. The women who hung themselves, showed clearly that they feared something still worse from the law, had they been convicted of magic and witchcraft. And had not their accomplices also, whose names must have been declared, as much to fear?
William de Neubridge relates another story, which bears some resemblance to the preceding. A peasant having heard, one night as he was passing near a tomb, a melodious concert of different voices, drew near, and finding the door open, put in his head, and saw in the middle a grand feast, well lighted, and a well-covered table, round which were men and women making merry. One of the attendants having perceived him, presented him with a cup filled with liquor; he took it, and having spilled the liquor, he fled withthe cup to the first village, where he stopped. If our carpenter had done the same, instead of amusing himself at the feast of the witches of Bar, he would have spared himself much uneasiness.
We have in history several instances of persons full of religion and piety, who, in the fervor of their orisons, have been taken up into the air, and remained there for some time. We have known a good monk, who rises sometimes from the ground, and remains suspended without wishing it, without seeking to do so, especially on seeing some devotional image, or on hearing some devout prayer, such as "Gloria in excelsis Deo." I know a nun to whom it has often happened in spite of herself to see herself thus raised up in the air to a certain distance from the earth; it was neither from choice, nor from any wish to distinguish herself, since she was truly confused at it. Was it by the ministration of angels, or by the artifice of the seducing spirit, who wished to inspire her with sentiments of vanity and pride? Or was it the natural effect of Divine love, or fervor of devotion in these persons?
I do not observe that the ancient fathers of the desert, who were so spiritual, so fervent, and so great in prayer, experienced similar ecstasies. These risings up in the air are more common among our new saints, as we may see in the Life[230] of St. Philip of Neri, where they relate his ecstasies and his elevations from earth into the air, sometimes to the height of several yards, and almost to the ceiling of his room, and this quite involuntarily. He tried in vain to hide it from the knowledge of those present, for fear of attracting their admiration, and feeling in it some vain complacency. The writers who give us these particulars do not say what was the cause, whether these ecstatic elevations from the ground were produced by the fervor of the Holy Spirit, or by the ministry of good angels, or by a miraculous favor of God, who desired thus to do honor to his servants in the eyes of men. God had moreover favored the same St. Philip de Neri, by permitting him to see the celestial spirits and even the demons, and to discover the state of holy spirits, by supernatural knowledge.
St. John Columbino, teacher of the Jesuits, made use of St. Catherine Columbine,[231] a maiden of extraordinary virtue, for the establishment of nuns of his order. It is related of her, that sometimes she remained in a trance, and raised up two yards from the ground, motionless, speechless, and insensible.
The same thing is said of St. Ignatius de Loyola,[232] who remained entranced by God, and raised up from the ground to the height of two feet, while his body shone like light. He has been seen toremain in a trance insensible, and almost without respiration, for eight days together.
St. Robert de Palentin[233] rose also from the ground, sometimes to the height of a foot and a half, to the great astonishment of his disciples and assistants. We see similar trances and elevations in the Life of St. Bernard Ptolomei, teacher of the congregation of Notre Dame of Mount Olivet;[234] of St. Philip Benitas, of the order of Servites; of St. Cajetanus, founder of the Théatins;[235] of St. Albert of Sicily, confessor, who, during his prayers, rose three cubits from the ground; and lastly of St. Dominic, the founder of the order of Preaching Brothers.[236]
It is related of St. Christina,[237] Virgin at S. Tron, that being considered dead, and carried into the church in her coffin, as they were performing for her the usual service, she arose suddenly, and went as high as the beams of the church, as lightly as a bird. Being returned into the house with her sisters, she related to them that she had been led first to purgatory, and thence to hell, and lastly to paradise, where God had given her the choice of remaining there, or of returning to this world and doing penance for the souls she had seen in purgatory. She chose the latter, and was brought back to her body by the holy angels. From that time she could not bear the effluvia of the human body, and rose up into trees and on the highest towers with incredible lightness, there to watch and pray. She was so light in running that she outran the swiftest dogs. Her parents tried in vain all they could do to stop her, even to loading her with chains, but she always escaped from them. So many other almost incredible things are related of this saint, that I dare not repeat them here.
M. Nicole, in his letters, speaks of a nun named Seraphina, who, in her ecstasies, rose from the ground with so much impetuosity that five or six of the sisters could hardly hold her down.
This doctor, reasoning on the fact,[238] says, that it proves nothing at all for Sister Seraphina; but the thing well verified proves God and the devil—that is to say, the whole of religion; that the circumstance being proved, is of very great consequence to religion; that the world is full of certain persons who believe only what cannot be doubted; that the great heresy of the world is no longer Calvinism and Lutheranism, but atheism. There are all sorts of atheists—some real, others pretended; some determined, others vacillating, and others tempted to be so. We ought not to neglect this kind of people; the grace of God is all-powerful; we must notdespair of bringing them back by good arguments, and by solid and convincing proofs. Now, if these facts are certain, we must conclude that there is a God, or bad angels who imitate the works of God, and perform by themselves or their subordinates works capable of deceiving even the elect.
One of the oldest instances I remark of persons thus raised from the ground without any one touching them, is that of St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died in 988, and who, a little time before his death, as he was going up stairs to his apartment, accompanied by several persons, was observed to rise from the ground; and as all present were astonished at the circumstance, he took occasion to speak of his approaching death.[239]
Trithemius, speaking of St. Elizabeth, Abbess of Schonau, in the diocese of Treves, says that sometimes she was in an ecstatic trance, so that she would remain motionless and breathless during a long time. In these intervals, she learned, by revelation and by the intercourse she had with blessed spirits, admirable things; and when she revived, she would discourse divinely, sometimes in German, her native language, sometimes in Latin, though she had no knowledge of that language. Trithemius did not doubt her sincerity and the truth of her discourse. She died in 1165.
St. Richard, Abbot of S. Vanne de Verdun, appeared in 1036 elevated from the ground while he was saying mass in presence of the Duke Galizon, his sons, and a great number of lords and soldiers.
In the last century, the reverend Father Dominic Carme Déchaux, was raised from the ground before the King of Spain, the queen, and all the court, so that they had only to blow upon his body to move it about like a soap-bubble.[240]
Footnotes:
[225] Matt. iv. 5.
[226] Dan. xiv. 33, 34. Douay Version.
[227] Acts viii. 40.
[228] Joan. Diacon. Vit. Gregor. Mag.
[229] Lettre de M. G. P. R., 5th October, 1746.
[230] On the 26th of May, of the Bollandists, c. xx. n. 356, 357.
[231] Acta S. J. Bolland. 3 Jul. p. 95.
[232] Ibid. 31 Jul. pp. 432, 663.
[233] Acta S. J. Bolland, 21 Aug. pp. 469, 481.
[234] Ibid. 18 Aug. p. 503.
[235] Ibid. 17 Aug. p. 255.
[236] Ibid. 4 Aug. p. 405.
[237] Vita S. Christina. 24 Jul. Bolland. pp. 652, 653.
[238] Nicole, tom. i. Letters, pp. 203, 205. Letter xlv.
[239] Vita Sancti Dunstani, xi. 42.
[240] It is worthy of remark, that in the cases which Calmet refers to of persons in his own time, and of his own acquaintance, being thus raised from the ground, he in no instance states himself to have been a witness of the wonder.
We cannot reasonably dispute the truth of these ecstatic trances, the elevations of the body of some saints to a certain distance from the ground, since these circumstances are supported by so manywitnesses. To apply this to the matter we here treat of, might it not be said that sorcerers and witches, by the operation of the demon, and with God's permission, by the help of a lively andsubtiletemperament, are rendered light and rise into the air, where their heated imagination and prepossessed mind lead them to believe that they have done, seen, and heard, what has no reality except in their own brain?
I shall be told that the parallel I make between the actions of saints, which can only be attributed to angels and the operation of the Holy Spirit, or to the fervor of their charity and devotion, with what happens to wizards and witches, is injurious and odious. I know how to make a proper distinction between them: do not the books of the Old and New Testament place in parallel lines the true miracles of Moses with those of the magicians of Pharaoh; those of antichrist and his subordinates with those of the saints and apostles; and does not St. Paul inform us that the angel of darkness often transforms himself into an angel of light?
In the first edition of this work, we spoke very fully of certain persons, who boast of having what they call "the garter," and by that means are able to perform with extraordinary quickness, in a very few hours, what would naturally take them several days journeying. Almost incredible things are related on that subject; nevertheless, the details are so circumstantial, that it is hardly possible there should not be some foundation for them; and the demon may transport these people in a forced and violent manner which causes them a fatigue similar to what they would have suffered, had they really performed the journey with more than ordinary rapidity.
For instance, the two circumstances related by Torquemada: the first of a poor scholar of his acquaintance, a clever man, who at last rose to be physician to Charles V.; when studying at Guadaloupe, was invited by a traveler who wore the garb of a monk, and to whom he had rendered some little service, to mount up behind him on his horse, which seemed a sorry animal and much tired; he got up and rode all night, without perceiving that he went at an extraordinary pace, but in the morning he found himself near the city of Granada; the young man went into the town, but the conductor passed onwards.
Another time, the father of a young man, known to the same Torquemada, and the young man himself, were going together to Granada, and passing through the village of Almeda, met a man on horseback like themselves and going the same way; after having traveled two or three leagues together, they halted, and the cavalier spread his cloak on the grass, so that there was no crease in the mantle; they all placed what provisions they had with them on this extended cloak, and let their horses graze. They drank and atevery leisurely, and having told their servants to bring their horses, the cavalier said to them, "Gentlemen, do not hurry, you will reach the town early"—at the same time he showed them Granada, at not a quarter of an hour's distance from thence.
Something equally marvelous is said of a canon of the cathedral of Beauvais. The chapter of that church had been charged for a long time to acquit itself of a certain personal duty to the Church of Rome; the canons having chosen one of their brethren to repair to Rome for this purpose, the canon deferred his departure from day to day, and set off after matins on Christmas day—arrived that same day at Rome, acquitted himself there of his commission, and came back from thence with the same dispatch, bringing with him the original of the bond, which obliged the canons to send one of their body to make this offering in person. However fabulous and incredible this story may appear, it is asserted that there are authentic proofs of it in the archives of the cathedral; and that upon the tomb of the canon in question may still be seen the figures of demons engraved at the four corners in memory of this event. They even affirm that the celebrated Father Mabillon saw the authentic voucher.
Now, if this circumstance and the others like it are not absolutely fabulous, we cannot deny that they are the effects of magic, and the work of the evil spirit.
Peter, the venerable Abbot of Cluny,[241] relates so extraordinary a thing which happened in his time, that I should not repeat it here, had it not been seen by the whole town of Mâcon. The count of that town, a very violent man, exercised a kind of tyranny over the ecclesiastics, and against whatever belonged to them, without troubling himself either to conceal his violence, or to find a pretext for it; he carried it on with a high hand and gloried in it. One day, when he was sitting in his palace in company with several nobles and others, they beheld an unknown person enter on horseback, who advanced to the count and desired him to follow him. The count rose and followed him, and having reached the door, he found there a horse ready caparisoned; he mounts it, and is immediately carried up into the air, crying out, in a terrible tone to those who were present, "Here, help me!" All the town ran out at the noise, but they soon lost sight of him; and no doubt was entertained that the devil had flown away with him to be the companion of his tortures, and to bear the pain of his excesses and his violence.
It is, then, not absolutely impossible that a person may be raised into the air and transported to some very high and distant place, by order or by permission of God, by good or evil spirits; but wemust own that the thing is of rare occurrence, and that in all that is related of sorcerers and witches, and their assemblings at the witches' sabbath, there is an infinity of stories, which are false, absurd, ridiculous, and even destitute of probability. M. Remi, attorney-general of Lorraine, author of a celebrated work entitledDemonology, who tried a great number of sorcerers and sorceresses, with which Lorraine was then infested, produces hardly any proof whence we can infer the truth and reality of witchcraft, and of wizards and witches being transported to the sabbath.
Footnotes:
[241] Petrus Venerab. lib. ii. de Miraculis, c. 1, p. 1299.