Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/496

 4S0 SORCERY AND OCCULT ARTS. The records are imperfect, and tell us nothing of what was done with the followers of Gilles, but we mav be sure that during this interval the methods of the inquisitorial process were not spared to extract information from them, and that it was spread among the people to create public opinion, for already, by the 28th, some of the sorrowing parents who came forward to confirm their previous complaints assert that since La M effraye had been in the secular prison they had been told that she said their children had been delivered to Gilles. At this hearing of the 2Sth only these 'ten witnesses were heard, with their vague conjectures as to the loss of their offspring. Gilles was not present, and apparently the result of the torture of his servants had not yet been satisfactory, for further proceedings were adjourned till October 8.* In the succeeding hearings the rule of secrecy seems to have been abandoned. There evidently was extreme anxiety to create popular opinion against the prisoner, for the court-room in the Tour Neuve was crowded. On October 8 proceedings opened with the frantic cries of the bereaved parents clamoring for justice against him who had despoiled them and had committed a black catalogue of crimes, which shows that since their last appearance their ignorance had been carefully enlightened. Like the chorus of a Greek tragedy, the same dramatic use was made of them on the 11th, after which, as the object was presumably accomplished, they disappear. + At the hearing of the 8th the articles of accusation were pre- sented orally by the prosecutor. Gilles thereupon appealed from the court, but as his appeal was verbal it was promptly set aside, though no offer was made to him of counsel, or even of a notary to reduce it to writing. If anything could move us to commisera- tion for such a criminal it would be the mockery of justice in a trial where, alone and unaided, he was called upon to defend his life without preparation or the means of defence. He doubtless was guilty, but if he had been innocent the result would have been the same. Yet the trial was not carried on " si?npliciter et de piano" according to the forms of the Inquisition. There was a semblance of a litis contestatio. The prosecutor took the jura- mentum de calumnia, to tell the truth and avoid deceit, and
 * Bossard et Maulde. Pr. pp. vi -ix. f Ibid. pp. ix., xh.