Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/171

 Paris burned in the Place de Grève a friar named Séchelle who had been found guilty of participating in similar profane mysteries. In 1597 the Parliament of Paris sentenced Jean Belon, curé of S. Pierre-des-Lampes in the Bourges diocese, to be hanged and his body burned for desecration of the Sacrament and the repeated celebration of abominable ceremonies. The Parliament of Bordeaux in 1598 condemned to the stake Pierre Aupetit, curé of Pageas, near Chalus Limousin. He confessed that for more than twenty years he had frequented Sabbats, especially those held at Mathegoutte and Puy-de-Dôme, where he worshipped the Devil and performed impious masses in his honour. August 14, 1606, a friar named Denobilibus was put to death at Grenoble upon a similar conviction. In 1609 the Parliament of Bordeaux sent Pierre De Lancre and d’Espagnet to Labourd in the Bayonne district to stamp out the sorcerers who infested that region. No less than seven priests were arrested on charges of celebrating Satan’s mass at the Sabbat. Two, Migalena, an old man of seventy, and Pierre Bocal, aged twenty-seven, were executed, but the Bishop of Bayonne interfered, claimed the five for his own tribunal and contrived that they should escape from prison. Three other priests who were under restraint were immediately set free, and wisely quitted the country. A twelvemonth later Aix and the whole countryside rang with the confessions of Madeleine de la Palud who “Dit aussi que ce malheureux Loys magicien … a controuvé le premier de dire la messe au sabatt et consacrer Véritablement et présenter le sacrifice à Lucifer.” It was, of course, mere ignorance on her part to suppose that “that accursed Magician Lewes did first inuent the saying of Masse at the Sabbaths,” although Gaufridi may have told her this to impress her with a sense of his importance and power among the hierarchies of evil. Certainly in her evidence the details of the Sabbat worship are exceptionally detailed and complete.

They are, however, amply paralleled, if not exceeded, by the narrative of Madeleine Bavent, a Franciscan sister of the Third Order, attached to the convent of SS. Louis and Elizabeth at Louviers. Her confessions, which she wrote at length by the direction of her confessor, des Marets, an Oratorian, meticulously describe scenes of the most hideous