Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/177

 any meat or country produce, and money, so long as the coins were not stamped with a cross. In her hand she held a disc or plate “vne paix ou platine,” engraved with a figure of the Devil, and this his followers devoutly kissed. In many places to-day, especially Belgium, during Holy Mass the pax-brede (instrumentum pacis) is kissed by the congregation at the Offertory, and universally when Mass is said by a priest in the presence of a Prelate the pax-brede is kissed by the officiant and the Prelate after the Agnus Dei and the first appropriate ante-communion prayer.

Silvain Nevillon, who was tried at Orleans in 1614–15, avowed: “The Devil preached a sermon at the Sabbat, but nobody could hear what he said, for he spoke in a growl.”

At the Sabbat a sermon is not infrequently delivered, a farrago of impiety and evil counsel.

The hosts are then brought to the altar. Boguet describes them as dark and round, stamped with a hideous design; Madeleine Bavent saw them as ordinary wafers only coloured red; in other cases they were black and triangular in shape. Often they blasphemed the Host, calling it “Iean le blanc,” just as Protestants called it “Jack-in-the-box.” The chalice is filled, sometimes with wine, sometimes with a bitter beverage that burned the tongue like fire. At the Sanctus a horn sounded harshly thrice, and torches burning with a sulphurous blue flare “qui est fort puante” were kindled. There was an elevation, at which the whole gang, now in a state of hysterical excitement and unnatural exaltation, burst forth with the most appalling screams and maniac blasphemies, rivalling each other in filthy adjurations and crapulous obscenities. The protagonist poured out all the unbridled venom that diabolic foulness could express, a stream of scurrility and pollution; hell seemed to have vomited its reeking gorge on earth. Domine adiuua nos, domine, adiuua nos, they cried to the Demon, and again Domine adiuua nos semper. Generally all present were compelled to communicate with the sacrament of the pit, to swallow morsels soiled with mud and ordures, to drink the dark brew of damnation. Gaufridi confessed that for Ite missa est these infernal orgies concluded with the curse: “Allez-vous-en tous au nom du diable!” Whilst the abbé Guibourg cried: “Gloria tibi, Lucifero!”