notorious trio of crows, one is inclined to strike off a
cipher, and regard sixty-five as a sufficiently imposing and
far less improbable number. But the case of the Marechal de
Retz is still more frightful. A marshal of France, a scholarly
man, a patriot, and a man of holy life, he became suddenly
possessed by an uncontrollable desire to murder children.
During seven years he continued to inveigle little boys and
girls into his castle, at the rate of about TWO EACH WEEK, (?)
and then put them to death in various ways, that he might
witness their agonies and bathe in their blood; experiencing
after each occasion the most dreadful remorse, but led on by
an irresistible craving to repeat the crime. When this
unparalleled iniquity was finally brought to light, the castle
was found to contain bins full of children's bones. The
horrible details of the trial are to be found in the histories
of France by Michelet and Martin.

Going a step further, we find cases in which the propensity to
murder has been accompanied by cannibalism. In 1598 a tailor
of Chalons was sentenced by the parliament of Paris to be
burned alive for lycanthropy. "This wretched man had decoyed
children into his shop, or attacked them in the gloaming when
they strayed in the woods, had torn them with his teeth and
killed them, after which he seems calmly to have dressed their
flesh as ordinary meat, and to have eaten it with a great
relish. The number of little innocents whom he destroyed is
unknown. A whole caskful of bones was discovered in his
house."[78] About 1850 a beggar in the village of Polomyia, in
Galicia, was proved to have killed and eaten fourteen
children. A house had one day caught fire and burnt to the