proportions that you know. In the sixteenth it was worse yet. No need to
remind you, I think, of the demoniac pactions of Catherine de Medici and
of the Valois, of the trial of the monk Jean de Vaulx, of the
investigations of the Sprengers and the Lancres and those learned
inquisitors who had thousands of necromancers and sorcerers roasted
alive. All that is known, too well known. One case is not too well known
for me to cite here: that of the priest Benedictus who cohabited with
the she-devil Armellina and consecrated the hosts holding them upside
down. Here are the diabolical threads which bind that century to this.
In the seventeenth century, in which the sorcery trials continue, and in
which the 'possessed' of Loudun appear, the black religion nourishes,
but already it has been driven under cover.

"I will cite you an example, one among many, if you like.

"A certain abbé Guibourg made a specialty of these abominations. On a
table serving as tabernacle a woman lay down, naked or with her skirts
lifted up over her head, and with her arms outstretched. She held the
altar lights during the whole office.

"Guibourg thus celebrated masses on the abdomen of Mme. de Montespan, of
Mme. d'Argenson, of Mme. de Saint-Pont. As a matter of fact these
masses were very frequent under the Grand Monarch. Numbers of women went
to them as in our times women flock to have their fortunes told with
cards.

"The ritual of these ceremonies was sufficiently atrocious. Generally a
child was kidnapped and burnt in a furnace out in the country somewhere,
the ashes were saved and mixed with the blood of another child whose
throat had been cut, and of this mixture a paste was made resembling