and notwithstanding all those grievous paines and cruell
torments, hee would not confess anie thing; so deeply had
the devill entered into his heart, that hee utterly denied
all that which he had before avouched, and would saie
nothing thereunto but this, that what he had done and sayde
before, was onely done and sayde for fear of paynes which he
had endured. After this horrible treatment the wretched man
was strangled and burnt.

The following list gives a few--and only a few--of the direful results
to which this widespread superstition led. The instances are chiefly
taken from Dr. Réville's _History of the Devil_, and Haydn's
well-known _Dictionary of Dates_:--

At Toulouse a noble lady, fifty-six years of age, named
Angela de Labarète, was the first who was burnt as a
sorceress, in which special quality she formed part of the
great _auto-da-fé_ which took place in that city in the year
1275; at Carcasonne, from 1320 to 1350, more than four
hundred executions for witchcraft are on record; in 1309
many Templars were burnt at Paris for witchcraft; Joan of
Arc was burnt as a witch at Rouen, May 30th, 1431; in 1484
Pope Innocent VIII. issued a bull against witchcraft,
causing persecutions to break out in all parts of
Christendom; during three months of the year 1515, about
five hundred witches were burnt at Geneva; in 1524 many
persons were burnt for the same crime in the Diocese of
Como; about the year 1520 a great number suffered in France,
and one sorcercer confessed to having 1,200 associates; from
1580 to 1595--a period of fifteen years--about nine hundred