belief that those who were affected were a kind of sectarians, and
on this account they hastened their exorcisms as much as possible,
in order that the evil might not spread amongst the higher
classes, for hitherto scarcely any but the poor had been attacked,
and the few people of respectability among the laity and clergy
who were to be found among them, were persons whose natural
frivolity was unable to withstand the excitement of novelty, even
though it proceeded from a demoniacal influence. Some of the
affected had indeed themselves declared, when under the influence
of priestly forms of exorcism, that if the demons had been allowed
only a few weeks' more time, they would have entered the bodies of
the nobility and princes, and through these have destroyed the
clergy. Assertions of this sort, which those possessed uttered
whilst in a state which may be compared with that of magnetic
sleep, obtained general belief, and passed from mouth to mouth
with wonderful additions. The priesthood were, on this account,
so much the more zealous in their endeavours to anticipate every
dangerous excitement of the people, as if the existing order of
things could have been seriously threatened by such incoherent
ravings. Their exertions were effectual, for exorcism was a
powerful remedy in the fourteenth century; or it might perhaps be
that this wild infatuation terminated in consequence of the
exhaustion which naturally ensued from it; at all events, in the
course of ten or eleven months the St. John's dancers were no
longer to be found in any of the cities of Belgium. The evil,
however, was too deeply rooted to give way altogether to such
feeble attacks.

A few months after this dancing malady had made its appearance at
Aix-la-Chapelle, it broke out at Cologne, where the number of