Donatus of Altomare [1] affirms that he saw a man in the streets
of Naples, surrounded by a ring of people, who in his were-wolf frenzy
had dug up a corpse and was carrying off the leg upon his shoulders.
This was in the middle of the sixteenth century.

[1. _De Medend. Human. Corp_. lib. i. cap. 9.]



CHAPTER VI.

A CHAMBER OF HORRORS.


Pierre Bourgot and Michel Verdung--'Me Hermit of S. Bonnot--The
Gandillon Family--Thievenne Paget--The Tailor of Châlons--Roulet.

IN December, 1521, the Inquisitor-General for the diocese of Besançon,
Boin by name, heard a case of a sufficiently terrible nature to
produce a profound sensation of alarm in the neighbourhood. Two men
were under accusation of witchcraft and cannibalism. Their names were
Pierre Bourgot, or Peter the Great, as the people had nicknamed him
from his stature, and Michel Verdung. Peter had not been long under
trial, before he volunteered a full confession of his crimes. It
amounted to this:--

About nineteen years before, on the occasion of a New Year's market at
Poligny, a terrible storm had broken over the country, and among other
mischiefs done by it, was the scattering of Pierre's flock. "In vain,"
said the prisoner, "did I labour, in company with other peasants, to