having raised from the grave the form of Mary of Burgundy, at the
intercession of her widowed husband, the Emperor Maximilian. His work
on steganographia, or cabalistic writing, was denounced to the Count
Palatine, Frederic II, as magical and devilish; and it was by him
taken from the shelves of his library and thrown into the fire.
Trithemius is said to be the first writer who makes mention of the
wonderful story of the devil and Dr. Faustus, the truth of which he
firmly believed. He also recounts the freaks of a spirit, named
Hudekin, by whom he was at times tormented. [Biographie Universelle]

THE MARECHAL DE RAYS.

One of the greatest encouragers of alchymy in the fifteenth
century was Gilles de Laval, Lord of Rays and a Marshal of France. His
name and deeds are little known; but in the annals of crime and folly,
they might claim the highest and worst pro-eminence. Fiction has never
invented anything wilder or more horrible than his career; and were
not the details but too well authenticated by legal and other
documents which admit no doubt, the lover of romance might easily
imagine they were drawn to please him from the stores of the prolific
brain, and not from the page of history.

He was born about the year 1420, of one of the noblest families of
Brittany. His father dying when Gilles had attained his twentieth
year, he came into uncontrolled possession, at that early age, of a
fortune which the monarchs of France might have envied him. He was a
near kinsman of the Montmorencys, the Roncys, and the Craons;
possessed fifteen princely domains, and had an annual revenue of about
three hundred thousand livres. Besides this, he was handsome, learned,
and brave. He distinguished himself greatly in the wars of Charles