In order to fully comprehend the Demonomania of the Middle Ages, it is
necessary to previously analyze the different elements composing the
medical constitution of the epoch, and, investigate under what morbid
influences such strange _neuroses_ were produced.
These influences, we shall find from thence, in the state of
intellectual and moral depression provoked by the successive
pestilential epidemics, which, from the sixth century decimated the
population of Western Europe; in the disposition of the human mind
towards supernaturalism, which had invaded all classes of society; in
the terrors excited by the tortures of an ever flaming and eternal
hell; in the fright, caused by the cruel and atrocious decisions of
brutal Inquisitors, and their fanatical tools, the officers of the
law. We find too, that a frightful condition of misery had weakened
the inhabitants of city and country, morally and physically, inducing
a multitude of women to openly enter into prostitution for protection
and nutrition, owing to the iniquity of a despotic regime; then too,
there were added bad conditions of hygiene and moral decadence, so that
intelligence was sapped and undermined, together with a breaking down
of the vitality of the organism.
In the recital of the miseries of the Middle Age, made by a master
hand, by an illustrious historian, who bases his assertions on antique
chronicles whose veracity cannot be questioned, we read the following:
“Society was impressed with a profound sentiment of sadness, it was
as though a pall of grief covered the generation; the whole world
given over to plagues; the invasion by barbarians; horrible diseases;
terrible famines decimating the masses by starvation; violent wind
storms; greyish skies with foggy days; the darkness of night casting
its shroud everywhere; a cry of lamentation ascends to Heaven through
all this gruesome period. That sombre witness, our contemporary Glaber,
fully indicates the position of society devoured by war, famine and the
plague. It was thought that the order of seasons and the laws of the
elements, that up to that period governed the world, had fallen back
into the original chaos. It was thought that the end of the human race
had arrived.”[65]
When the epidemic of Demonomania attacked the earth, at the end of
the fifteenth century, more than ten generations had undergone the
depressive action of the superstitions and false ideas spread broadcast
by religion. Heredity had prepared the earth, the human mind being in
an absolute condition of receptivity for all pathological actions. The
education of children was confined to teaching them foolish doctrines,
diabolical legends, mysterious practices that weakened their judgments.
With the progression, from childhood to majority, a vague sentiment
of uneasiness was experienced with a constant preoccupation on the
subject of conscience and sin. In full adult age, as we have observed,
came religious monomania, with acute sexual excitement, and persistent
erotic ideas.
Arriving at this phase of the situation, some became theomaniacs,
others demonomaniacs, saying they were possessed by sorcery, under the
influence of genesic and other senses, with psychal hallucinations, and
in some cases, psycho-sensorial illusions. These fictitious perception
were produced either through the influence of the mind, assailed by
supernatural conceptions, or by morbid impressions transmitted most
often by the great sympathetic, or, finally, by an unknown action
arising from the exterior.
Under the influence of these hallucinations, which manifested
themselves in a state of somnambulism, or during physiological sleep,
the recollection persisting to the after awakening, the Demonomaniac
responded to those asking questions, that he had heard the confused
noises made by the sorcerers at their _vigil_, had heard also the
conversation of the devils, and had seen scenes of the wildest
prostitution enacted by the demons; that fantastic animals were
perceived; that strange odors of a diabolical nature, the savor of
rotten meat, and corrupt human flesh, tainted blood of new born babes,
and other noisome things had been smelled; that these effluvias were
horrible, repulsive, nauseating, combined with the stink of sorcerers
and the sulphurous vapors of magical perfumes; that he felt himself
touched by supernatural beings who had the lightness of smoke or mist,
and wafted away in the air. The hallucinations of the genital senses
had led him to believe he had carnal connection, always of a painful
nature, with succubi. When the victim to these delusions was a woman,
she had the impression of having been brutally violated or deflowered,
and some women declared they oftentimes experienced the voluptuous
sensations of an amorous coition.
These hallucinations developed one after the other; those belonging to
the anesthetized class, coming first, those belonging to the genesic
class, coming last. The complexity of their symptoms produced what
we call _dedoublement_, or a dual personality. Those _possessed_,
claimed to be in the power of a demon, who entered their body by one
of the natural passages, sporting with their person, placing itself in
apposition with any place in their organism, proposing all sorts of
erotic acts, natural and unnatural, whispering shameless propositions
in their ears, blasphemy against God, forcing them to sign a contract
with the Devil in their own blood.
The nervous state in which such weak minded creatures were found,
victims to nocturnal hallucinations, insensibly induced a species of
permanent somnambulism, during which they acquired a particularly
morbid personality. They affirmed themselves to be sorcerers possessed
by demons. When this personality disappeared, and the patient returned
to a normal condition, a simple suggestion was all sufficient to cause
the reappearance of the hallucination. This explains why so many
individuals accused of sorcery, denied at first what they afterwards
affirmed. When the Judge demanded with an air of authority, what
they had done at the witch meeting, (_vigil_), they entered into a
most precise recital of minute details, and all the circumstances
surrounding the nocturnal reunions of demons and their victims; and, by
reason of this crazy avowal, or so called confession were burned at the
stake for participation in diabolical practices.
In the _Chronicles of Enguarrand, of Monstrelet_, a truthful and
trustworthy historian of the incidents of his time, we find a
description of the famous _epidemics_ of sorcery in Artois, which
caused such a multitude of victims to be burnt at the stake, by order
of the Inquisition. The facts recounted by this celebrated writer
support the interpretations we have given to these phenomena. He
expresses himself as follows:
“In 1459, in the village of Arras, in the country of Artois, came a
terrible and pitiable case of what we named _Vaudoisie_. I know not
why.” “Those possessed, who were men and women, said that they were
carried off every night by the Devil, from places where they resided,
and suddenly found themselves in other places, in woods or deserts,
when they met a great number of other men and women, who consorted with
a large Devil in the disguise of a man, who never showed his face.
And this Demon read, and prescribed laws and commandments for them,
which they were obliged to obey; then made his assembled guests kiss
his buttocks; after which, he presented each adept a little money,
and feasted them on wines and rich foods, after which the lights were
suddenly extinguished, and strange men and women knew each other
carnally in the darkness, after which they were suddenly wafted through
space, back to their own habitations, and awakened as if from a dream.
“This hallucination was experienced by several notable persons of the
city of Arras, and other places, men and women, _who were so terribly
tormented, that they confessed_, and in confessing, acknowledged that
they had seen at these witch reunions many prominent persons, among
others, prelates, nobles, Governors of towns and villages, _so that
when the judges examined them, they put the names of the accused in the
mouths of those who testified_, and they persisted in such statements
although forced by pains and tortures to say that they had seen
otherwise, and the innocent parties named were likewise put in prison,
and tortured so much, that confessions were forced from them; and
_these too, were burned at the stake most inhumanely_.
“Some of those accused who were rich and powerful escaped death by
paying out money; others were reduced into making confessions on the
promise that in _case they confessed their lives and property would be
spared_. Some there were indeed who suffered torments with marvelous
patience, not wishing to confess on account of creating prejudice
against themselves; many of these gave the Judges large bribes in money
to relieve them from punishment. Others fled from the country on the
first accusation, and afterwards proved their perfect innocence.”[66]
Calmeil considers this narrative of so-called sorcery as a delirium,
prevailing epidemically in Artois, where “many insane persons were
executed,” although he is forced to add: “these facts lead us to
foresee what misfortunes pursued the false disciples of Satan in former
times.”
These neuroses of the inhabitants of Artois had already been observed,
almost half a century previous, among a class of sectarians by the name
of the _Poor of Lyons_. These people were designated in the Romanesque
tongue as _faicturiers_, the word _faicturerie_ meaning sorcerer, or
one who believes in magic. Demonomania then evidently dated back to the
very commencement of the Middle Ages.
The judgment of the tribunals of Arras, which condemned the sorcerers
of Artois to be burned alive at the stake, is a curious document in
old French, which merits a short notice at least, for it is supported
on the following considerations, which were accepted as veracious,
although merely the delirious conceptions of ignorant peasants:
“When one wished to go to the witch reunion (_vigil_), it was only
necessary to take some magical ointment, rubbed on a yard stick, and
also a small portion rubbed on the hands. This yard stick or broomstick
placed between the legs, permitted one to fly where he willed over
mountain and dale, over sea and river, and carried one to the Devil’s
place of meeting, where were to be found tables loaded down with fine
eatables and drinkables. There was also the Devil himself, in the form
of a monkey, a dog or a man, as the case might be, and to him one
pledged obedience and rendered homage; in fact one adored the Devil and
presented unto him his soul. Then the possessed kissed the Devil’s
rear—kissing it goat fashion in a butting attitude. After having eaten
and taken drink, all the assemblage assumed carnal forms; even the
Devil took the disguise of man or sometimes woman. Then the multitude
committed the crime of sodomy and other horrible and unnatural
acts—sins against God that were so wholly contrary to nature that the
aforesaid Inquisitor says he does not even dare to name, they are too
terrible and wicked ever to mention to innocent ears, crimes as brutal
as they were cruel.”[67]
Among these sorcerers there was a poet, a painter and an old Abbot, who
passed for an amateur in the mysteries of Isis. Perhaps the Inquisition
pursued such individuals as sorcerers and heretics, knowing them to be
given over to debauchery. Similar things occurred as before said very
early in the Middle Ages.([68])
As also before mentioned, there were demons who cohabited with women at
night, and sometimes with men, called _incubi_ and _succubi_, following
as they were active, (_incubare_, to lie upon), or passive, (_sub
cubare_, to lie under).
Calmeil has written, that virgins dedicated to chastity by holy laws
were frequently visited by these demons, disguised in the image of
Christ, or of an angel, or seraphim. Sometimes the Devil took the form
of the Holy Virgin, and attempted to seduce young monks from paths of
piety. “Having impressed the victims with the power of beauty,” says
the sage alienist,([69]) “the wicked demon then got into the bed of the
young girl, or young man, as the case might be, and sought to seduce
them through shameful practices. The Gods, so say the ancients, often
sought the society of the daughters of Princes; these pretended Gods
were nothing but demons. A Devil possessed Rhea, under the form of
Mars, and this succubus passed for Venus the day Anchises thought he
cohabited with the Godess of beauty.
“The demon incubi accosted by preference fallen women, under the form
of a black man, or goat. From times immemorial, damned spirits have
attacked certain females, under the form of lascivious brutes. Hairy
satyrs or shags, fauns and sylvains were only disguised incubi.
The connections between the _possessed_ and _incubi_ were often
accompanied by a painful sensation of compression in the epigastric
region, with impossibility of making the least movement, the victim
could not speak or breathe. She had all the phenomena noticeable in an
attack of nightmare. Meantime, some had different sensations. A nun of
Saint Ursula, named Armella, said that she seemed “always in company
with demons who tempted her to surrender her honor. During five months,
while this combat lasted, it was impossible to sleep at night, by
reason of the specters, who assumed varied and monstrous shapes.”[70]
This virtuous nun preserved her chastity notwithstanding the frightful
ordeal.
Angele de Foligno accused the incubi, says Martin del Rio, of beating
her without pity, of putting fire in her generative organs, and
inspiring her with infernal lubricity. There was no portion of her body
that was not bruised by the attack of these demons, and the lady was
not able to rise from her bed.
Another nun, named Gertrude, cited by Jean Wier, avowed that from the
age of fourteen years, she had slept with Satan in person, and that the
Devil had made love to her, and often wrote her letters full of the
most tender and passionate expressions. A letter was found in this poor
nun’s cell, on the 25th of March, 1565. This amorous epistle was full
of the details of the Demon’s nocturnal debaucheries.
Bodin, in his “Demonomania” gives the observation of Jeanne Hervillier,
who was burned alive, by sentence of the Parliament of Paris. She
confessed to her Judges, that she had been presented to the Devil, by
her grandmother, at the age of twelve years. “A Devil in the form of a
large black man, who dressed in a black suit and rode a black horse.
This Devil had carnal intercourse with her, the same as men have with
women, only without seed. This sin had been continued every ten, or
fifteen days, even after she married and slept with her husband.”
This same author reports many instances of the same kind. Among others,
that of Madelaine de la Croix, Abbess of a nunnery in Spain, who went
to Pope Paul III., confessing, that from the age of twelve years,
she had relations with a demon, _in the form of a Moor_, and, that
for more than thirty years this commerce had been continued. Bodin
firmly believes, that this nun had been presented to Satan, “_from
the belly of her mother_,” and affirms that “such copulations are
neither illusions, nor diseases.” In his work, he also gives extracts
of the interrogatories put to the Sorcerers of Longni, in the presence
of Adrien de Fer, Lieutenant General of Laon. These sorcerers were
condemned to be burnt at the stake, for having commerce with incubi.
He mentions Marguerite Bremond, who avowed that she had been led off
one evening, by her own mother, to a reunion of Demons, and “found in
this place six devils in human shape, but hideous to behold. After the
demon dance was finished, the devils returned to the couches with the
girls, and one cohabited with her for the space of half an hour, but
she escaped conception, as he was seedless.”
One of the distinctive characters of demons, was their infectious
stink, which exhaled from all portions of the body. This odor
attributed to the Devil was an hallucination to the sense of smell
which entered, like those of the genesic sense, into all the complex
hallucinations of Demonomania.
Examples of men cohabiting with demons, are cited by many authors of
the Middle Ages. Gregory of Tours has left us the record of Eparchius,
Bishop of Auvergne, who cohabited with succubi.
Jerome Cardan, physician and Italian mathematician, tells of a priest
who cohabited for over fifty years, with a demon disguised as a woman.
Pic de Mirandolle, relates how another priest had commerce for over
forty years with a beautiful succubus, whom he called Hermione. Bodin
recounts the story of Edeline, the Prior of a religious community in
Sorbonne. An adversary of Demonomaniacal doctrines, Edeline was accused
by the theologians of defending demons. Before the Tribunal the Prior
declared that he had been visited by Satan, in the form of a black ram,
and had prostituted his body to an incubus, and only obeyed his master
in preaching that sorcery was a chimerical invention. “Although the
proof furnished by the registers of the Tribunal of Poitiers,” remarks
Calmeil, “leaves no doubt as to the alienation of the intellectual
faculties at the moment of his trial, Edeline was none the less
condemned to perpetual seclusion from the world.”
As another striking example of hallucination, bearing upon this
question of incubism, Guibert de Nogent tells of a monk, “who was sick,
and retained the services of a Jew doctor. In exchange for health, the
aforesaid physician, demanded a sacrifice. ‘What sacrifice?’ asked
the monk. ‘The sacrifice of that which is the most precious to men,’
answered the Jew. ‘What may that be?’ inquired the monk. And the
demon, for it was the Devil disguised as a doctor, had the audacity to
explain. ‘Oh curses! Oh shame! to require such a thing of a priest’—but
the victim, nevertheless, did what was asked. It was the denial of
Christ and the true faith.”
Like psycho-sensorial hallucinations of the other senses, that of
the genesic sense may assume the erotic type of disease, and is due
undoubtedly, in some men, to a repletion of the spermatic vesicules. It
is this that Saint Andre, physician in ordinary to Louis XIV., gives
as an explanation of incubism. “The incubus,”[71] says this writer,
“a chimera that had for its foundation only a dream, an over excited
imagination, too often a longing after women; artifice had no less a
part in the creation of the incubus,—a woman, a girl, only a devotee in
name, already long before debauched, but desiring to appear virtuous
to hide her crime, passes off the offenses of some lover as the act of
a demon; this is the ordinary explanation. In this artifice the woman
is often aided by the _suggestions_ of the man—a man who has heard
_succubi_ speaking to him in his sleep, usually sees most beautiful
women in his dreams, which, under such circumstances, are often
erotic.”
It is certain that an ardent imagination and exaggerated sexual
appetite have played a leading _role_ in the history of _incubi_, but,
meantime, there may be exceptions.
Nicholas Remy, Inquisitor of Lorraine, has given a description of
_impurities_ committed between demons and sorcerers, according to the
testimony given by those _possessed_.[72] Fortunately, he has only
given a Latin version of what they have told him. He states: “_Hic
igitur, sive vir incubet, sive succubet fœmina, liberum in utroque
naturæ debet esse officium, nihilque omnino intercedere quod id vel
minimum moretur atque impediat, si pudor, metus, horror, sensusque,
aliquis acrior ingruit; il icet ad irritum redeunt omnia e lumbis
affœaque prorsus sit natura_.”
Then comes the sentence of the four girls of Vosges, according to
the confessions, who were named Nanette, Claudine, Nicola, and
Didace, and of whom Nicholas Remy, fortunately for the masses of the
profession, only speaks in Latin, lest modesty be shocked at the
narration. “_Alexia Drigæa recensuit doémoni suo pœnem, cum surrigebat
tentum semper extitisse quanti essent subices focarii, quos tum
forte præsentes digito demonstrabat; scroto ac coleis nullis inde
pendentibus_, etc.” (We forbear from further quotation and for fuller
particulars refer the reader to the original.)
Were these girls attacked by a malady, a complex hallucination of the
senses that led them to firmly believe they were possessed or owned
by a supernatural being who obliged them to abdicate their free will
in his favor? Were they only, after all, prostitutes suffering from
nymphomania? We can only insist that prostitution, or a low standard
of morality, enters largely into the history of those _possessed_ by
incubi.
Aside from imaginary _vigils_ (Sabbat), supposed to be frequented
by those who were really insane, it is well to remember there
were numerous houses of prostitution, conducted by old bawds and
unscrupulous panderers, where nightly orgies occurred and scenes of
wild debauchery were common. The real sorcerers boasted of their magic
and their relations with demons, but, in reality, they knew nothing
except the art of compounding stupefying drugs, of which they made
every possible use. Having passed their entire lives in vice, their
passions, instead of becoming extinct, were exalted by age. “Before
ever becoming sorcerers,” remarks Professor Thomas Erastus, “these
_lamia_ (magicians) were libidinous and in close relation with the Evil
One.”[73]
Pierre Dufour, the celebrated bibliomaniac, made a very lengthy and
learned investigation as to the connection of sorcery with the social
evil, and reaped a veritable harvest of facts, duly authenticated by
the histories of trials for the crime of Demonidolatry, arriving at the
conclusion that sorcery made fewer dupes than victims. Says Dufour:
“Aside from a very small number of credulous magicians and sorcerers,
all who were initiated in the mysteries served, or made others serve,
in the abominable commerce of debauchery. The _vigil_ offered a fine
opportunity as a spot for such turpitudes. Such reunions of hideous
companies of libertines and prostitutes was for the profit of certain
knaves, and the sorcerers’ assemblage was patronized by many misguided
young women, who fell from grace through libidinous fascination.”
Meantime, sorcery persisted always, notwithstanding judgments and
executions. In the year 1574, on the denunciation of an old demented
hag, eighty peasants were burned alive at Valery, in Savoy. Three years
later nearly four hundred inhabitants of Haut-Languedoc perished for
the same offense. In 1582 an immense number of so-called sorcerers were
executed at Avignon. From 1580 to 1595 nine hundred persons accused of
witchcraft were put to death.
In 1609, in the country of Labourde (Basses Pyrenees), the prisons were
overcrowded with men, women and children accused of sorcery. Fires for
stake-burnt victims lit up all the villages in the Province, and the
courts spared no one. Many of these unfortunates accused themselves
of believing in the demons of sorcery and having visited diabolical
gatherings (_vigils_), where they had prostituted themselves to incubi.
Others, to whom the death penalty was meted out, were innocent persons
who had been _informed against_, but these, too, although denying all
charges, were condemned to be burnt alive.
The same year some of the inhabitants of the country of Labourde, who
had sought refuge in Spain, were accused of having carried demons into
Navarre. Five of these unfortunates were burnt at the stake by order of
the Inquisition, one woman being strangled and burned after her death.
Even bodies were exhumed to be given to the flames. Eighteen persons
were permitted to make penance for their alleged sorceries.
During two years, 1615 and 1616, twenty cases of Demonidolatry were
punished in Sologne and Berry; these persons were accused of being at
a vigil, without having been anointed with frictions however. An old
villain, aged seventy-seven years, named Nevillon, pretended to have
seen a procession of six hundred people, in which Satan took the shape
of a ram, or buck, and paid the sorcerers eight sous, for the murder
of a man, and five sous for the murder of a woman. They accused him of
having killed animals by the aid of his bewitchings. Nevillon was hung
along with those he accused. Another peasant, by the name of Gentil
Leclercq, avowed that he was the son of a sorcerer, that he had been
baptized at the _vigil_, by a demon called _Aspic_; he was condemned to
be hanged, and his body was burnt. The same it was in the case of a man
called Mainguet and his wife, together with one Antoinette Brenichon,
who asserted they had all three visited a witch reunion in company.
An accusation of anthropophagy was launched against the inhabitants
of Germany, by Innocent VIII., in 1484, and a hundred women were also
accused of having committed murders, and cohabiting with demons.
The Inquisitors inspired the story of Nider, on the Sorceries of the
Vaudois. They found, according to the testimony of certain witnesses,
that these Vaudois cut the throats of their infants, in order to
make magical philters, which would permit them to traverse space
to attend the _vigil_ of the witches, (_Sorcerers_). Other persons
_accused themselves_ of cohabiting with demons; some pretended they
had caused disasters, floods and tempests, by the influence they had
through Satan. Many submitted to the most horrible tortures with an
insensibility so complete, that the theologians concluded that the
fat of the first born males procured this demonological faculty for
bearing pain. This general anæsthesia permits us to affirm that these
unfortunates were neuropathic.
It would be a difficult matter to establish the exact number of victims
offered up to the fanaticism of the Inquisition. Already, in 1436, the
inhabitants in the country of Vaud, Switzerland, had been accused of
anthropophagy, of eating their own children, in order to satisfy their
ferocious appetites. Some one said they had submitted to the Devil,
and raised the outcry that they had eaten thirteen persons within a
very short time. Immediately the Judge and the Prosecutor of Eude,
investigated the story. Failing to obtain the proof of eye witnesses,
they subjected, according to Calmeil, hundreds of unfortunates to the
tortures of the rack, after which a certain number were burned at the
stake. Entire families overpowered by terror, fled from home, and found
refuge in more hospitable lands; but fanaticism and death followed them
like a plague.[74]
The moral and physical torture, undergone by those who were suspected
of this anthropophagical sorcery, made some of the victims confess that
they had the power to kill infants, by uttering charm words, and that
ointments made of baby fat gave them the power to fly through the air
at pleasure; that the practice of Demonic science permitted them to
cause cows and sheep to abort, and, that they could make thunder and
hail storms, and destroy the crops of others; that they could create
flood and pestilence, etc. This was the anthropophagical epidemic of
1436.
The same observations might be made regarding what was known as
lycanthrophy, which always arose among the possessed and sorcerers;
that is to say crazy people, especially those of the monomaniac type,
accused themselves and others with imaginary crimes, in confessions
made to judges. As an example, we can cite the case of the peasant,
spoken of by Job Fincel, and also one mentioned by Pierre Burgot,
of Verdun, who did not hesitate to assert themselves to be guilty
of lycanthrophy. They were burned alive at Poligny, but the remains
of the five women and children, whose flesh they pretended to have
devoured, were never found. In order to transform themselves into
wolves, they claimed to use a pomade given them by the Devil; and,
while in a certain condition, they copulated with female wolves. Jean
Wier has written long essays on this last case of lycomania, and
thinks the malady of these two men was due to narcotics, of which they
made habitual use; but Calmeil is inclined to consider, that in a
general manner, lycomania is a partial delerium confined to homicidal
monomaniacs. This appreciation of the case seems justified by the
similar one of Gilles Gamier, who was convinced that he had killed four
children, and eaten their flesh. He was condemned to be burnt at the
stake at Dole, as a wehr-wolf, (_loupe garron_), and the peasants of
the suburbs were authorized by the same order to kill off all men like
him. But we must not conclude from this particular instance, that a
general law existed on the subject.
In 1603, the Parliament of Bordeaux, thought itself liberal in
admitting attenuating circumstantial evidence, in the case of a boy
from Roche Chalais, named Jean Grenier, who was accused of lycanthropy,
by three young peasants. In the trial, no attempt was made to find
evidence, the accused confessed all that was desired, and he was
sentenced to imprisonment for life, before which verdict was announced,
the Court said, that having taken into consideration the age and
imbecility of this patient, who was so stupid that an idiot or child of
seven years would know better, it added mercy to the judgment.”
He was then one of the imbeciles of the village, such as we see in
asylums for insane, whose presence we rid ourselves of by isolation in
charitable institutions.
At the same epoch, in the space of two years, 1598 to 1600, we can
count the number of poor wretches of the Jura, whose poverty compelled
them to beg nourishment, and who were almost all condemned to death as
Demonidolators and lycanthropes. Ready and only too willing to leave
this world, these poor people answered all questions as to accusation
in the affirmative, and went to death with the greatest indifference.
The infamous prosecutor, Bouget, who was sent into the Jura as a
criminal agent, boasted that he had executed alone more than six
hundred of these innocents.
The Inquistorial terror then reigned supreme; and it was only with
extreme difficulty, at that time, that a poor idiot, named Jacques
Roulet, condemned to death as a lycanthrope by the criminal Judge of
Angers, was placed in an asylum for idiots, by order of the Parliament
of Paris; this, too, in the seventeenth century.