THE WITCHES OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY: 1609.[84]
[84] The Basques of the Lower Pyrenees, the Aquitani of
Cæsar, belonged to the old Iberian race which peopled Western
Europe before the Celtic era.--TRANS.
That strong-handed execution of the priests shows M. Lancre to have
been a man of independent spirit. In politics he is the same. In his
book on _The Prince_ (1617), he openly declares "the law to be above
the King."
Never was the Basque character better drawn than in his book on _The
Fickleness of Demons_. In France, as in Spain, the Basque people had
privileges which almost made them a republic. On our side they owed
the King no service but that of arms: at the first beat of drum they
were bound to gather two thousand armed men commanded by Basque
captains. They were not oppressed by their clergy, who seldom
prosecuted wizards, being wizards themselves. The priests danced, wore
swords, and took their mistresses to the Witches' Sabbath. These
mistresses acted as their sextonesses or _bénédictes_, to keep the
churches in order. The parson quarrelled with nobody, offered the
White Mass to God by day, the Black by night to the Devil, and
sometimes, according to Lancre, in the same church.
The Basques of Bayonne and St. Jean de Luz, a race of men quaint,
venturesome, and fabulously bold, left many widows, from their habit
of sailing out into the roughest seas to harpoon whales. Leaving their
wives to God or the Devil, they threw themselves in crowds into the
Canadian settlements of Henry IV. As for the children, these honest
worthy sailors would have thought about them more, if they had been
clear as to their parentage. But on their return home they would
reckon up the months of their absence, and they never found the
reckoning right.
The women, bold, beautiful, imaginative, spent their day seated on
tombs in the grave-yards, talking of the Sabbath, whither they
expected to go in the evening. This was their passion, their craze.
They are born witches, daughters of the sea and of enchantment. They
sport among the billows, swimming like fish. Their natural master is
the Prince of the Air, King of Winds and Dreams, the same who inspired
the Sibyl and breathed to her the future.
The judge who burns them is charmed with them, nevertheless. "When you
see them pass," says he, "their hair flowing in the breeze about their
shoulders, they walk so trim, so bravely armed in that fair
head-dress, that the sun playing through it as through a cloud, causes
a mighty blaze which shoots forth hot lightning-flashes. Hence the
fascination of their eyes, as dangerous in love as in witchcraft."
This amiable Bordeaux magistrate, the earliest sample of those worldly
judges who enlivened the gown in the seventeenth century, plays the
lute between whiles, and even makes the witches dance before sending
them to the stake. And he writes well, far more clearly than anyone
else. But for all that, one discovers in his work a new source of
obscurity, inherent to those times. The witches being too numerous for
the judge to burn them all, the most of them have a shrewd idea that
he will show some indulgence to those who enter deepest into his
thoughts and passions! What passions? you ask. First, his love of the
frightfully marvellous, a passion common enough; the delight of
feeling afraid; and also, if it must be said, the enjoyment of
unseemly pleasures. Add to these a touch of vanity: the more dreadful
and enraged those clever women show the Devil to be, the greater the
pride taken by the judge in subduing so mighty an adversary. He arrays
himself as it were in his victory, enthrones himself in his
foolishness, triumphs in his senseless twaddling.
The prettiest thing of this kind is the report of the procedure in the
Spanish _auto-da-fé_ of Logroño, as furnished to us by Llorente.
Lancre, while quoting him jealously and longing to disparage him, owns
to the surpassing charm of the festival, the splendour of the sight,
the moving power of the music. On one platform were the few condemned
to the flames, on another a crowd of reprieved criminals. The
confession of a repentant heroine who had dared all things, is read
aloud. Nothing could be wilder. At the Sabbaths they ate children made
into hash, and by way of second course, the bodies of wizards
disentombed. Toads dance, and talk and complain lovingly of their
mistresses, getting them scolded by the Devil. The latter politely
escorts the witches home, lighting them with the arm of a child who
died unchristened, &c.
Among our Basques witchcraft put on a less fantastic guise. It seems
that at this time the Sabbath was only a grand feast to which all, the
nobles included, went for purposes of amusement. In the foremost line
would be seen persons in veils and masks, by some supposed to be
princes. "Once on a time," says Lancre, "none but idiots of the Landes
appeared there: now people of quality are seen to go." To entertain
these local grandees, Satan sometimes created a _Bishop of the
Sabbath_. Such was the title he gave the young lord Lancinena, with
whom the Devil in person was good enough to open the ball.
So well supported, the witches held their sway, wielding over the land
an amazing terrorism of the fancy. Numbers regarded themselves as
victims, and became in fact seriously ill. Many were stricken with
epilepsy, and barked like dogs. In one small town of Acqs were counted
as many as forty of these barkers. The Witch had so fearful a hold
upon them, that one lady being called as witness, began barking with
uncontrollable fury as the Witch, unawares to herself, drew near.
Those to whom was ascribed so terrible a power lorded it everywhere.
No one would dare shut his door against them. One magistrate, the
criminal assessor of Bayonne, allowed the Sabbath to be held in his
own house. Urtubi, Lord of Saint Pé, was forced to hold the festival
in his castle. But his head was shaken to that degree, that he
imagined a witch was sucking his blood. Emboldened, however, by his
fear, he, with another gentleman, repaired to Bordeaux, and persuaded
the Parliament to obtain from the King the commissioning of two of its
members, Espagnet and Lancre, to try the wizards in the Basque
country. This commission, absolute and without appeal, worked with
unheard-of vigour; in four months, from May to August, 1609, condemned
sixty or eighty witches, and examined five hundred more, who, though
equally marked with the sign of the Devil, figured in the proceedings
as witnesses only.
* * * * *
It was no safe matter for two men and a few soldiers to carry on these
trials amongst a violent, hot-headed people, a multitude of wild and
daring sailors' wives. Another source of danger was in the priests,
many of whom were wizards, needing to be tried by the lay
commissioners, despite the lively opposition of the clergy.
When the judges appeared, many persons saved themselves in the hills.
Others boldly remained, saying, it was the judges who would be burnt.
So little fear had the witches themselves, that before the audience
they would sink into the Sabbatic slumber, and affirm on awaking that,
even in court, they had enjoyed the blessedness of Satan. Many said,
they only suffered from not being able to prove to him how much they
burned to suffer for his sake.
Those who were questioned said they could not speak. Satan rising into
their throats blocked up their gullets. Lancre, who wrote this
narrative, though the younger of the commissioners, was a man of the
world. The witches guessed that, with a man of his sort, there were
means of saving themselves. The league between them was broken. A
beggar-girl of seventeen, La Murgui, or Margaret, who had found
witchcraft gainful, and, while herself almost a child, had brought
away children as offerings to the Devil, now betook herself, with
another girl, Lisalda, of the same age, to denouncing all the rest. By
word of mouth or in writing she revealed all; with the liveliness, the
noise, the emphatic gestures of a Spaniard, entering truly or falsely
into a hundred impure details. She frightened, amused, wheedled her
judges, drawing them after her like fools. To this corrupt, wanton,
crazy girl, they entrusted the right of searching about the bodies of
girls and boys, for the spot whereon Satan had set his mark. This spot
discovered itself by a certain numbness, by the fact that you might
stick needles into it without causing pain. While a surgeon thus
tormented the elder ones, she took in hand the young, who, though
called as witnesses, might themselves be accused, if she pronounced
them to bear the mark. It was a hateful thing to see this brazen-faced
girl made sole mistress of the fate of those wretched beings,
commissioned to prod them all over with needles, and able at will to
assign those bleeding bodies to death!
She had gotten so mighty a sway over Lancre, as to persuade him that,
while he was sleeping in Saint Pé, in his own house, guarded by his
servants and his escort, the Devil came by night into his room, to say
the Black Mass; while the witches getting inside his very curtains,
would have poisoned him, had he not been well protected by God
Himself. The Black Mass was offered by the Lady of Lancinena, to whom
Satan made love in the very bedroom of the judge. We can guess the
likely aim of this wretched tale: the beggar bore a grudge against the
lady, who was good-looking, and, but for this slander, might have come
to bear sway over the honest commissioner.
* * * * *
Lancre and his colleague taking fright, went forward; never dared to
draw back. They had their royal gallows set up on the very spots where
Satan had held a Sabbath. People were alarmed thereat, deeming them
strongly backed by the arm of royalty. Impeachments hailed about them.
The women all came in one long string to accuse each other. Children
were brought forward to impeach their mothers. Lancre gravely ruled
that a child of eight was a good, sufficient, reputable witness!
M. d'Espagnet could give but a few moments to this matter, having
speedily to show himself in the Estates of Béarn. Lancre being pushed
unwittingly forward by the violence of the younger informers, who
would have fallen into great danger, if they had failed to get the old
ones burnt, threw the reins on the neck of the business, and hurried
it on at full gallop. A due amount of witches were condemned to the
stake. These, too, on finding themselves lost, ended by impeaching
others. When the first batch were brought to the stake, a frightful
scene took place. Executioner, constables, and sergeants, all thought
their last hour was come. The crowd fell savagely upon the carts,
seeking to force the wretches to withdraw their accusations. The men
put daggers to their throats: their furious companions were like to
finish them with their nails.
Justice, however, got out of the scrape with some credit; and then the
commissioners went on to the harder work of sentencing eight priests
whom they had taken up. The girls' confessions had brought these men
to light. Lancre speaks of their morals like one who knew all about
them of himself. He rebukes them, not only for their gay proceedings
on Sabbath nights, but, most of all, for their sextonesses and female
churchwardens. He even repeats certain tales about the priests having
sent off the husbands to Newfoundland, and brought back Devils from
Japan who gave up the wives into their hands.
The clergy were deeply stirred: the Bishop of Bayonne would have made
resistance. His courage failing him, he appointed his vicar-general to
act as judge-assistant in his own absence. Luckily the Devil gave the
accused more help than their Bishop. He opened all the doors, so that
one morning five of the eight were found missing. The commissioners
lost no time in burning the three still left to them.
* * * * *
This happened about August, 1609. The Spanish inquisitors at Logroño
did not crown their proceedings with an _auto-da-fé_ before the 8th
November, 1610. They had met with far more trouble than our own
countrymen, owing to the frightful number of persons accused. How burn
a whole people? They sought advice of the Pope, of the greatest
doctors in Spain. The word was given to draw back. Only the wilful who
persisted in denying their guilt, were to be burnt; while they who
pleaded guilty should be let go. The same method had already been used
to rescue priests in trials for loose living. According to Llorente,
it was deemed sufficient, if they owned their crime, and went through
a slight penance.
The Inquisition, so deadly to heretics, so cruel to Moors and Jews,
was much less so to wizards. These, being mostly shepherds, had no
quarrel with the Church. The rejoicings of goatherds were too low, if
not too brutish, to disturb the enemies of free thought.
* * * * *
Lancre wrote his book mainly to show how much the justice of French
Parliaments and laymen excelled the justice of the priests. It is
written lightly, merrily, with flowing pen. It seems to express the
joy felt by one who has come creditably out of a great risk. It is a
gasconading, an over-boastful joy. He tells with pride how, the
Sabbath following the first execution of the witches, their children
went and wailed to Satan, who replied that their mothers had not been
burnt, but were alive and happy. From the midst of the crowd the
children thought they heard their mothers' voices saying how
thoroughly blest they were. Satan was frightened nevertheless. He
absented himself for four Sabbaths, sending a small commonplace devil
in his stead. He did not show himself again till the 22nd July. When
the wizards asked him the reason of his absence, he said, "I have been
away, pleading your cause against _Little John_," the name by which he
called Jesus. "I have won the suit, and they who are still in prison
will not be burnt."
The lie was given to the great liar. And the conquering magistrate
avers that, while the last witch was burning, they saw a swarm of
toads come out of her head. The people fell on them with stones, so
that she was rather stoned than burnt. But for all their attacks, they
could not put an end to one black toad which escaped from flames,
sticks, and stones, to hide, like the Devil's imp it was, in some spot
where it could never be found.[85]
[85] For a more detailed account of these Basque Witches, the
English reader may turn to Wright's _Narratives of Sorcery
and Magic_. Bentley, 1851.--TRANS.