CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT.
We cannot reasonably dispute the truth of these ecstatic trances, the
elevations of the body of some saints to a certain distance from the
ground, since these circumstances are supported by so many witnesses.
To apply this to the matter we here treat of, might it not be said
that sorcerers and witches, by the operation of the demon, and with
God's permission, by the help of a lively and subtile temperament, are
rendered light and rise into the air, where their heated imagination
and prepossessed mind lead them to believe that they have done, seen,
and heard, what has no reality except in their own brain?
I shall be told that the parallel I make between the actions of
saints, which can only be attributed to angels and the operation of
the Holy Spirit, or to the fervor of their charity and devotion, with
what happens to wizards and witches, is injurious and odious. I know
how to make a proper distinction between them: do not the books of the
Old and New Testament place in parallel lines the true miracles of
Moses with those of the magicians of Pharaoh; those of antichrist and
his subordinates with those of the saints and apostles; and does not
St. Paul inform us that the angel of darkness often transforms himself
into an angel of light?
In the first edition of this work, we spoke very fully of certain
persons, who boast of having what they call "the garter," and by that
means are able to perform with extraordinary quickness, in a very few
hours, what would naturally take them several days journeying. Almost
incredible things are related on that subject; nevertheless, the
details are so circumstantial, that it is hardly possible there should
not be some foundation for them; and the demon may transport these
people in a forced and violent manner which causes them a fatigue
similar to what they would have suffered, had they really performed
the journey with more than ordinary rapidity.
For instance, the two circumstances related by Torquemada: the first
of a poor scholar of his acquaintance, a clever man, who at last rose
to be physician to Charles V.; when studying at Guadaloupe, was
invited by a traveler who wore the garb of a monk, and to whom he had
rendered some little service, to mount up behind him on his horse,
which seemed a sorry animal and much tired; he got up and rode all
night, without perceiving that he went at an extraordinary pace, but
in the morning he found himself near the city of Granada; the young
man went into the town, but the conductor passed onwards.
Another time, the father of a young man, known to the same Torquemada,
and the young man himself, were going together to Granada, and passing
through the village of Almeda, met a man on horseback like themselves
and going the same way; after having traveled two or three leagues
together, they halted, and the cavalier spread his cloak on the grass,
so that there was no crease in the mantle; they all placed what
provisions they had with them on this extended cloak, and let their
horses graze. They drank and ate very leisurely, and having told
their servants to bring their horses, the cavalier said to them,
"Gentlemen, do not hurry, you will reach the town early"--at the same
time he showed them Granada, at not a quarter of an hour's distance
from thence.
Something equally marvelous is said of a canon of the cathedral of
Beauvais. The chapter of that church had been charged for a long time
to acquit itself of a certain personal duty to the Church of Rome; the
canons having chosen one of their brethren to repair to Rome for this
purpose, the canon deferred his departure from day to day, and set off
after matins on Christmas day--arrived that same day at Rome,
acquitted himself there of his commission, and came back from thence
with the same dispatch, bringing with him the original of the bond,
which obliged the canons to send one of their body to make this
offering in person. However fabulous and incredible this story may
appear, it is asserted that there are authentic proofs of it in the
archives of the cathedral; and that upon the tomb of the canon in
question may still be seen the figures of demons engraved at the four
corners in memory of this event. They even affirm that the celebrated
Father Mabillon saw the authentic voucher.
Now, if this circumstance and the others like it are not absolutely
fabulous, we cannot deny that they are the effects of magic, and the
work of the evil spirit.
Peter, the venerable Abbot of Cluny,[241] relates so extraordinary a
thing which happened in his time, that I should not repeat it here,
had it not been seen by the whole town of Macon. The count of that
town, a very violent man, exercised a kind of tyranny over the
ecclesiastics, and against whatever belonged to them, without
troubling himself either to conceal his violence, or to find a
pretext for it; he carried it on with a high hand and gloried in it.
One day, when he was sitting in his palace in company with several
nobles and others, they beheld an unknown person enter on horseback,
who advanced to the count and desired him to follow him. The count
rose and followed him, and having reached the door, he found there a
horse ready caparisoned; he mounts it, and is immediately carried up
into the air, crying out, in a terrible tone to those who were
present, "Here, help me!" All the town ran out at the noise, but they
soon lost sight of him; and no doubt was entertained that the devil
had flown away with him to be the companion of his tortures, and to
bear the pain of his excesses and his violence.
It is, then, not absolutely impossible that a person may be raised
into the air and transported to some very high and distant place, by
order or by permission of God, by good or evil spirits; but we must
own that the thing is of rare occurrence, and that in all that is
related of sorcerers and witches, and their assemblings at the
witches' sabbath, there is an infinity of stories, which are false,
absurd, ridiculous, and even destitute of probability. M. Remi,
attorney-general of Lorraine, author of a celebrated work entitled
_Demonology_, who tried a great number of sorcerers and sorceresses,
with which Lorraine was then infested, produces hardly any proof
whence we can infer the truth and reality of witchcraft, and of
wizards and witches being transported to the sabbath.
Footnotes:
[241] Petrus Venerab. lib. ii. de Miraculis, c. 1, p. 1299.