The Flagellants, however, did not secure the favour of the ecclesiastical authorities; who discerned only too clearly the demoralising effect of their practices and pretensions. Pope Clement VI. issued a bull against them, and their influence gradually waned and seemed on the point of dying out, when, in 1414, it was revived by one Conrad, who, of course, professed to have received a Divine commission. The terrors of the Inquisition were now hurled against the sect, and ninety-one deluded wretches were burned alive at Sangerhausen, besides numbers at other places. It continued, however, to exhibit occasional signs of vitality; and in the sixteenth century broke, in France, into three great branches, the White, Black, and Grey Penitents, companions of whom were scattered over the whole kingdom, but chiefly in the southern provinces. Catherine de Medicis, at Avignon, in 1574, assumed the lead of the Black Penitents, and took part in their disgusting ceremonies. Henry III., in 1585, established a White Penance brotherhood, which paraded in public procession through the streets of Paris. The better members of the clergy preached against the fanaticism; the wits of Paris levelled their ridicule at it; and finally, in 1601, the Parliament of Paris passed an act to abolish a fraternity of Flagellants, called the Blue Penitents, in the town of Bourges, and afterwards against all whipping brotherhoods without distinction, declaring the members to be not only heretics, traitors, and regicides, but unchaste. The fraternity thereafter declined, and finally disappeared from France. CHAPTER XVIII. _SCOTTISH SUPERSTITIONS: HALLOWEEN._