La Sorcière: The Witch of the Middle AgesMichelet, Jules
History
La Sorcière: The Witch of the Middle Ages
Michelet, Jules
Demonomania -- History -- To 1500; Satanism -- History -- To 1500; Superstition -- History -- To 1500; Witchcraft -- History -- To 1500
The Doctrinaries would have quashed the matter. They were sore
troubled by the noise it made. Some of them in their annoyance were
ready to give up everything and forsake their house.
The ladies were very wroth, especially Madame Libertat, the lady of
the Royalist leader who had given Marseilles up to the King.
The Capuchins whom Louisa had so haughtily commanded to seize on
Gauffridi, were, like all other of the Franciscan orders, enemies of
the Dominicans. They were jealous of the prominence gained for these
latter by their demoniac friend. Their wandering life, moreover, by
throwing them into continual contact with the women, brought them a
good deal of moral business. They had no wish to see too close a
scrutiny made into the lives of clergymen; and so they also took the
side of Gauffridi. Demoniacs were not so scarce, but that one was
easily found and brought forward at the first summons. Her devil,
obedient to the rope-girdle of St. Francis, gainsaid everything said
by the Dominicans’ devil: it averred--and the words were straightway
written down--that “Gauffridi was no magician at all, and could not
therefore be arrested.”
They were not prepared for this at Sainte-Baume. Louisa seemed
confounded. She could only manage to say that apparently the Capuchins
had not made their devil swear to tell the truth: a sorry reply,
backed up, however, by the trembling Madeline, who, like a beaten
hound that fears yet another beating, was ready for anything, ready
even to bite and tear. Through her it was that Louisa at such a crisis
inflicted an awful bite.
She herself merely said that the Bishop was offending God unawares.
She clamoured against “the wizards of Marseilles” without naming any
one. But the cruel, the deadly word was spoken at her command by
Madeline. A woman who had lost her child two years before, was pointed
out by her as having throttled it. Afraid of being tortured, she fled
or hid herself. Her husband, her father, went weeping to Sainte-Baume,
hoping of course to soften the inquisitors. But Madeline durst not
unsay her words; so she renewed the charge.
No one now could feel safe. As soon as the Devil came to be accounted
God’s avenger, from the moment that people under his dictation began
writing the names of those who should pass through the fire, every one
had before him, day and night, the hideous nightmare of the stake.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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