CHAPTER VIII.--THE DEMONIACS OF LOUVIERS--MADELINE BAVENT 277 Illuminism: the Devil a Quietist 277 Fight between the Devil and the Doctor 285 CHAPTER IX.--THE DEVIL TRIUMPHS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 294 CHAPTER X.--FATHER GIRARD AND LA CADIÈRE 303 CHAPTER XI.--CADIÈRE IN THE CONVENT 339 CHAPTER XII.--TRIAL OF CADIÈRE 367 EPILOGUE 395 Can Satan and Jesus be reconciled? 396 The Witch is dead, but the Fairy will live again 399 Oncoming of the Religious Revival 399 INTRODUCTION. It was said by Sprenger, before the year 1500, “_Heresy of witches_, not of wizards, must we call it, for these latter are of very small account.” And by another, in the time of Louis XIII.: “To one wizard, ten thousand witches.” “Witches they are by nature.” It is a gift peculiar to woman and her temperament. By birth a fay, by the regular recurrence of her ecstasy she becomes a sibyl. By her love she grows into an enchantress. By her subtlety, by a roguishness often whimsical and beneficent, she becomes a Witch; she works her spells; does at any rate lull our pains to rest and beguile them. All primitive races have the same beginning, as so many books of travel have shown. While the man is hunting and fighting, the woman works with her wits, with her imagination: she brings forth dreams and gods. On certain days she becomes a seeress, borne on boundless wings of reverie and desire. The better to reckon up the seasons, she watches the sky; but her heart belongs to earth none the less. Young and flower-like herself, she looks down toward the enamoured flowers, and forms with them a personal acquaintance. As a woman, she beseeches them to heal the objects of her love. In a way so simple and touching do all religion and all science begin. Ere long everything will get parcelled out; we shall mark the beginning of the professional man as juggler, astrologer, or prophet, necromancer, priest, physician. But at first the woman is everything. A religion so strong and hearty as that of Pagan Greece begins with the Sibyl to end in the Witch. The former, a lovely maiden in the broad daylight, rocked its cradle, endowed it with a charm and glory of its own. Presently it fell sick, lost itself in the darkness of the Middle Ages, and was hidden away by the Witch in woods and wilds: there, sustained by her compassionate daring, it was made to live anew. Thus, of every religion woman is the mother, the gentle guardian, the faithful nurse. With her the gods fare like men: they are born and die upon her bosom. * * * * *