It was a crime imputed with so much ease and repelled with so much difficulty, that the powerful, whenever they wanted to ruin the weak, ... had only to accuse them of witchcraft to secure their destruction.—C. Mackay, _Popular Delusions_, p. 109. A certain G. Naudé, “late Library Keeper to Cardinal Mazarin,” wrote a book, entitled _The History of Magic_, “By way of apology for all the wise men who have unjustly been reputed magicians from the creation to the present age.” Englished by J. Davies. London, 1657.] (_f_) The people denounced by prisoners under torture. As we have seen, accusation meant examination, and this had two objects: to extort a “confession” from the suspected witch, and to compel her to reveal accomplices. Some might confess at once, and did so in the hope of execution (the _kind_ of confession required was already well known, and the more monstrous and elaborate it might be, the better would be the chance of escaping torture). Others would naturally deny taking part in abominations in which they had not engaged, and most of which were beyond possibility. And no doubt nearly all would make a long and desperate struggle against incriminating their unfortunate friends, who might, however innocent of crime, be also other people’s enemies. And so the accursed ingenuity of man was practised on these miserable victims of his ignorance and superstition. One hideous device[592] tried by a Frankish king was to drive sharp spikes underneath the nails;[593] this, he contended, always induced confession from the intense anguish. Very likely it did. Other inquisitors went their own sweet way, and used all possible varieties of the question, that they might make out of the shrieks and ravings the sort of story they expected and prompted,[594] and lash more suspects down upon the rack. No wonder, then, that persecution spread;[595] the aged and the disordered were always there, and any one of these might be thought a witch,[596] or find herself denounced from the torture-room—perhaps by a lifelong friend. The readiness with which all “evidence” was acclaimed and the appalling means by which it was got together placed any abnormal person in constant peril, and will account for the enormous numbers of the implicated. Tens of thousands of victims, says Lecky,[597] perished by the most agonising and protracted torments without exciting the faintest compassion. In a single German city they used to burn 300 witches annually.[598] In Nancy, 800 were put to death by a judge in the course of sixteen years.[599] Zachary Gray,[600] who edited an edition of _Hudibras_, claims that during the Long Parliament 500 witches were executed each year, and that he read through a list of no less than 3000 of them.[601] The total of Great Britain has been estimated at 30,000,[602] and it has been estimated that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the witch death-roll for Europe[603] reached 200,000 people.[604]