The belief in possession by devils, which existed in the middle ages and subsequently, embraced several dissimilar cases. The first of them which I will exemplify would have included individuals in the state of the _religieuses_ described by Lord Shrewsbury. Behaviour and powers which the people could not understand, even if exhibited by good and virtuous persons, and only expressive of or used for right purposes, were construed into the operation of unholy influences. The times were the reign of terror in religion. I give the following instance:—Marie Bucaille, a native of Normandy, became, towards the year 1700, the subject of fits, which ordinarily lasted three or four hours. It appears, by the depositions of persons of character on her trial, that Marie had effected many cures seemingly by her prayers; that she comprehended and executed directions given to her mentally; that she read the thoughts of others. When in the fit, the Curé of Golleville placed in the hands of Marie a folded note. Without opening the note, she replied to the questions which it contained; and, without knowing the writer, she accurately described her person. Although Marie only employed her powers to cure the sick and in the service of religion, she was not the less condemned to death by the parliament of Valogne. The parliament of Rouen mitigated her punishment to whipping and public ignominy. A second class, who came nearer to the exact idea of being possessed by devils, were persons who were deranged, and entertained something of that impression themselves, and avowed it. I am not speaking of single instances, but of an extensive popular delusion, or frenzy rather, which prevailed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in parts of Europe as an epidemic seizure. It was called the wolf-sickness. Those affected betook themselves to the forests as wild beasts. One of these, who was brought before De Lancre, at Bordeaux, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, was a young man of Besançon. He avowed himself to be huntsman of the forest lord, his invisible master. He believed that, through the power of his master, he had been transformed into a wolf; that he hunted in the forest as such; and that he was often accompanied by a bigger wolf, whom he suspected to be the master he served; with more details of the same kind. The persons thus affected were called Wehrwolves. Their common fate was the alternative of recovering from their derangement, under the influence of exorcism and its accessories, or of being executed.