In France, the central power had to be invoked to put an end to the atrocity of such proceedings. In 1588, an appeal was taken to the supreme tribunal from a sentence pronounced by a Champenois court, ordering a prisoner to undergo the experiment, and the Parlement, in December, 1601, registered a formal decree against the practice; an order which it found necessary to repeat, August 10, 1641.[1040] That this latter was not uncalled for, we may assume from the testimony of Jerôme Bignon, who, writing nearly at the same time, says that, to his own knowledge, within a few years, judges were in the habit of elucidating doubtful cases in this manner.[1041] In England, James I. gratified at once his conceit and his superstition by eulogizing the ordeal as an infallible proof in such cases. His argument was the old one, which pronounced that the pure element would not receive those who had renounced the privileges of the water of baptism,[1042] and his authority no doubt gave encouragement to innumerable judicial murders. In Scotland, indeed, the indecency of stripping women naked for the immersion was avoided by wrapping them up in a sheet before binding the thumbs and toes together, but a portion of the Bay of St. Andrews is still called the “Witch Pool,” from its use in the trial of these unfortunates.[1043] How slowly the belief was eradicated from the minds of even the educated and enlightened may be seen in a learned inaugural thesis presented by J. P. Lang, in 1661, for the Licentiate of Laws in the University of Bâle, in which, discussing incidentally the question of the cold-water ordeal for witches, he concludes that perhaps it is better to abstain from it, though he cannot question its efficaciousness as a means of investigation.[1044] In 1662, N. Brant, in a similar thesis, offered at Giessen, speaks of it as used in some places, chiefly in Westphalia, and argues against it on the ground of its uncertainty.[1045] P. Burgmeister, in a thesis presented at Ulm in 1680, speaks of the practice as still continued in Westphalia, and that it was defended by many learned men, from whose opinions he dissents; among them was Hermann Conring, one of the most distinguished scholars of the time, who argued that if prayers and oaths could obtain the divine interposition, it could reasonably be expected in judicial cases of importance.[1046] Towards the close of the century it was frequently practised in Burgundy, not as a judicial process, but when persons popularly reputed as sorcerers desired to free themselves from the damaging imputation. In these cases they are frequently reported as floating in spite of repeated efforts to submerge them, and though this evidence of guilt did not lead to a formal trial they would have to abandon the neighborhood. A notarial act of June 5, 1696, records such a trial at Montigny-le-Roi, when six persons offered themselves to the ordeal in the River Senin; two sank and four floated for