Before the court gave judgment, the first president of assize, in an
eloquent speech, put on one side all questions of witchcraft and
diabolical compact, and bestial transformation, and boldly stated that
the court had only to consider the age and the imbecility of the child,
who was so dull and idiotic—that children of seven or eight years old
have usually a larger amount of reason than he. The president went on
to say that Lycanthropy and Kuanthropy were mere hallucinations, and
that the change of shape existed only in the disorganized brain of the
insane, consequently it was not a crime which could be punished. The
tender age of the boy must be taken into consideration, and the utter
neglect of his education and moral development. The court sentenced
Grenier to perpetual imprisonment within the walls of a monastery at
Bordeaux, where he might be instructed in his Christian and moral
obligations; but any attempt to escape would be punished with death.
A pleasant companion for the monks! a promising pupil for them to
instruct! No sooner was he admitted into the precincts of the religious
house, than he ran frantically about the cloister and gardens upon all
fours, and finding a heap of bloody and raw offal, fell upon it and
devoured it in an incredibly short space of time.
Delancre visited him seven years after, and found him diminutive in
stature, very shy, and unwilling to look any one in the face. His eyes
were deep set and restless; his teeth long and protruding; his nails
black, and in places worn away; his mind was completely barren; he
seemed unable to comprehend the smallest things. He related his story
to Delancre, and told him how he had run about formerly in the woods as
a wolf, and he said that he still felt a craving for raw flesh,
especially for that of little girls, which he said was delicious, and
he added that but for his confinement it would not be long before he
tasted it again. He said that the Lord of the Forest had visited him
twice in the prison, but that he had driven him off with the sign of
the cross. The account be then gave of his murders coincided exactly
with what had come out in his trial; and beside this, his story of the
compact he had made with the Black One, and the manner in which his
transformation was effected, also coincided with his former statements.
He died at the age of twenty, after an imprisonment of seven years,
shortly after Delancre’s visit.[1]
[1] DELANCRE: _Tableau de l’Inconstance_, p 305.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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