Animalium incipiente _Licet multis_ etc. signata _Petrus Rembaudus_--memoriali tento sub die vicesima quarta mensis jullii proxime fluxi--testimonialibus signatis _Prunier_ sumptis coram Vicecastellano Maurianne sub die penultima mensis junii anni presentis continentibus declarationem loci quem dicti Agentes obtulerunt relaxare pro pabulo dictorum Animalium--memoriale ad jus tento coram eodem domino Vicario antecessore nostro sub die tertia mensis septembris proxime fluxi--ceterisque videndis diligenter consideratis. Nos Vicarius generalis Maurianne subsignatus antequam ad diffinitivam procedamus dicimus et ordinamus in primis et ante omnia esse inquirendum super statu loci oblati p.... quem locum.... visitandum.... mensem ut f.... et nobis rem.... fuerit provid.... Mermetus vis.... generalis.... in civitate S.... die decima.... anno domini.... octuagesimo sep.... Petremandi Bertr.... dictorum Scind.... et egregii.... dictorum Animal. ordinationem.... acceptandum.... facit die et.... (pro visitatione III flor) _locus sigilli._ Solverunt Scindici Sancti Julliani incluso processu Animalium sigillo ordinationum et pro copia que competat in processu dictorum Animalium omnibus inclusis XVI flor. Item pro sportulis domini Vicarii III flor--20 decembre 1587. Published by Léon Ménebréa in the appendix to his treatise: _De l’Origine, de la forme et de l’esprit des jugements rendus au Moyen-âge contre les Animaux_, Chambery, 1846. Cf. _Mémoires de la Société Royale Académique de Savoie_, Tome xii. pp. 524-57, where it first appeared. * * * * * According to M. J. Desnoyers (_Recherches sur la coutume d’exorciser et d’excommunier les insectes et autres animaux nuisibles à l’agriculture_, p. 15), it is still the custom, in Provence, Languedoc, le Bordelais, and other provinces of France, for the peasants to ask the country curates for prayers, sprinklings with holy water, consecrated boughs, and extraordinary processions, for the purpose of expelling noxious insects from the vineyards and warding off disease from the grapes and the silkworms. These ceremonies are accompanied with adjurations and maledictions. In Protestant lands official days of fasting and prayer are supposed to produce the same results.