The history of witchcraft and demonologySummers, Montague
History
The history of witchcraft and demonology
Summers, Montague
Demonology; Demonology -- History; Witchcraft; Witchcraft -- History
In the eighteenth century the black mass persisted. In 1723 the police
arrested the abbé Lecollet and the abbé Bournement for this profanity;
and in 1745 the abbé de Rocheblanche fell under the same suspicion. At
the hotel of Madame de Charolais the vilest scenes of the Sabbat were
continued. A gang of Satanists celebrated their monstrous orgies at
Paris on 22 January, 1793, the night after the murder of Louis XVI. The
abbé Fiard in two of his works, _Lettres sur le diable_, 1791, and _La
France Trompée_ ... Paris, 8vo, 1803, conclusively shows that eucharistic
blasphemies were yet being perpetrated but in circumstances of almost
impenetrable secrecy. In 1865 a scandal connected with these abominations
came to light, and the Bishop of Sens, in whose diocese it occurred, was
so horrified that he resigned his office and retired to Fontainebleau,
where he died some eighteen months later, practically of shock. Similar
practices were unmasked at Paris in 1874 and again in 1878, whilst it is
common knowledge that the characters of Joris Karl Huysmans’ _Là-Bas_
were all persons easy of identification, and the details are scenes
exactly reproduced from contemporary life.[119] The hideous cult of evil
yet endures. Satanists yet celebrate the black mass in London, Brighton,
Paris, Lyons, Bruges, Berlin, Milan, and alas! in Rome itself. Both South
America and Canada are thus polluted. In many a town, both great and
small, they have their dens of blasphemy and evil where they congregate
unsuspected to perform these execrable rites. Often they seem to
concentrate their vile energies in the quiet cathedral cities of England,
France, Italy, in vain endeavour to disturb the ancient homes of peace
with the foul brabble of devil-worship and all ill.
They have even been brought upon the public stage. One episode of _Un
Soir de Folie_, the revue (1925-6) at the Folies Bergère, Paris, was
“Le Sabbat et la Herse Infernale,” where in a Gothic cathedral an actor
(Mons. Benglia) appeared as Satan receiving the adoration of his devotees.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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