“The archbishop then resolved as a last expedient to resort to the time-honoured plan of exhuming the body and driving an oaken stake through its heart. This was done with great religious ceremony in the presence of the whole populace. The story is that the body was found gorged with blood, and with red cheeks and lips. At the instant that the first blow was struck upon the stake a groan issued from the corpse and a jet of blood spouted high into the air. The archbishop pronounced the usual exorcism, the body was reinterred, and from that time no more was heard of the vampire.” CHAPTER IX MISCELLANEA Voltaire was surprised that in the enlightened eighteenth century there should still be people found who believed in the reality of vampires, and that the doctors of the Sorbonne should give their _imprimatur_ to a dissertation on these unpleasant creatures. Yet from 1730 to 1735 the subject of vampirism formed a principal topic of conversation, and may be said to have been a mania all over the world, with Europe as a particular centre. Pamphlets on the subject streamed from the press, the newspapers vied with one another in recording fresh achievements of the spectres, and though the philosophers scoffed at and ridiculed the belief, yet sovereigns sent officers and commissioners to report upon their misdeeds. The favourite scenes of their exploits were Hungary, Poland, Silesia, Bohemia, and Moravia, and in those countries a vampire haunted and tormented almost every village. In some parts of Scandinavia a singular method was adopted for getting rid of vampires, viz. by instituting judicial proceedings against them. Inhabitants were regularly summoned to attend the inquest; a tribunal was constituted; charges were preferred with the usual legal formalities, accusing them of molesting the houses and introducing death among the inhabitants; and at the end of the proceedings judgment was proclaimed. The priest then entered with holy water, Mass was celebrated, and it was held that complete conquest had been gained over the goblins. Sir Walter Scott, in his translation of _Eyrbyggia Saga_, relates a traditional story of several vampires who committed dreadful ravages in Iceland in the year 1000, so that in a household of thirty servants no less than eighteen died. Saxo Grammaticus, the earliest chronicler and writer upon Danish history and folk-lore, in his _Danish History_ (book i.), dealing with the origin of the Danes, relates the following story:—