ame subject. The Parliament of
Bordeaux issued strict injunctions to all curates and clergy
whatever to use redoubled efforts to root out the crime of
witchcraft. The Parliament of Tours was equally peremptory, and
feared the judgments of an offended God if all these dealers with
the devil were not swept from the face of the land. The
Parliament of Rheims was particularly severe against the _noueurs
d'aiguillettes_ or 'tiers of the knot'--people of both sexes who
took pleasure in preventing the consummation of marriage that
they might counteract the command of God to our first parents to
increase and multiply. This parliament held it to be sinful to
wear amulets to preserve from witchcraft; and that this practice
might not be continued within its jurisdiction, drew up a form of
exorcism 'which could more effectually defeat the agents of the
devil and put them to flight.'[121]

[120] Montaigne, one of the few Frenchmen at this time who
seemed to discredit the universal creed, in one of his
essays ventures to think 'it is very probable that the
principal credit of visions, of enchantments, and of such
extraordinary effects, proceeds from the power of the
imagination acting principally upon the more impressible
minds of the vulgar.' He is inclined to assign the prevalent
'liaisons' (nouements d'aiguillettes) to the apprehensions
of a fear with which in his age the French world was so
perplexed (si entrave). _Essais_, liv. i. 20.

[121] _Extraordinary Popular Delusions_, by Mackay, whose
authorities are Tablier, Boguet (_Discours sur les
Sorciers_), and M. Jules Garinet (_Histoire de la Magie_).

In France, and still more in Italy, there is reason for believing
that many of the convicts were not without the real guilt of
toxicological practices; and they might sometimes properly
deserve the opprobrium of the old _venefici_. The formal trial
and sentence to death of La Marechale de l'Ancre in 1617 was
perhaps more political than superstitious, but witchcraft was
introduced as one of the gravest accusations. Her preponderance
in the councils of Marie de Medici and of Louis XIII. originated
in the natural _fascination_ of royal but inferior minds. Two
years afterwards occurred a bona fide prosecution on a large
scale. A commission was appointed by the Parliament of Bordeaux
to inquire into the causes and circumstances of the prevalence of
witchcraft in the Pyrenean districts. Espaignol, presiden