was
distinguished by her purity and benevolence. The story of La
Cadiere and Father Girard is eloquently narrated by M.
Michelet in _La Sorciere_. The convulsions of the Flagellants
of the thirteenth century, and of the Protestant Revivalists
of the present day, exhibit on a large scale the paroxysms of
the French convents and the Dutch orphan-houses of the
seventeenth century. Nor is diabolical 'possession' yet
extinct in Christendom, if the reports received from time to
time from the Continent are to be credited. Recently, a
convent of Augustinian nuns at Loretto, on the authority of
the _Corriere delle Marche_ of Ancona, was attacked in a
similar way to that of Loudun. A vomiting of needles and
pins, the old diabolical torture, and a strict examination of
the accused, followed.

If a belief should be entertained that the now 'vulgar' ideas of
witchcraft have been long obsolete in England, it would be
destroyed by a perusal of a few of the newspapers and periodicals
of the last hundred years; and a sufficiently voluminous work
might be occupied with the achievements of modern Sidrophels, and
the records of murders or mutilations perpetrated by an ignorant
mob.[164]

[164] Without noticing other equally notorious instances of
recent years, it may be enough (to dispel any such possible
illusion) to transcribe a paragraph from an account in _The
Times_ newspaper of Sept. 24, 1863. 'It is a somewhat
singular fact,' says the writer, describing a late notorious
witch-persecution in the county of Essex, 'that nearly all
the sixty or seventy persons concerned in the outrage which
resulted in the death of the deceased _were of the small
tradesmen class_, and that none of the agricultural
labourers were mixed up in the affair. It is also stated
that none of those engaged were in any way under the
influence of liquor. The whole disgraceful transaction arose
out of a deep belief in witchcraft, which possesses to a
lamentable extent the tradespeople and the lower orders of
the district.' Nor does it appear that the village of
Hedingham (the scene of the witch-murder) claims a
superiority in credulity over other villages in Essex or in
England. The instigator and chief agent in the Hedingham
case was the wife of an innkeeper, who was convinced that
she had been bewitched by an old wizard of reputation in the
neighbourhood: and the mode of punishment was t