of
Renata, became possessed of devils, and unanimously attacked Renata, the
superiors could no longer avoid making a serious investigation of the
charges. Renata was confined in a cell alone, whereupon the six devils
screeched in chorus at being deprived of their friend. She had begged to
be allowed to take her papers with her; but this being refused, and
thinking herself detected, she at once avowed to her confessor and the
superiors, that she was a witch, had learned witchcraft out of the
convent, and had bewitched the six nuns. They determined to keep the
matter secret, and to attempt the conversion of Renata. And as the nuns
still continued possessed, they despatched her to a remote convent.
Here, under a show of outward piety, she still went on with her attempts
to realise witchcraft, and the nuns remained possessed. It was decided
at length to give Renata over to the civil power. She was accordingly
condemned to be burned alive; but in mitigation of punishment her head
was first struck off. Four of the possessed nuns gradually recovered
with clerical assistance; the other two remained deranged. Renata was
executed on the 21st January 1749.

Renata stated, in her voluntary confession, that she had often at night
been carried bodily to witch-Sabbaths; in one of which she was first
presented to the Prince of Darkness, when she abjured God and the Virgin
at the same time. Her name, with the alteration of Maria into Emma, was
written in a black book, and she herself was stamped on the back as the
Devil's property, in return for which she received the promise of
seventy years of life, and all she might wish for. She stated that she
had often, at night, gone into the cellar of the _chateau_ and drank the
best wine; in the shape of a swine had walked on the convent walls; on
the bridge had milked the cows as they passed over; and several times
had mingled with the actors in the theatre in London.

A question unavoidably presents itself--How came witchcraft to be in so
great a degree the province of women? There existed sorcerers, no doubt,
but they were comparatively few. Persons of either sex and of all ages
indiscriminately interested themselves in the black art; but the
professors and regular practitioners were almost exclusively women, and
principally old women. The following seem to have been some of the
causes. Women were confined to household toils; their minds had not
adequate occupation: many young unmarried wom