d to deceive us, and to condemn those who practice
magic, sorcery, spells, and crimes of the same nature, to death, and
the most rigorous punishments, if they were merely illusive, and the
effect only of a diseased and prejudiced imagination? Father le Brun,
of the Oratoire, who has written so well upon the subject of
superstitions, substantiates the fact that the Parliament of Paris
recognizes that there are sorcerers, and that it punishes them
severely when they are convicted. He proves it by a decree issued in
1601 against some inhabitants of Campagne accused of witchcraft. The
decree wills that they shall be sent to the Conciergerie by the
subaltern judges on pain of being deprived of their charge. It
supposes that they must be rigorously punished, but it desires that
the proceedings against them for their discovery and punishment may be
exact and regular.

M. Servin, advocate-general and councillor of state, fully proves from
the Old and New Testament, from tradition, laws and history, that
there are diviners, enchanters, and sorcerers, and refutes those who
would maintain the contrary. He shows that magicians and those who
make use of charms, ought to be punished and held in execration; but
he adds that no punishment must be inflicted till after certain and
evident proofs have been obtained; and this is what must be strictly
attended to by the Parliament of Paris, for fear of punishing madmen
for guilty persons, and taking illusions for realities.

The Parliament leaves it to the Church to inflict excommunication,
both on men and women who have recourse to charms, and who believe
they go in the night to nocturnal assemblies, there to pay homage to
the devil. The Capitularies of the kings[141] recommend the pastors to
instruct the faithful on the subject of what is termed the Sabbath; at
any rate they do not command that these persons should receive
corporeal punishment, but only that they should be undeceived and
prevented from misleading others in the same manner.

And there the Parliament stops, so long as the case goes no farther
than simply misleading; but when it goes so far as to injure others,
the kings have often commanded the judges to punish these persons with
fines and banishment. The Ordonnances of Charles VIII. in 1490, and of
Charles IX. in the States of Orleans in 1560, express themselves
formally on this point, and they were renewed by King Louis XIV. in
1682. The third article of these Ordonnan