INATION OF THE AFFAIR OF HOCQUE, MAGICIAN.

Monsieur de St. Andre, consulting physician in ordinary to the king,
in his sixth letter[144] against magic, maintains that in the affair
of Hocque which has been mentioned, there was neither magic, nor
sorcery, nor any operation of the demon; that the venomous drug which
Hocque placed in the stables, and by means of which he caused the
death of the cattle stalled therein, was nothing but a poisonous
compound, which, by its smell and the diffusion of its particles,
poisoned the animals and caused their death; it required only for
these drugs to be taken away for the cattle to be safe, or else to
keep the cattle from the stable in which the poison was placed. The
difficulty laid in discovering where these poisonous drugs were
hidden; the shepherds, who were the authors of the mischief, taking
all sorts of precautions to conceal them, knowing that their lives
were in danger if they should be discovered.

He further remarks that these _gogues_ or poisoned drugs lose their
effects after a certain time, unless they are renewed or watered with
something to revive them and make them ferment again. If the devil had
any share in this mischief, the drug would always possess the same
virtue, and it would not be necessary to renew it and refresh it to
restore it to its pristine power.

In all this, M. de St. Andre supposes that if the demon had any power
to deprive animals of their lives, or to cause them fatal maladies, he
could do so independently of secondary causes; which will not be
easily granted him by those who hold that God alone can give life and
death by an absolute power, independently of all secondary causes and
of any natural agent. The demon might have revealed to Hocque the
composition of this fatal and poisonous drug--he might have taught him
its dangerous effects, after which the venom acts in a natural way; it
recovers and resumes its pristine strength when it is watered; it acts
only at a certain distance, and according to the reach of the
corpuscles which exhale from it. All these effects have nothing
supernatural in them, nor which ought to be attributed to the demon;
but it is credible enough that he inspired Hocque with the pernicious
design to make use of a dangerous drug, which the wretched man knew
how to make up, or the composition of which was revealed to him by the
evil spirit.

M. de St. Andre continues, and says that there is nothing in the death
of