Hocque which ought to be attributed to the demon; it is, says he, a
purely natural effect, which can proceed from no other cause than the
venomous effluvia which came from the poisonous drug when it was taken
up, and which were carried towards the malefactor by those which
proceeded from his own body while he was preparing it, and placing it
in the ground, which remained there and were preserved in that spot,
so that none of them had been dissipated.

These effluvia proceeding from the person of Hocque, then finding
themselves liberated, returned to whence they originated, and drew
with them the most malignant and corrosive particles of the charge or
drug, which acted on the body of this shepherd as they did on those of
the animals who smelled them. He confirms what he has just said, by
the example of sympathetic powder which acts upon the body of a
wounded person, by the immersion of small particles of the blood, or
the pus of the wounded man upon whom it is applied, which particles
draw with them the spirit of the drugs of which it (the powder) is
composed, and carry them to the wound.

But the more I reflect on this pretended evaporation of the venomous
effluvia emanating from the poisoned drug, hidden at Passy en Brie,
six leagues from Paris, which are supposed to come straight to Hocque,
shut up at la Tournelle, borne by the animal effluvia proceeding from
this malefactor's body at the time he made up the poisonous drug and
put it in the ground, so long before the dangerous composition was
discovered; the more I reflect on the possibility of these
evaporations the less I am persuaded of them. I could wish to have
proofs of this system, and not instances of the very doubtful and very
uncertain effects of sympathetic powder, which can have no place in
the case in question. It is proving the obscure by the obscure, and
the uncertain by the uncertain; and even were we to admit generally
some effects of the sympathetic powder, they could not be applicable
here; the distance between the places is too great, and the time too
long; and what sympathy can be found between this shepherd's poisonous
drug and his person for it to be able to return to him who is
imprisoned at Paris, when the _gogue_ is discovered at Passy?

The account composed and printed on this event bears, that the fumes
of the wine which Hocque had drank having evaporated, and he
reflecting on what Beatrice had made him do, began to agitate himself,
howl