e, and a wish
to enrich themselves, drew thither men and women. The devil never
fails to make them magnificent promises, at least the sorcerers say
so, and believe it, deceived, without doubt, by their imagination; but
experience shows us that these people are always ragged, despised, and
wretched, and usually end their lives in a violent and dishonorable
manner.

When they are admitted for the first time to the sabbath, the demon
inscribes their name and surname on his register, which he makes them
sign; then he makes them forswear cream and baptism, makes them
renounce Jesus Christ and his church; and, to give them a distinctive
character and make them known for his own, he imprints on their bodies
a certain mark with the nail of the little finger of one of his hands;
this mark, or character, thus impressed, renders the part insensible to
pain. They even pretend that he impresses this character in three
different parts of the body, and at three different times. The demon
does not impress these characters, say they, before the person has
attained the age of twenty-five.

But none of these things deserve the least attention. There may happen
to be in the body of a man, or a woman, some benumbed part, either
from illness, or the effect of remedies, or drugs, or even naturally;
but that is no proof that the devil has anything to do with it. There
are even persons accused of magic and sorcery, on whom no part thus
characterized has been found, nor yet insensible to the touch, however
exact the search. Others have declared that the devil has never made
any such marks upon them. Consult on this matter the second letter of
M. de St. Andre, Physician to the King, in which he well develops what
has been said about these characters of sorcerers.

The word sabbath, taken in the above sense, is not to be found in
ancient writers; neither the Hebrews nor the Egyptians, the Greeks nor
the Latins have known it.

The thing itself, I mean the _sabbath_ taken in the sense of a
nocturnal assembly of persons devoted to the devil, is not remarked in
antiquity, although magicians, sorcerers, and witches are spoken of
often enough--that is to say, people who boasted that they exercised a
kind of power over the devil, and by his means, over animals, the air,
the stars, and the lives and fortunes of men.

Horace[211] makes use of the word _coticia_ to indicate the nocturnal
meetings of the magicians--_Tu riseris coticia_; which he derive