assed upon these witches into one of
perpetual banishment from the province, but to re-establish them in the
possession of their goods and chattels, and of their good fame and
character, your parliament have thought it their duty, on occasion of
these crimes, the greatest which men can commit, to make you acquainted
with the general and uniform feelings of the people of this province with
regard to them; it being, moreover, a question in which are concerned the
glory of God and the relief of your suffering subjects, who groan under
their fears from the threats and menaces of this sort of persons, and who
feel the effects of them every day in the mortal and extraordinary
maladies which attack them, and the surprising damage and loss of their
possessions.

"Your majesty knows well that there is no crime so opposed to the commands
of God as witchcraft, which destroys the very foundation of religion, and
draws strange abominations after it. It is for this reason, sire, that the
Scriptures pronounce the punishment of death against offenders, and that
the Church and the holy fathers have fulminated their anathemas, and that
canonical decisions have one and all decreed the most severe punishments,
to deter from this crime; and that the Church of France, animated by the
piety of the kings your predecessors, has expressed so great a horror at
it, that, not judging the punishment of perpetual imprisonment, the
highest it has the power to inflict, sufficiently severe, it has left such
criminals to be dealt with by the secular power.

"It has been the general feeling of all nations that such criminals ought
to be condemned to death, and all the ancients were of the same opinion.
The law of the 'Twelve Tables,' which was the principal of the Roman laws,
ordains the same punishment. All juris-consults agreed in it, as well as
the constitutions of the emperors, and more especially those of
Constantine and Theodosius, who, enlightened by the Gospel, not only
renewed the same punishment, but also deprived, expressly, all persons
found guilty of witchcraft of the right of appeal, and declared them to be
unworthy of a prince's mercy. And Charles VIII., sire, inspired by the
same sentiments, passed that beautiful and severe ordinance (_cette belle
et severe ordonnance_), which enjoined the judges to punish witches
according to the exigencies of the case, under a penalty of being
themselves fined or imprisoned, or dismissed from their offic