at table
with friends, in his tower, safe from the cold. "But, empty your
glasses. You are not drinking," he said, holding up the cider pot.

"Let's see, Des Hermies, you were claiming yesterday that Satanism has
pursued an uninterrupted course since the Middle Ages," said Durtal,
wishing to get back to the subject which haunted him.

"Yes, and the documents are irrefutable. I'll put you into a position to
prove them whenever you wish.

"At the end of the fifteenth century, that is to say at the time of
Gilles de Rais--to go no further back--Satanism had assumed the
proportions that you know. In the sixteenth it was worse yet. No need to
remind you, I think, of the demoniac pactions of Catherine de Medici and
of the Valois, of the trial of the monk Jean de Vaulx, of the
investigations of the Sprengers and the Lancres and those learned
inquisitors who had thousands of necromancers and sorcerers roasted
alive. All that is known, too well known. One case is not too well known
for me to cite here: that of the priest Benedictus who cohabited with
the she-devil Armellina and consecrated the hosts holding them upside
down. Here are the diabolical threads which bind that century to this.
In the seventeenth century, in which the sorcery trials continue, and in
which the 'possessed' of Loudun appear, the black religion nourishes,
but already it has been driven under cover.

"I will cite you an example, one among many, if you like.

"A certain abbe Guibourg made a specialty of these abominations. On a
table serving as tabernacle a woman lay down, naked or with her skirts
lifted up over her head, and with her arms outstretched. She held the
altar lights during the whole office.

"Guibourg thus celebrated masses on the abdomen of Mme. de Montespan, of
Mme. d'Argenson, of Mme. de Saint-Pont. As a matter of fact these
masses were very frequent under the Grand Monarch. Numbers of women went
to them as in our times women flock to have their fortunes told with
cards.

"The ritual of these ceremonies was sufficiently atrocious. Generally a
child was kidnapped and burnt in a furnace out in the country somewhere,
the ashes were saved and mixed with the blood of another child whose
throat had been cut, and of this mixture a paste was made resembling
that of the Manicheans of which I was speaking. Abbe Guibourg
officiated, consecrated the host, cut it into little pieces and mixed it
with this mixture of blood and ashes. That was the m