ane lady, named Antoinette
Bourignon, founded a school, or hospice, in that city. One day, on
entering the school-room, she imagined that she saw a great number of
little black angels flying about the heads of the children. In great
alarm, she told her pupils of what she had seen, warning them to beware
of the devil, whose imps were hovering about them. The foolish woman
continued daily to repeat the same story, and Satan and his power
became the only subject of conversation, not only between the girls
themselves, but between them and their instructors. One of them at this
time ran away from the school. On being brought back and interrogated,
she said she had not run away, but had been carried away by the
devil--she was a witch, and had been one since the age of seven. Some
other little girls in the school went into fits at this announcement,
and, on their recovery, confessed that they also were witches. At last,
the whole of them, to the number of fifty, worked upon each other's
imaginations to such a degree that they also confessed that they were
witches--that they attended the Domdaniel, or meeting of the
fiends--that they could ride through the air on broom-sticks, feast on
infants' flesh, or creep through a key-hole.

The citizens of Lille were astounded at these disclosures. The clergy
hastened to investigate the matter; many of them, to their credit,
openly expressed their opinion that the whole affair was an imposture:
not so the majority--they strenuously insisted that the confessions of
the children were valid, and that it was necessary to make an example
by burning them all for witches. The poor parents, alarmed for their
offspring, implored the examining Capuchins with tears in their eyes to
save their young lives, insisting that they were bewitched, and not
bewitching. This opinion also gained ground in the town. Antoinette
Bourignon, who had put these absurd notions into the heads of the
children, was accused of witchcraft, and examined before the council.
The circumstances of the case seemed so unfavourable towards her that
she would not stay for a second examination. Disguising herself as she
best could, she hastened out of Lille and escaped pursuit. If she had
remained four hours longer, she would have been burned by judicial
sentence, as a witch and a heretic. It is to be hoped that, wherever
she went, she learned the danger of tampering with youthful minds, and
was never again entrusted with the mana