1582, against Abel de la Rue,
native of Coulommiers; of the 2nd of October 1593, against Rousseau and
his daughter; of 1608, against another Rousseau and one Peley, for
witchcraft and adoration of the devil at the Sabbath, under the figure
of a he-goat, as confessed by them; the decree of 4th of February 1615,
against Leclerc, who appealed from the sentence of the Parliament of
Orleans, and who was condemned for having attended the Sabbath, and
confessed, as well as two of his accomplices, who died in prison, that
he had adored the devil, renounced his baptism and his faith in God,
danced the witches' dance, and offered up unholy sacrifices; the
decrees of the 6th of May 1616, against a man named Leger, on a similar
accusation; the pardon granted by Charles IX to Trois Echelles, upon
condition of revealing his accomplices, but afterwards revoked for
renewed sorcery on his part; the decree of the Parliament of Paris,
cited by Mornac in 1595; the judgments passed in consequence of the
commission given by Henry IV to the Sieur de Lancre, councillor of the
Parliament of Bourdeaux; of the 20th of March 1619, against Etienne
Audibert; those passed by the Chamber of Nerac, on the 26th of June
1620, against several witches; those passed by the Parliament of
Toulouse in 1577, as cited by Gregory Tolosanus, against four hundred
persons accused of this crime, and who were all marked with the sign of
the devil. Besides all these, we might recall to your Majesty's
recollection the various decrees of the Parliament of Provence,
especially in the case of Gaufredy in 1611; the decrees of the
Parliament of Dijon, and those of the Parliament of Rennes, following
the example of the condemnation of the Marshal de Rays, who was burned
in 1441, for the crime of witchcraft, in presence of the Duke of
Brittany;--all these examples, Sire, prove that the accusation of
witchcraft has always been punished with death by the Parliaments of
your kingdom, and justify the uniformity of their practice.

"These, Sire, are the motives upon which your Parliament of Normandy
has acted in decreeing the punishment of death against the persons
lately brought before it for this crime. If it has happened that, on
any occasion, these parliaments, and the Parliament of Normandy among
the rest, have condemned the guilty to a less punishment than that of
death, it was for the reason that their guilt was not of the deepest
dye; your Majesty, and the Kings your prede