In the war of Augustus against Sextus Pompey, son of the great Pompey,[[537]] a soldier of Augustus, named Gabinius, had his head cut off by order of young Pompey, so that it only held on to the neck by a narrow strip of flesh. Towards evening they heard Gabinius lamenting; they ran to him, and he said that he had returned from hell to reveal very important things to Pompey. Pompey did not think proper to go to him, but he sent one of his men, to whom Gabinius declared that the gods on high had decreed the happy destiny of Pompey, and that he would succeed in all his designs. Directly Gabinius had thus spoken, he fell down dead and stiff. This pretended prediction was falsified by the facts. Pompey was vanquished, and Cæsar gained all the advantage in this war.
A certain female juggler had died, but a magician of the band put a charm under her armpits, which gave her power to move; but another wizard having looked at her, cried out that it was only vile carrion, and immediately she fell down dead, and appeared what she was in fact.
Nicole Aubri, a native of Vervius, being possessed by several devils, one of these devils, named Baltazo, took from the gibbet the body of a man who had been hanged near the plain of Arlon, and in this body went to the husband of Nicole Aubri, promising to deliver his wife from her possession if he would let him pass the night with her. The husband consulted the schoolmaster, who practiced exorcising, and who told him on no account to grant what was asked of him. The husband and Baltazo having entered the church, the woman who was possessed called him by his name, and immediately this Baltazo disappeared. The schoolmaster conjuring the possessed, Beelzebub, one of the demons, revealed what Baltazo had done, and that if the husband had granted what he asked, he would have flown away with Nicole Aubri, both body and soul.
Le Loyer again relates[[538]] four other instances of persons whom the demon had seemed to restore to life, to satisfy the brutal passion of two lovers.
Footnotes:
[[536]] Le Loyer, des Spectres, lib. ii. pp. 376, 392, 393.
[[537]] Pliny, lib. vii. c. 52.
[[538]] Le Loyer, pp. 412-414.