In der Obrigkeit Hände?
Hilf mir aus ihren Zwang,
Wie du mir hast verheissen,
Ich bin ja eben dein,
Thu mich aus der Angst entreissen
O liebster Buhle mein!”[36]
This rare poet adds, that in making such an appeal to the hangman, the witch never imagined the roast that was to be made of her, and puts in, by way of parenthesis, “was not that fine fun!—was das war für ein Spiel!” As feathers thrown into the air shew how the wind blows, so this trumpery ballad serves to shew the current of popular feeling at the time of its composition.
All readers of history are familiar with the celebrated trial of the Maréchale d’Ancre, who was executed in Paris in the year 1617. Although witchcraft was one of the accusations brought against her, the real crime for which she suffered was her ascendency over the mind of Mary of Medicis, and the consequent influence she exercised indirectly over the unworthy king, Louis XIII. Her coachman gave evidence that she had sacrificed a cock at midnight in one of the churches, and others swore they had seen her go secretly into the house of a noted witch named Isabella. When asked by what means she had acquired so extraordinary an influence over the mind of the Queen Mother, she replied boldly that she exercised no other power over her than that which a strong mind can always exercise over the weak. She died with great firmness.
In two years afterwards, scenes far more horrible than any that had yet taken place in France were enacted at Labourt, at the foot of the Pyrenees. The parliament of Bourdeaux, scandalised at the number of witches who were said to infest Labourt and its neighbourhood, deputed one of its own members, the noted Pierre de l’Ancre, and its president, Espaignel, to inquire into the matter, with full powers to punish the offenders. They arrived at Labourt in May, 1619. De l’Ancre wrote a book setting forth all his great deeds in this battle against the powers of evil. It is full of obscenity and absurdity, but the facts may be relied on as far as they relate to the number of trials and executions, and the strange confessions which torture forced from the unhappy criminals.
De l’Ancre states as a reason why so many witches were to be found at Labourt, that the country was mountainous and sterile! He discovered many of them from their partiality to smoking tobacco. It may be inferred from this that he was of the opinion of King James, that tobacco was the “devil’s weed.” When the commission first sat, the number of persons brought to trial was about forty a day. The acquittals did not average so many as five per cent. All the witches confessed that they had been present at the great Domdaniel, or Sabbath. At these saturnalia the devil sat upon a large gilded throne, sometimes in the form of a goat; sometimes as a gentleman, dressed all in black, with boots, spurs, and sword; and very often as a shapeless mass, resembling the trunk of a blasted tree, seen indistinctly amid the darkness. They generally proceeded to the Domdaniel, riding on spits, pitchforks, or broomsticks, and on their arrival indulged with the fiends in every species of debauchery. Upon one occasion they had had the audacity to celebrate this festival in the very heart of the city of Bourdeaux. The throne of the arch fiend was placed in the middle of the Place de Gallienne, and the whole space was covered with the multitude of witches and wizards who flocked to it from far and near, some arriving even from distant Scotland.