Fredegonde, who destroyed on the pretext of sorcery the women whose sole guilt was to have displeased her, experimented herself in Black Magic and protected some of those whom she thought were skilled therein. Ageric, bishop of Verdun, had a pythoness arrested who made a great deal of money by recovering stolen objects and identifying the thieves; she was probably a somnambulist. The woman was examined, but the demon refused to go out of her as long as she was chained; if the pythoness were left in a church, unguarded and unwatched, he agreed to leave her. They fell into the trap; it was the woman herself who went out, to take refuge with Fredegonde, who hid her in the palace and ended by saving her from being further exorcised, as also probably from the stake. On this occasion therefore she did good without meaning it, yet it was rather through her pleasure in evil.[160]
CHAPTER III
THE SALIC LAWS AGAINST SORCERERS
Under the rule of the first French kings, the crime of Magic did not entail death save for those of exalted position, while there were some who were proud to die for an offence by which they were raised above the vulgar crowd and became formidable even in the sight of kings. There was the general Mummol, for example, who, on the rack by the orders of Fredegonde, declared that he experienced nothing, who provoked more frightful tortures and died braving the executioners, while the latter were moved to forgive him at the sight of such extra-natural fortitude.[161]
Among the Salic laws, supposed to have been enacted in 474, and attributed to Pharamond by Sigebert, the following ordinances are found.
“If anyone shall testify that another has acted as a héréburge or strioporte—titles applied to those who carry the copper vessel to the spot where the vampires perform their enchantments—and if he shall fail to convict him, he shall be condemned hereby to a forfeit of 7,500 deniers, being 180½ sous.... If anyone shall charge a free woman as a vampire or as a prostitute, and shall fail to prove his words, he shall forfeit 2500 deniers, being 62½ sous.... If a vampire shall devour a man and be found guilty, she shall forfeit 8000 deniers, being 200 sous.”
It will be seen that in those times cannibalism was possible on terms and, moreover, that the market-price of human flesh was not at a premium. It cost 180½ sous to slander a man, but for a modicum above that sum he could be killed and eaten, which was at once more honest and thorough. This remarkable legislation recalls an equally curious Talmudic recital, being one which was interpreted after a memorable manner by the famous Rabbi Jechiel in the presence of a certain queen who is not named in the book.[162] It was most likely Queen Blanche, for Rabbi Jechiel lived in the reign of St. Louis. He had been called upon to answer the objections of a converted Jew named Douin, who had received at baptism the Christian name of Nicholas. After various discussions on texts of the Talmud, they came to the following passage: “If anyone shall offer any blood of his children to Moloch, let him die the death.” The Talmud annotates thus: “He therefore who shall offer not a modicum of blood alone but the whole blood and the whole flesh of his children, does not come under the judgment of the law and no penalty is declared against him.” Those who took part in the debate clamoured at a construction which passed all understanding: some laughed in pity, some quivered with indignation. Rabbi Jechiel could scarcely obtain a hearing, and when he succeeded at last, there was every mark of disfavour, to indicate that he was condemned beforehand.
“With us,” said he, “the penalty of death is an atonement and consequently a reconciliation, not an act of vengeance. All who die by the law of Israel die in the peace of Israel; they partake of peace in death, and they sleep with their fathers. No malediction descends with them into the grave; they abide in the immortality of the House of Jacob. Death is therefore a crowning grace; it is the cure of a poisoned wound by the hot iron. But we do not apply the iron to those who are past cure; we have no jurisdiction over those the extent of whose transgression has cut them off for ever from Israel. Such are as now dead, and it is not therefore for us to shorten the term of their reprobation on earth: they are delivered over to the wrath of God. Man is warranted to wound only that he may heal, and we do not apply remedies to those who are beyond recovery. The father of a family punishes only his children and is content to shut the door against strangers. Those great criminals upon whom our law pronounces no sentence are thereby excommunicated for ever, which is a penalty greater than death.”
The explanation of Rabbi Jechiel is admirable and breathes all the patriarchal genius of ancient Israel. Truly the Jews are our fathers in science, and if we—in place of their persecution—had sought to understand them, they would not have been at this day so far alienated from our faith.
The above Talmudic tradition shews the Jewish antiquity of belief in the immortality of the soul.[163] What is this reintegration of the guilty in the family of Israel by an expiatory death unless it be a protest against death itself and a sublime act of faith in the perpetuity of life? Comte Joseph de Maistre understood this doctrine well when he raised the executioner’s sanguinary mission into a kind of peculiar priesthood. The anguish of punishment supplicates, said this great writer, and blood in its outpouring still remains a sacrifice. Were capital punishment other than a plenary absolution it would be nothing but retaliation on murder; the man who suffers his sentence fulfils all his penance and enters by death into the immortal society of the children of God.
The Salic laws were those of a people still in the state of barbarity, where everything is redeemed by a ransom, as in time of war. Slavery still obtained and human life had a debatable and relative value. That must be always purchasable which there is a right to sell, and only money is due for the destruction of an object which has a price in money. The one efficacious legislation of the period was that of the Church, and its councils took the most stringent measures against the vampires and poisoners who went under the name of sorcerers. The Council of Agde in Lower Languedoc, held in 506, pronounced excommunication against them. The first Council of Orléans, convened in 541, condemned divinatory operations; that of Narbonne, in 589, not only visited sorcerers with the greater excommunication but ordained that they should be sold as slaves for the benefit of the poor. The same council decreed public whipping for amatores diaboli; meaning no doubt those who were concerned about him, feared him, evoked him and attributed to him power which was in any wise like that of God.[164] We offer our congratulations sincerely to the disciples of M. le Comte de Mirville that they did not live in such days.