"That is as much as to say that their venefices—supposing they know how to prepare them well enough to accomplish their purpose, though I doubt that—are easy to defeat. Yet I don't mean to say that this group, one member of which is an ordained priest, does not make use of contaminated Eucharists at need."
"Another nice priest! But since you are so well informed, do you know how spells are conjured away?"
"Yes and no. I know that when the poisons are sealed by sacrilege, when the operation is performed by a master, Docre or one of the princes of magic at Rome, it is not at
all easy—nor healthy—to attempt to apply an antidote. Though I have heard of a certain abbé at Lyons who, practically alone, is succeeding right now in these difficult cures."
"Dr. Johannès!"
"You know him!"
"No. But Gévingey, who has gone to seek his medical aid, has told me of him."
"Well, I don't know how he goes about it, but I know that spells which are not complicated with sacrilege are usually evaded by the law of return. The blow is sent back to him who struck it. There are, at the present time, two churches, one in Belgium, the other in France, where, when one prays before a statue of the Virgin, the spell which has been cast on one flies off and goes and strikes one's adversary."
"Rats!"
"One of these churches is at Tougres, eighteen kilometres from Liége, and the name of it is Notre Dame de Retour. The other is the church of l'Epine, 'the thorn,' a little village near Châlons. This church was built long ago to conjure away the spells produced with the aid of the thorns which grew in that country and served to pierce images cut in the shape of hearts."