"I am afraid it's cooked too much," said the woman, who was a great deal more interested in the beef than in other-world adventures, and she added the famous maxim of housekeepers, "When the broth is good the beef won't cut."
The men protested that it wasn't stringy a bit, it was cooked just right.
"Have an anchovy and a little butter with your meat, Monsieur Durtal."
"Wife, let's have some of the red cabbage that you preserved," said Carhaix, whose pale face was lighted up while his great canine eyes were becoming suspiciously moist. Visibly he was jubilant. He was at table with friends, in his tower, safe from the cold. "But, empty your glasses. You are not drinking," he said, holding up the cider pot.
"Let's see, Des Hermies, you were claiming yesterday that Satanism has pursued an uninterrupted course since the Middle Ages," said Durtal, wishing to get back to the subject which haunted him.
"Yes, and the documents are irrefutable. I'll put you into a position to prove them whenever you wish.
"At the end of the fifteenth century, that is to say at the time of Gilles de Rais—to go no further back—Satanism had assumed the proportions that you know. In the sixteenth it was worse yet. No need to remind you, I think, of the demoniac pactions of Catherine de Medici and of the Valois, of the trial of the monk Jean de Vaulx, of the investigations of the Sprengers and the Lancres and those learned inquisitors who had thousands of necromancers and sorcerers roasted alive. All that is known, too well known. One case is not too well known for me to cite here: that of the priest Benedictus who cohabited with the she-devil Armellina and consecrated the hosts holding them upside down. Here are the diabolical threads which bind that century to this. In the seventeenth century, in which the sorcery trials continue, and in which the 'possessed' of Loudun appear, the black religion nourishes, but already it has been driven under cover.
"I will cite you an example, one among many, if you like.
"A certain abbé Guibourg made a specialty of these abominations. On a table serving as tabernacle a woman lay down, naked or with her skirts lifted up over her head, and with her arms outstretched. She held the altar lights during the whole office.
"Guibourg thus celebrated masses on the abdomen of Mme. de Montespan, of Mme. d'Argenson, of Mme. de