"No, mademoiselle, they could not do that."
"That's a pity, for then we should not need to be afraid of him. Perhaps the devil has been burned now."
"The demon will always exist, my child!"
"You've told me, dear nurse, that St. Michael fought with him and vanquished him."
"Yes, of course he vanquished him, but that is as if he had done nothing. Now, Ursule, go on; for I do not yet see in all that you have told us anything relating to yourself, since this Jeanne was burned close on sixty years ago."
"I am coming to it, mademoiselle," said Urbain, recalling his ideas, which Blanche's beautiful eyes had turned to other things than sorcery. "Since the time of Jeanne Harviliers, they talk of nothing in Verberie and its neighborhood except the witches' sabbaths which were held at the Pont-aux-Reine on the highway to Compèigne, in the wood of Ajeux; and where noises were heard of horsemen riding in squads, witches going to their sabbaths, and wizards of all kinds. The good inhabitants of the country, wishing to put themselves on their guard against these emissaries of the devil, went to Charlemagne's chapel, which is now known as the church of Saint-Pierre, and asked the good religious to give them something which would guarantee them against sorceries of all kinds."
"A very good idea, truly," said Marguerite, "they could not have acted more wisely, and what did they give them, my child?"
"The good fathers gave them a robe which had been worn by a pious hermit, who during his life had always made the demons flee from any place where he came. A tiny morsel of that robe was sufficient to ward off all danger from the one who carried it. You may imagine how anxious everybody was to have a piece of it."
"Oh, I can well believe it. If I had been there there's nothing I wouldn't have given to obtain a piece."
"Well but dear nurse," said Blanche, "is it like mine."