“Another minute and the carriage was dashed from the road and overturned in a ravine; nor was it without much difficulty that I extricated myself, the postillion having already taken to his heels accompanied his fellow servants. I confess to you, that, half stunned by the accident, I experienced some uneasiness at the idea of finding myself alone, at midnight, with the object which had produced this fearful consternation, whether robber or impostor; nay, I will not swear that some of the fantastic tales of Schiller and Goethe did not recur to my mind.
“Great, therefore, was my satisfaction on emerging from the broken vehicle, and perceiving two white shapes bounding and gambolling at a distance among the hoary trunks of the oak trees, to recognize two handsome white grey-hounds, which I afterwards ascertained to have strayed from the kennel of the Prince Henry of Prussia, and to have subsisted for a year on their depredations in the forest of Ratenau!”
Another adventure occurred on the estate of a nobleman of the same family, in the Duchy of Brunswick. An attempt was made to rob the village church; the sacramental plate and poor-box being found one morning in the nave of the church wrapped in a piece of old sacking, so as to give rise to an opinion that the thieves must have been disturbed in their sacrilegious enterprize. Some time afterwards, a gang of burglars having been arrested, the judge of the neighbouring town charged them, after their conviction of divers other robberies, with being accessory to the crime in question.
In a moment, these fellows, who had preserved the most hardened audacity, fell on their knees, and freely confessed the attempt; adding, that they had been prevented carrying off their booty by the sudden appearance of the evil one emerging from the vestry; and as far as the uncertain light of their dark lantern in that vast area enabled them to judge, in the form of a horned monster.
A general laugh instantly arose in court; several of the inhabitants of the village in question recognizing by this description, a tame stag, the pet of a former incumbent of the living, which was allowed the run of the presbytery orchard and church-yard; and which, having most opportunely sought shelter in the porch on the night in question, had probably followed the robbers into the church, which they entered by means of false keys, leaving the doors open for their readier escape.
It is recorded in the Memoirs of one of the free-thinking circle which surrounded Baron d’Holbach, in Paris, previous to the Revolution, that having retired to bed one night after a gay supper, during which this coterie of sceptics amused themselves with the most blasphemous conversation, his gay companions, in order to try his courage, introduced into his bed-room a goat, whose fleece had been steeped in spirits of wine; which, when set on fire, gave to the unlucky animal an aspect truly horrific.
The goat almost equally terrified with its intended victim, instantly ran to the bed and attempted to extinguish the flames by rubbing itself against the bed-clothes, which it set on fire; and the young man, having drunk freely at supper so as to be heavily asleep was with difficulty extricated from the flames. The goat died of the consequences of this cruel experiment; and the young man was subject for the remainder of his life to epileptic fits.
Many instances are on record of an equally serious termination to these foolish practical jokes. Witness the well-known story of the young lady, who, after boasting of her intrepidity, had a skeleton from a neighbouring surgery brought into her bed-room by her brothers and some young friends staying in her father’s house. On retiring to rest, these cruel jesters listened anxiously for the shrieks which they hoped would betray her cowardice, and were greatly disappointed to find her as self-possessed as she had announced; for instead of screaming, she went quietly to bed. But alas! next morning, when the servant entered her room, she was found playing with the skeleton, in a state of complete fatuity!—
In the southern provinces of France, there prevails a superstition, derived probably from the lycanthropy of the ancients, that certain persons assume at night the form of wolves, and roam the country for prey, under the name of loup-garoux; a fable which gave rise to Perrault’s charming fairy-tale of Little Red Riding Hood.
In a neighbourhood said to be frequented by one of these devastators, who was of course no other than a man in wolf’s clothing, who, in this assumed character pillaged the adjacent farms, a garde champêtre or country constable, who had been several times attacked by the supposed monster, contrived to lop off his paw with a hatchet; and, on the escape of the loup-garou, found, as he expected, that the furry paw contained a human hand! All the labourers of the neighbourhood were accordingly visited by the gendarmes to ascertain, by his mutilation, the identity of the sheep-stealer. But the delinquent had already fled the country; and the imputed cause of his flight was confirmed a few years afterwards, by his re-appearance in another department of France, maimed of his left hand!