PAGE

Introduction

viii

PART ONE

1.

Death of the Gods

3

Christianity believed the world to be on the point of death—The world of demons—The Bride of Corinth

2.

What Drove the Middle Ages to Despair

11

The People makes itself Legends—But originality is prohibited—The People defends its lands—But is made a serf of

3.

The Little Demon of the Hearth and Home

21

Promiscuity of the primitive villa—An independent hearth and home—The serf's wife—True to the old gods—Robin Goodfellow

4.

Temptations

32

The Serf invokes the Spirit of Hidden Treasures—Feudal raids and cruel feudal customs—The goodwife's Brownie turns into a demon after all

5.

Diabolical Possession

41

Gold gains the mastery in 1300—The peasant wife in alliance with the Demon of gold—Foul terrors of the Middle Ages—The Lady of the Village—Hatred and rivalry of the Lady of the Castle

6.

The Pact with Satan

55

The serf's wife gives herself to the Devil—The Sorceress and the Blasted Hearth

7.

King of the Dead

61

She calls back the spirits of loved ones dead—Conception of Satan softened and mollified

8.

Prince of Nature

69

Rigours of the Mediæval Winter relax—The Sorceress submits to Oriental influences—Conceives Nature

9.

Satan the Healer

77

Diseases of the Middle Ages—The Sorceress utilizes poisons for

p. vi

their cure—The Solanaceæ (Herbs of Consolation)—Women for the first time cared for medically

10.

Charms and Love Potions

89

Blue Beard and Griselda—The Castle a suppliant to the Sorceress—Her cunning ways

11.

Communion of Revolt—Witches’ Sabbaths—The Black Mass

98

The old semi-Pagan Sabasia—The Black Mass, and its four Acts: Act I. The Introit, the Kiss of Devotion, the Banquet; Act II. The Offertory, Woman at once Altar and Sacrifice

12.

Black Mass Continued—Love and Death—Satan Disappears

109

Act III. Incestuous love-making; Act IV. Death of Satan; the Sorceress flies to rejoin her lover in Hell

PART TWO

13.

The Sorceress in Her Decadence—Satan Multiplied and Vulgarised

119

Sorceresses and Sorcerers employed by the Great—The Châtelaine a Werewolf—Last of the love-potions

14.

Persecutions

129

The Malleus Maleficarum—Satan master of the World

15.

A Hundred Years’ Toleration in France

143

Spain begins when France leaves off—A reaction; the Lawyers show themselves as good at burning as the Priests

16.

The Basque Witches, 1609

150

They direct their own Judges in the way they should go

17.

Satan Turns Ecclesiastic, 1610

159

Diversions and Distractions of the Modern "Sabbath"

18.

Gauffridi, 1610

168

Priests prosecuted for Sorcery by the Monks—Conventual jealousies

19.

The Nuns of Loudun—Urbain Grandier, 1633, 1634

189

An eloquent and popular Priest; suspected of Sorcery—Morbid and extraordinary manifestations among the Nuns of Loudun

20.

The Nuns of Louviers And Satanic Possession—Madeleine Bavent, 1640-1647

207

Illuminism; the Devil plays Quietist—Duel between the Fiend and the Physician

21.

Satan Triumphant in the Seventeenth Century

221

p. vii

22.

Father Girard and Charlotte Cadière

229

23.

Charlotte Cadière at the Convent of Ollioules

260

24.

Trial of Charlotte Cadière, 1730, 1731

283

Epilogue

307

Satan and Jesus,—is a Reconciliation possible?—The Sorceress has perished, but the Fairy survives, and will survive—Imminence of a Religious Renovation

Notes and Elucidations

312

1.

The Inquisition

312

2.

Method of Procedure

315

3.

Satan as Physician, Love Philtres, etc.

318

4.

The Last Act of the Witches’ Sabbath

320

5.

Literature of Sorcery and Witchcraft

323

6.

Decadence, etc

325

7.

The spot where the present book was completed

327