nk. For instance, "The Devil does no more than
God allows him: why, then, punish his tools?" Or again, "We are not
free. As in the case of Job, the Devil is allowed by God to tempt and
beset us, to urge us on by blows. Should we, then, punish him who is
not free?" Sprenger gets out of that by saying, "We are free beings."
Here come plenty of texts. "You are made serfs only by covenant with
the Evil One." The answer to this would be but too ready: "If God
allows the Evil One to tempt us into making covenants, he renders
covenants possible," &c.

"I am very good," says he, "to listen to yonder folk. He is a fool who
argues with the Devil." So say all the rest likewise. They all cheer
the progress of the trial: all are strongly moved, and show in murmurs
their eagerness for the execution. They have seen enough of men
hanged. As for the Wizard and the Witch, 'twill be a curious treat to
see those two faggots crackling merrily in the flames.

The judge has the people on his side, so he is not embarrassed.
According to his _Directory_ three witnesses would be enough. Are not
three witnesses readily found, especially to witness a falsehood? In
every slanderous town, in every envious village teeming with the
mutual hate of neighbours, witnesses abound. Besides, the _Directory_
is a superannuated book, a century old. In that century of light, the
fifteenth, all is brought to perfection. If witnesses are wanting, we
are content with the _public voice_, the general clamour.[75]

[75] Faustin Helie, in his learned and luminous _Traite de
l'Instruction Criminelle_ (vol. i. p. 398), has clearly
explained the manner in which Pope Innocent III., about 1200,
suppressed the safeguards theretofore required in any
prosecution, especially the risk incurred by prosecutors of
being punished for slander. Instead of these were established
the dismal processes of _Denunciation and Inquisition_. The
frightful levity of these latter methods is shown by Soldan.
Blood was shed like water.

A genuine outcry, born of fear; the piteous cry of victims, of the
poor bewitched. Sprenger is greatly moved thereat. Do not fancy him
one of those unfeeling schoolmen, the lovers of a dry abstraction. He
has a heart: for which very reason he is so ready to kill. He is
compassionate, full of lovingkindness. He feels pity for yon weeping
woman, but lately pregnant, whose babe the witch had smothered by a
look. He feels pity