Lancre and Boguet, in which some young and pretty wife would take the
Witch's place as Queen of the Sabbath, and submit her body to the
vilest handling. A farce not less repulsive was the "Black Sacrament,"
performed with a black radish, which Satan would cut into little
pieces and gravely swallow.

The last act of all, according to Lancre, or at least according to the
two bold hussies who made him their fool, was an astounding event to
happen in such crowded meetings. Since witchcraft had become
hereditary in whole families, there was no further need of openly
divulging the old incestuous ways of producing witches, by the
intercourse of a mother with her son. Some sort of comedy perhaps was
made out of the old materials, in the shape of a grotesque Semiramis
or an imbecile Ninus. But the more serious game, which doubtless
really took place, attests the existence of great profligacy in the
upper walks of society: it took the form of a most hateful and
barbarous hoax.

Some rash husband would be tempted to the spot, so fuddled with a
baleful draught of datura or belladonna, that, like one entranced, he
came to lose all power of speech and motion, retaining only his
sight. His wife, on the other hand, being so bewitched with erotic
drinks as to lose all sense of what she was doing, would appear in a
woeful state of nature, letting herself be caressed under the
indignant eyes of one who could no longer help himself in the least.
His manifest despair, his bootless efforts to unshackle his tongue,
and set free his powerless limbs, his dumb rage and wildly rolling
eyes, inspired beholders with a cruel joy, like that produced by some
of Moliere's comedies. The poor woman, stung with a real delight,
yielded herself up to the most shameful usage, of which on the morrow
neither herself nor her husband would have the least remembrance. But
those who had seen or shared in the cruel farce, would they, too, fail
to remember?

In such heinous outrages an aristocratic element seems traceable. In
no way do they remind us of the old brotherhood of serfs, of the
original Sabbath, which, though ungodly, and foul enough, was still a
free straightforward matter, in which all was done readily and without
constraint.

Clearly, Satan, depraved as he was from all time, goes on spoiling
more and more. A polite, a crafty Satan is he now become, sweetly
insipid, but all the more faithless and unclean. It is a new, a
strange thing to see at