scrutiny made into the lives of clergymen; and so they also took the
side of Gauffridi. Demoniacs were not so scarce, but that one was
easily found and brought forward at the first summons. Her devil,
obedient to the rope-girdle of St. Francis, gainsaid everything said
by the Dominicans' devil: it averred--and the words were straightway
written down--that "Gauffridi was no magician at all, and could not
therefore be arrested."

They were not prepared for this at Sainte-Baume. Louisa seemed
confounded. She could only manage to say that apparently the Capuchins
had not made their devil swear to tell the truth: a sorry reply,
backed up, however, by the trembling Madeline, who, like a beaten
hound that fears yet another beating, was ready for anything, ready
even to bite and tear. Through her it was that Louisa at such a crisis
inflicted an awful bite.

She herself merely said that the Bishop was offending God unawares.
She clamoured against "the wizards of Marseilles" without naming any
one. But the cruel, the deadly word was spoken at her command by
Madeline. A woman who had lost her child two years before, was pointed
out by her as having throttled it. Afraid of being tortured, she fled
or hid herself. Her husband, her father, went weeping to Sainte-Baume,
hoping of course to soften the inquisitors. But Madeline durst not
unsay her words; so she renewed the charge.

No one now could feel safe. As soon as the Devil came to be accounted
God's avenger, from the moment that people under his dictation began
writing the names of those who should pass through the fire, every one
had before him, day and night, the hideous nightmare of the stake.

To withstand these bold attempts of the Papal Inquisition, Marseilles
ought to have been backed up by the Parliament of Aix. Unluckily she
knew herself to be little liked at Aix. That small official town of
magistrates and nobles was always jealous of the wealth and splendour
of Marseilles, the Queen of the South. On the other hand, the great
opponent of Marseilles, the Papal Inquisitor, forestalled Gauffridi's
appeal to the Parliament by carrying his own suit thither first. This
was a body of utter fanatics, headed by some heavy nobles, whose
wealth had been greatly increased in a former century by the massacre
of the Vaudois. As lay judges, too, they were charmed to see a Papal
Inquisitor set the precedent of acknowledging that, in a matter
touching a priest, in a case of witchcra