re
the devil's messengers, who had been sent to take him at his word, and
take him they did, according to the testimony of the "six
sufficientist men of the town." They roughly handled him, took him up
in the air, stripped him, and then dropped him, "a sad spectacle, all
bloody and goared," in a farmyard just outside the town of Doddington.

Here he was discovered, lying upon some harrows, in the condition
described. He was picked up, and carried to a gentleman's house,
where, being well cared for, he narrated the remarkable adventure
which had befallen him. Before long, however, he "grew into a frenzy
so desperate that they were afraid to stay in his chamber," and the
gentleman of the house, not knowing what to do, "sent for the parson
of the town." Prompted, it is supposed, by the Satanic influence which
still held him, Mr. Leech rushed at the minister, and attacked him
with so much fury that it was "like to have cost him his life." But
the noise being heard below, the servants rushed up, rescued the
parson, and tied Mr. Leech down in his bed, and left him. The next
morning, hearing nothing, they thought he was asleep, but on entering
his room "he was discovered with his neck broke, his tongue out of his
mouth, and his body as black as a shoe, all swelled, and every bone in
his body out of joint."[37]

We may conclude these extraordinary cases of "devil-bonds" with two
further strange incidents, one an apparent record of a case of a
similar kind, which was practised, amidst the frivolities and plotting
of the French Court, by no less celebrated a lady than Catharine de
Medicis. In the "Secret History of France for the Last Century,"[38]
this incredible story is given: "In the first Civil War, when the
Prince of Conde was, in all appearance, likely to prevail, and
Katherine was thought to be very near the end of her much desired
Regency, during the young king's minority, she was known to have been
for two days together retired to her closet, without admitting her
menial servants to her presence." Some few days after, having called
for Monsieur de Mesme, one of the Long Robe, and always firm to her
interest, she delivered him a steel box, fast locked, to whom she
said, giving him the key: 'That in respect she knew not what might
come to her by fortune, amidst those intestine broils that then shook
France, she had thought fit to enclose a thing of great value within
that box, which she consigned to his care, not to ope