de Tournefort relates the manner in which they exhumed
a pretended vroucolaca, in the Isle of Micon, where he was on the 1st
of January, 1701. These are his own words: "We saw a very different
scene, (in the same Isle of Micon,) on the occasion of one of those
dead people, whom they believe to return to earth after their
interment. This one, whose history we shall relate, was a peasant of
Micon, naturally sullen and quarrelsome; which is a circumstance to be
remarked relatively to such subjects; he was killed in the country, no
one knows when, or by whom. Two days after he had been inhumed in a
chapel in the town, it was rumored that he was seen by night walking
very fast; that he came into the house, overturning the furniture,
extinguishing the lamps, throwing his arms around persons from behind,
and playing a thousand sly tricks.

"At first people only laughed at it; but the affair began to be
serious, when the most respectable people in the place began to
complain: the priests even owned the fact, and doubtless they had
their reasons. People did not fail to have masses said; nevertheless
the peasant continued to lead the same life without correcting
himself. After several assemblies of the principal men of the city,
with priests and monks, it was concluded that they must, according to
some ancient ceremonial, await the expiration of nine days after
burial.

"On the tenth day a mass was said in the chapel where the corpse lay,
in order to expel the demon which they believed to have inclosed
himself therein. This body was taken up after mass, and they began to
set about tearing out his heart; the butcher of the town, who was old,
and very awkward, began by opening the belly instead of the breast; he
felt for a long time in the entrails without finding what he sought.
At last some one told him that he must pierce the diaphragm; then the
heart was torn out, to the admiration of all present. The corpse,
however, gave out such a bad smell, that they were obliged to burn
incense; but the vapor, mixed with the exhalations of the carrion,
only augmented the stink, and began to heat the brain of these poor
people.

"Their imagination, struck with the spectacle, was full of visions;
some one thought proper to say that a thick smoke came from this body.
We dared not say that it was the vapor of the incense. They only
exclaimed "Vroucolacas," in the chapel, and in the square before it.
(This is the name which they give to th