notes to
the text of these historians, says that this custom of melting waxen
images by magic art, to occasion the death of certain persons, was not
unknown to the Romans, as appears from Virgil and Ovid; and of this we
have related a sufficient number of instances. But it must be owned
that all which is related concerning it is very doubtful; not that
wizards and witches have not been found who have attempted to cause
the death of persons of high rank by these means, and who attributed
the effect to the demon, but there is little appearance that they ever
succeeded in it. If magicians possessed the secret of thus occasioning
the death of any one they pleased, where is the prince, prelate, or
lord who would be safe? If they could thus roast them slowly to death,
why not kill them at once, by throwing the waxen image in the fire?
Who can have given such power to the devil? Is it the Almighty, to
satisfy the revenge of an insignificant woman, or the jealousy of
lovers of either sex?

M. de St. Andre, physician to the king, in his Letters on Witchcraft,
would explain the effects of these devotings, supposing them to be
true, by the evaporation of animal spirits, which, proceeding from the
bodies of the wizards or witches, and uniting with the atoms which
fall from the wax, and the atoms of the fire, which render them still
more pungent, should fly towards the person they desire to bewitch,
and cause in him or her sensations of heat or pain, more or less
violent according to the action of the fire. But I do not think that
this clever man finds many to approve of his idea. The shortest way,
in my opinion, would be, to deny the effects of these charms; for if
these effects are real, they are inexplicable by physics, and can only
be attributed to the devil.

We read in the History of the Archbishops of Treves that Eberard,
archbishop of that church, who died in 1067, having threatened to send
away the Jews from his city, if they did not embrace Christianity,
these unhappy people, being reduced to despair, suborned an
ecclesiastic, who for money baptized for them, by the name of the
bishop, a waxen image, to which they tied wicks or wax tapers, and
lighted them on Holy Saturday (Easter Eve), as the prelate was going
solemnly to administer the baptismal rite.

Whilst he was occupied in this holy function, the statue being half
consumed, Eberard felt himself extremely ill; he was led into the
vestry, where he soon after expir