d to me, a little while ago, that, traveling
in Moravia, he was invited by M. Jeanin, a canon of the cathedral at
Olmutz, to accompany him to their village, called Liebava, where he
had been appointed commissioner by the consistory of the bishopric, to
take information concerning the fact of a certain famous vampire,
which had caused much confusion in this village of Liebava some years
before.

The case proceeded. They heard the witnesses, they observed the usual
forms of the law. The witnesses deposed that a certain notable
inhabitant of Liebava had often disturbed the living in their beds at
night, that he had come out of the cemetery, and had appeared in
several houses three or four years ago; that his troublesome visits
had ceased because a Hungarian stranger, passing through the village
at the time of these reports, had boasted that he could put an end to
them, and make the vampire disappear. To perform his promise, he
mounted on the church steeple, and observed the moment when the
vampire came out of his grave, leaving near it the linen clothes in
which he had been enveloped, and then went to disturb the inhabitants
of the village.

The Hungarian, having seen him come out of his grave, went down
quickly from the steeple, took up the linen envelops of the vampire,
and carried them with him up the tower. The vampire having returned
from his prowlings, cried loudly against the Hungarian, who made him a
sign from the top of the tower that if he wished to have his clothes
again he must fetch them; the vampire began to ascend the steeple, but
the Hungarian threw him down backwards from the ladder, and cut his
head off with a spade. Such was the end of this tragedy.

The person who related this story to me saw nothing, neither did the
noble who had been sent as commissioner; they only heard the report of
the peasants of the place, people extremely ignorant, superstitious
and credulous, and most exceedingly prejudiced on the subject of
vampirism.

But supposing that there be any reality in the fact of these
apparitions of vampires, shall they be attributed to God, to angels,
to the spirits of these ghosts, or to the devil? In this last case,
will it be said that the devil will subtilize these bodies, and give
them power to penetrate through the ground without disturbing, to
glide through the cracks and joints of a door, to pass through a
keyhole, to lengthen or shorten themselves, to reduce themselves to
the nature