Several who had been thus informed against were thrown into prison, and so
horribly tortured, that reason fled, and in their ravings of pain they
also confessed their midnight meetings with the devil, and the oaths they
had taken to serve him. Upon these confessions judgment was pronounced.
The poor old women, as usual in such cases, were hanged and burned in the
market-place; the more wealthy delinquents were allowed to escape upon
payment of large sums. It was soon after universally recognised that these
trials had been conducted in the most odious manner, and that the judges
had motives of private vengeance against many of the more influential
persons who had been implicated. The parliament of Paris afterwards
declared the sentence illegal, and the judges iniquitous; but its _arret_
was too late to be of service even to those who had paid the fine, or to
punish the authorities who had misconducted themselves, for it was not
delivered until thirty-two years after the executions had taken place.

In the mean time, accusations of witchcraft spread rapidly in France,
Italy, and Germany. Strange to say, that although in the first instance
chiefly directed against heretics, the latter were as firm believers in
the crime as even the Catholics themselves. In after times we also find
that the Lutherans and Calvinists became greater witch-burners than ever
the Romanists had been, so deeply was the prejudice rooted. Every other
point of belief was in dispute, but that was considered by every sect to
be as well established as the authenticity of the Scriptures or the
existence of a God.

But at this early period of the epidemic the persecutions were directed by
the heads of the Catholic Church. The spread of heresy betokened, it was
thought, the coming of Antichrist. Florimond, in his work concerning
Antichrist, exposed the secret of these prosecutions. He says: "All who
have afforded us some signs of the approach of Antichrist agree that the
increase of sorcery and witchcraft is to distinguish the melancholy period
of his advent; and was ever age so afflicted as ours? The seats destined
for criminals in our courts of justice are blackened with persons accused
of this guilt. There are not judges enough to try them. Our dungeons are
gorged with them. No day passes that we do not render our tribunals bloody
by the dooms which we pronounce, or in which we do not return to our homes
discountenanced and terrified at the horrible con