n!--_was das war fuer ein Spiel!_"
As feathers thrown into the air shew how the wind blows, so this trumpery
ballad serves to shew the current of popular feeling at the time of its
composition.

All readers of history are familiar with the celebrated trial of the
Marechale d'Ancre, who was executed in Paris in the year 1617. Although
witchcraft was one of the accusations brought against her, the real crime
for which she suffered was her ascendency over the mind of Mary of
Medicis, and the consequent influence she exercised indirectly over the
unworthy king, Louis XIII. Her coachman gave evidence that she had
sacrificed a cock at midnight in one of the churches, and others swore
they had seen her go secretly into the house of a noted witch named
Isabella. When asked by what means she had acquired so extraordinary an
influence over the mind of the Queen Mother, she replied boldly that she
exercised no other power over her than that which a strong mind can always
exercise over the weak. She died with great firmness.

In two years afterwards, scenes far more horrible than any that had yet
taken place in France were enacted at Labourt, at the foot of the
Pyrenees. The parliament of Bourdeaux, scandalised at the number of
witches who were said to infest Labourt and its neighbourhood, deputed one
of its own members, the noted Pierre de l'Ancre, and its president,
Espaignel, to inquire into the matter, with full powers to punish the
offenders. They arrived at Labourt in May, 1619. De l'Ancre wrote a book
setting forth all his great deeds in this battle against the powers of
evil. It is full of obscenity and absurdity, but the facts may be relied
on as far as they relate to the number of trials and executions, and the
strange confessions which torture forced from the unhappy criminals.

De l'Ancre states as a reason why so many witches were to be found at
Labourt, that the country was mountainous and sterile! He discovered many
of them from their partiality to smoking tobacco. It may be inferred from
this that he was of the opinion of King James, that tobacco was the
"devil's weed." When the commission first sat, the number of persons
brought to trial was about forty a day. The acquittals did not average so
many as five per cent. All the witches confessed that they had been
present at the great Domdaniel, or Sabbath. At these saturnalia the devil
sat upon a large gilded throne, sometimes in the form of a goat; sometimes
as a g