for quotation. {273}

A MODERN TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT

Thorel v. Tinel. Action for libel in 1851. Mr. Dale Owen's
incomplete version of this affair. The suit really a trial for
witchcraft. Spectral obsession. Movements of objects. Rappings.
Incidental folklore. Old G. Thorel and the cure. The wizard's
revenge. The haunted parlour boarder. Examples of magical tripping
up, and provoked hallucinations. Case of Dr. Gibotteau and Berthe
the hospital nurse. Similar case in the Salem affair, 1692.
Evidence of witnesses to abnormal phenomena. Mr. Robert de Saint
Victor. M. de Mirville. Thorel non-suited. Other modern French
examples of witchcraft.

Perhaps the last trial for witchcraft was the case of Thorel v.
Tinel, heard before the juge de paix of Yerville, on January 28, and
February 3 and 4, 1851. The trial was, in form, the converse of
those with which old jurisprudence was familiar. Tinel, the Cure of
Cideville, did not accuse the shepherd Thorel of sorcery, but Thorel
accused Tinel of defaming his character by the charge of being a
warlock. Just as when a man prosecutes another for saying that he
cheated at cards, or when a woman prosecutes another for saying that
the plaintiff stole diamonds, it is really the guilt or innocence of
the plaintiff that is in question, so the issue before the court at
Yerville was: 'Is Thorel a warlock or not?' The court decided that
he himself had been the chief agent in spreading the slander against
himself, he was non-suited, and had to pay costs, but as to the real
cause of the events which were attributed to the magic of Thorel,
the court was unable to pronounce an opinion.

This curious case has often been cited, as by Mr. Robert Dale Owen,
in his Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World, {275} but Mr.
Owen, by accident or design, omitted almost all the essential
particulars, everything which connects the affair with such
transactions as the witch epidemic at Salem, and the trials for
sorcery before and during the Restoration. Yet, in the events at
Cideville, and the depositions of witnesses, we have all the
characteristics of witchcraft. First we have men by habit and
repute sorcerers. Then we have cause of offence given to these.
Then we have their threats, malum minatum, then we have evil
following the threats, damnum secutum. Just as of old, that damnum,
that damage, declares itself in the 'possession' of young people,
who become, more o