ins and
friends of the Marshal, scurried about the country, beating up the game
and driving it in to Gilles de Rais, while a priest of his chapel,
Eustache Blanchet, went to Italy where workers in metals were legion.

While waiting, Gilles de Rais, not to be discouraged, continued his
experiments, all of which missed fire. He finally came to believe that
the magicians were right after all, and that no discovery was possible
without the aid of Satan.

And one night, with a sorcerer newly arrived from Poitiers, Jean de la
Riviere, he betakes himself to a forest in the vicinity of the chateau
de Tiffauges. With his servitors Henriet and Poitou, he remains on the
verge of the wood into which the sorcerer penetrates. The night is heavy
and there is no moon. Gilles becomes nervous, scrutinizing the shadows,
listening to the muted sounds of the nocturnal landscape; his
companions, terrified, huddle close together, trembling and whispering
at the slightest stirring of the air. Suddenly a cry of anguish is
raised. They hesitate, then they advance, groping in the darkness. In a
sudden flare of light they perceive de la Riviere trembling and deathly
pale, clutching the handle of his lantern convulsively. In a low voice
he recounts how the Devil has risen in the form of a leopard and rushed
past without looking at the evocator, without saying a word.

The next day the sorcerer vanished, but another arrived. This was a
bungler named Du Mesnil. He required Gilles to sign with blood a deed
binding him to give the Devil all the Devil asked of him "except his
life and soul," but, although to aid the conjurements Gilles consented
to have the Office of the Damned sung in his chapel on All Saints' Day,
Satan did not appear.

The Marshal was beginning to doubt the powers of his magicians, when
the outcome of a new endeavor convinced him that frequently the Devil
does appear.

An evocator whose name has been lost held a seance with Gilles and de
Sille in a chamber at Tiffauges.

On the ground he traces a great circle and commands his two companions
to step inside it. Sille refuses. Gripped by a terror which he cannot
explain, he begins to tremble all over. He goes to the window, opens it,
and stands ready for flight, murmuring exorcisms under his breath.
Gilles, bolder, stands in the middle of the circle, but at the first
conjurgations he too trembles and tries to make the sign of the cross.
The sorcerer orders him not to budge. At on