er this question, even
neglects it, and the Church, you know, is completely silent, for the
Church does not like to treat this subject and views askance the priest
who does occupy himself with it."

"I beg your pardon," said Carhaix, always ready to defend the Church.
"The Church has never hesitated to declare itself on this detestable
subject. The existence of succubi and incubi is certified by Saint
Augustine, Saint Thomas, Saint Bonaventure, Denys le Chartreux, Pope
Innocent VIII, and how many others! The question is resolutely settled
for every Catholic. It also figures in the lives of some of the saints,
if I am not mistaken. Yes, in the legend of Saint Hippolyte, Jacques de
Voragine tells how a priest, tempted by a naked succubus, cast his stole
at its head and it suddenly became the corpse of some dead woman whom
the Devil had animated to seduce him."

"Yes," said Gevingey, whose eyes twinkled. "The Church recognizes
succubacy, I grant. But let me speak, and you will see that my
observations are not uncalled for.

"You know very well, messieurs," addressing Des Hermies and Durtal,
"what the books teach, but within a hundred years everything has
changed, and if the facts I am are unknown to the many members of the
clergy, and you will not find them cited in any book whatever.

"At present it is less frequently demons than bodies raised from the
dead which fill the indispensable role of incubus and succubus. In other
words, formerly the living being subject to succubacy was known to be
possessed. Now that vampirism, by the evocation of the dead, is joined
to demonism, the victim is worse than possessed. The Church did not know
what to do. Either it must keep silent or reveal the possibility of the
evocation of the dead, already forbidden by Moses, and this admission
was dangerous, for it popularized the knowledge of acts that are easier
to produce now than formerly, since without knowing it Spiritism has
traced the way.

"So the Church has kept silent. And Rome is not unaware of the frightful
advance incubacy has made in the cloisters in our days."

"That proves that continence is hard to bear in solitude," said Des
Hermies.

"It merely proves that the soul is feeble and that people have forgotten
how to pray," said Carhaix.

"However that may be, messieurs, to instruct you completely in this
matter, I must divide the creatures smitten with incubacy or succubacy
into two classes. The first is composed of