enied all
they had previously confessed; but this circumstance only increased the
outcry, and was numbered as an additional crime against them. They were
considered in a worse light than before, and condemned forthwith to the
flames, as relapsed heretics. Fifty-nine of these unfortunate victims
were all burned together by a slow fire in a field in the suburbs of
Paris, protesting to the very last moment of their lives, their
innocence of the crimes imputed to them, and refusing to accept of
pardon upon condition of acknowledging themselves guilty. Similar
scenes were enacted in the provinces; and for four years, hardly a
month passed without witnessing the execution of one or more of these
unhappy men. Finally, in 1313, the last scene of this tragedy closed by
the burning of the Grand-Master, Jacques de Molay, and his companion,
Guy, the Commander of Normandy. Anything more atrocious it is
impossible to conceive; disgraceful alike to the monarch who
originated, the pope who supported, and the age which tolerated the
monstrous iniquity. That the malice of a few could invent such a
charge, is a humiliating thought for the lover of his species; but that
millions of mankind should credit it, is still more so.

The execution of Joan of Arc is the next most notorious example which
history affords us, of the imputation of witchcraft against a political
enemy. Instances of similar persecution, in which this crime was made
the pretext for the gratification of political or religious hatred,
might be multiplied to a great extent. But it is better to proceed at
once to the consideration of the bull of Pope Innocent, the torch that
set fire to the longlaid train, and caused so fearful an explosion over
the Christian world. It will be necessary, however, to go back for some
years anterior to that event, the better to understand the motives that
influenced the Church in the promulgation of that fearful document.

Towards the close of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth
century, many witches were burned in different parts of Europe. As a
natural consequence of the severe persecution, the crime, or the
pretenders to it, increased. Those who found themselves accused and
threatened with the penalties, if they happened to be persons of a bad
and malicious disposition, wished they had the power imputed to them,
that they might be revenged upon their persecutors. Numerous instances
are upon record of half-crazed persons being foun