sued strict injunctions to all
curates and clergy whatever, to use redoubled efforts to root out the
crime of witchcraft. The Parliament of Tours was equally peremptory,
and feared the judgments of an offended God, if all these dealers with
the devil were not swept from the face of the land. The Parliament of
Rheims was particularly severe against the noueurs d'aiguillette, or
"tyers of the knot;" people of both sexes, who took pleasure in
preventing the consummation of marriage, that they might counteract the
command of God to our first parents, to increase and multiply. This
Parliament held it to be sinful to wear amulets to preserve from
witchcraft; and that this practice might not be continued within its
jurisdiction, drew up a form of exorcism, which would more effectually
defeat the agents of the devil, and put them to flight.

A case of witchcraft, which created a great sensation in its day,
occurred in 1588, at a village in the mountains of Auvergne, about two
leagues from Apchon. A gentleman of that place being at his window,
there passed a friend of his who had been out hunting, and who was then
returning to his own house. The gentleman asked his friend what sport
he had had; upon which the latter informed him that he had been
attacked in the plain by a large and savage wolf, which he had shot at,
without wounding; and that he had then drawn out his hunting-knife and
cut off the animal's fore-paw, as it sprang upon his neck to devour
him. The huntsman, upon this, put his hand into his bag to pull out the
paw, but was shocked to find that it was a woman's hand, with a
wedding-ring on the finger. The gentleman immediately recognized his
wife's ring, "which," says the indictment against her, "made him begin
to suspect some evil of her." He immediately went in search of her, and
found her sitting by the fire in the kitchen, with her arm hidden
underneath her apron. He tore off her apron with great vehemence, and
found that she had no hand, and that the stump was even then bleeding.
She was given into custody, and burned at Riom in presence of some
thousands of spectators. [Tablier. See also Boguet, "Discours sur les
Sorciers;" and M. Jules Garinet, "Histoire de la Magie," page 150.]

In the midst of these executions, rare were the gleams of mercy; few
instances are upon record of any acquittal taking place when the charge
was witchcraft. The discharge of fourteen persons by the Parliament of
Paris, in the year 15