RECENT RECRUDESCENCE OF SUPERSTITION. 77 



attended by their acolytes, and went tlirougli witli the benedic- 

 tions, adjurations, and aspersions prescribed by the ritual. No 

 sooner did the girl perceive them than she cried out, " There 

 come the parsons with their hocus-pocus!" and as they recited 

 the litany, instead of responding with ora pro nobis, she used the 

 word said to have been uttered by Cambroche at the battle of 

 Waterloo when the Old Guard was summoned to surrender, re- 

 peating it three times in an angry tone. This conduct only con- 

 firmed the exorcists in their theory of diabolism. Indeed, one 

 young priest recognized the different devils by their accent in 

 speaking, and made a long list of their names: Satan, Lucifer, 

 Beelzebub, Mammon, etc. Thus encouraged, the conjurers con- 

 tinued their efforts with unabated zeal, and finally succeeded, ac- 

 cording to their own statement, in casting out all the large 

 demons, and had only twenty-eight lesser demons to expel, when 

 the bishop of Versailles, in view of the scandal which the discus- 

 sion of the affair by the press threatened to bring on the Church, 

 recalled the director of the seminary, and put an end to the cere- 

 mony which he had himself authorized. What became of the 

 residue of devilkins that remained in possession of the maiden 

 we are not informed. 



About the same time, in the spring of 1893, in the French 

 hamlet of Cras-Culot, the parents of a small boy who had fallen 

 ill and was assumed to have been bewitched, enticed into their 

 house a woman suspected of having caused the trouble and com- 

 manded her to exorcise the victim of her sorceries. On her pro- 

 testing that she knew nothing of such arts, the parents of the 

 child and their assembled friends began to beat the supposed 

 witch and to stick hairpins into her neck and shoulders, and one 

 of the fanatical crowd expressed his regret that it was no longer 

 possible to burn her publicly at the stake. Perhaps a private 

 auto da fe would have been held had she not succeeded finally in 

 escaping and claiming the protection of the police court, which 

 sentenced her principal persecutors each to fourteen days im- 

 prisonment and a fine of twenty-six francs. 



In June, 1891, a Viennese waitress named Fanny Strobl brought 

 a suit for slander against Maria Wirzar, a servant girl, who had 

 sent the plaintiff several postal cards, addressing her as "canni- 

 bal, witch, night hag," and accusing her of coming down the 

 chimney in the dark and sucking all the blood out of her (Maria 

 Wirzar's) veins until she was reduced to skin and bone. The 

 curiosity of the judge was excited, and he requested the defendant 

 to state more clearly what she meant. " Well," she replied, " such 

 a night hag comes over a person when asleep like a current of air, 

 benumbing and stupefying him. If the sleeper is able to rouse 

 himself and cry out ' Jesus ! Mary ! Joseph ! ' then the witch de- 



