POPULAR BELIEFS. 



bulls, of pigs bearing royal crowns, of bloody stars, of multiform rainbows, 

 accompanied by several moons and suns, they do not refer to the strange 

 noise which was heard in the air, about the precincts of the Louvre, during 

 the seven nights which followed the massacre of St. Bartholomew, a concert 

 of cries, groans, and screams, mingled with furious imprecations and blas- 

 phemies, as if the horror of the massacre was being renewed in the invisible 



Fig. 190. The Fay Helusine, Iiom whoso Flanks springs the Genealogical Tree of the House of 

 Lusignan. After a Wood Engraving of the "Romance of Melusine," Augsburg, 1480, in 

 quarto. In the Library of SI. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris. 



world. It may be added that these visions were in many instances facts 

 witnessed by thousands of people, such as the showers of blood, of stones, 

 of wheat, and of frogs, ordinary and simple phenomena which were not at 

 the time understood, and the natural origin of which, not having been 

 ascertained by the learned, did not, of course, occur to the public. 



