liquid it was supposed they could blight a standing field, and also destroy flowers and fruit. A few drops let fall upon person’s garments was believed to insure death, and a smear upon the shed or sty effectually diseased cattle. From these crude superstitions the fantastic stories of dancing toads, toads dressed en cavalier, and demon toads at the Sabbat were easily evolved.
There is ample and continuous evidence that children, usually tender babes who were as yet unbaptized, were sacrificed at the Sabbat. These were often the witches’ own offspring, and since a witch not unseldom was the midwife or wise-woman of a village she had exceptional opportunities of stifling a child at birth as a non-Sabbatial victim to Satan. “There are no persons who can do more cunning harm to the Catholic faith than midwives,” says the Malleus Maleficarum, Pars I, q. xi: “Nemo fidei catholicæ amplius nocet quam obstetrices.” The classic examples of child-sacrifice are those of Gilles de Rais (1440) and the abbé Guibourg (1680). In the process against the former one hundred and forty children are explicitly named: some authorities accept as many as eight hundred victims. Their blood, brains, and bones were used to decoct magic philtres. In the days of Guibourg the sacrifice of a babe at the impious mass was so common that “Il avait acheté un écu l’enfant qui fut sacrifié à cette messe.” (“The child sacrificed at this mass he had bought for a crown.”) These abominable ceremonies were frequently performed at the instance of Madame de Montespan in order that Louis XIV should always remain faithful to her, should reject all other mistresses, repudiate his queen, and in fine raise her to the throne.158 The most general use was to cut the throat of the child, whose blood was drained into the chalice and allowed to fall upon the naked flesh of the inquirer, who lay stretched along the altar. La Voisin asserted that a toll of fifteen hundred infants had been thus murdered. This is not impossible, as a vast number of persons, including a crowd of ecclesiastics, were implicated. Many of the greatest names in France had assisted at these orgies of blasphemy. From first to last no less than two hundred and forty-six men and women of all ranks and grades of society were brought to trial, and whilst thirty-six
