mixes with it some ingredient which causes deep sleep,Dioscor. V. 115. such as mandragora or the Memphite stone and such things, as it happened to the old women of whom Giovanni Battista Porta speaks,c. 26.
De subtil. lib. 18. who after being rubbed with a certain ointment fell to the earth as dead. Cardan adds that the ointment made from little children first sends these old hags to sleep, and afterwards makes them dream marvellous dreams.
This fat also helped François Gaillard of Longchamois to escape from prison, when we had him in custody in the year 1600 for the murder of a German stranger. Clauda Coirieres was a prisoner for witchcraft at the same time, and had a grease with which she rubbed François Gaillard’s hands; whereupon the latter at once went out by a window and jumped on to a rod stretched along the windows, on which it was impossible to set foot except by the help of the devilish arts; from there he climbed on to the roof and, after having climbed down, fled to the château of Esprel, two leagues from Saint Claude, where he was retaken. But he has since confessed that as he was fleeing he went at a quite incredible speed, and that on escaping from the prison he seemed to be without any feeling; and he added that he had never felt the least tired until, to be rid of the grease with which his hands were anointed, he washed them in the snow which was plentiful at that time.
I am well aware that many will find this matter strange for several reasons, but chiefly because it is thought that Satan has no power over those who are cast into prison. But let them read what I have set down in Chapter 46, and then they will easily be persuaded of the contrary.
