threshold of the room where the sick man was, he fell stark dead. In nearly the same way the Devil caused the death of Jeanne Platet, whom we held in our prisons not long since. This woman was accused of having sent devils into the body of a girl named Guillauma Blondan; Guillauma’s parents importuned the witch to cure the girl, and she at last consented, and told the girl that she must keep a nine days’ fast, during which she must every day go to stool; and that she, on her own part, would observe the same novena, which was to be begun on a Friday. The girl obeyed and kept her novena; but it happened that on the night of the last day the witch died in prison; but nevertheless the girl was shortly afterwards healed, having voided by the back passage several little animals in the form of lizards, as the witch had told her. Also she vomited through her mouth a deal of green matter in which was found a piece of coal as big as a nut; and then there were found two little holes going right through the floor of the room. The witch confessed when she died.
Yet I maintain that such matters are entirely concerned with the pact formed between the witch and Satan. For I know for a fact that a witch who wishes to heal a person sometimes casts the spell upon a beast, as was done in the case of a man named Mathieu Andrey of the village of Pierrecourt. For when he could find no cure for the sickness which was consuming him, he at last consulted a passer-by, who asked him if he was willing that his sickness should be cast upon a cock which he had in his house. The patient agreed, whereupon the stranger had the cock buried in Mathieu’s garden, and he was
