their several fortunes, they expended their utmost resources in buying up each impression of the Discours des Sorciers as it came from the Press. They then promptly consigned the copies to the flames. Owing to this deplorable mania, which they keenly pursued long after the death of the author, but a few exemplars remained in circulation, and the Discours is now actually one of the scarcest of the witchcraft manuals.
These insensate folk carried their hate even further, and did not hesitate to spread the most scandalous and opprobrious stories concerning their dead relative. So bitter was their animosity, so malevolent proved their designs, that it is almost to be suspected that they were themselves of that horrid craft and company which he had prosecuted with such lively energy. They actually rumoured that Henry Boguet had been a sorcerer, but secretly, and thus they explained his knowledge of the dark mysteries of that demoniacal society.
