they danced three or four times round the fire and then vanished; and from that time the girl began to recover her health.
For the rest:—Late on the fourth of June Françoise Secretain had come to the house of Loyse Maillat’s parents and had asked for lodging for that night. In the absence of her husband, Humberte had at first refused, but had in the end been forced by Françoise’s insistence to give her lodging. When she had been received into the house, and Humberte had gone out to attend to her cattle, Françoise went up to Loyse and two of her younger sisters as they were warming themselves by the fire, gave Loyse a crust of bread resembling dung and made her eat it, strictly forbidding her to speak of it, or she would kill her and eat her (those were her words); and on the next day the girl was found to be possessed. Her mother bore witness to her refusal to give Françoise lodging, her father and mother together gave evidence of their daughter’s malady, and this was confirmed by the girl, who gave evidence as to all the rest; and although she was so young she was so unshakable in her testimony that she compelled belief just as if she had been thirty or forty years old.
The Judge, being fully convinced as to what had happened, had Françoise Secretain seized and put into prison.
