Lausanne, pronounced sentence against the leeches which infected the Lake of Geneva and killed the fish, and that the said leeches retreated to a locality assigned them by the prelate. The same author relates at large the proceedings instituted against some mosquitoes in the 13th century in the Electorate of Mayence, when the judge, before whom they were cited, granted them, on account of the minuteness of their bodies and their extreme youth, a curator, and counsel who pleaded their cause, and obtained for them a piece of land to which they were banished.
On the 17th of August, 1487, snails were sentenced at Mâcon. In 1585, caterpillars suffered excommunication in Valence. In the 16th century, a Spanish bishop, from the summit of a rock, bade all rats and mice leave his diocess, and betake themselves to an island which he surrendered them. The vermin obeyed, swimming in vast numbers across the strait, to their appointed domain.
In 1694, during the witch persecutions at Salem, in New England, under the Quakers Increase and Cotton Mather, a dog was strangely afflicted, and was found guilty of having been ridden by a warlock. The dog was hanged. Another dog was accused of afflicting others, who fell into fits the moment it looked upon them; it was also put to death (T. Wright, Sorcery and Magic, vol. iii.). A Canadian bishop, in the same century, excommunicated the wood pigeons; the same expedient was had recourse to by a grand vicar of Pont-du-Château, in Auvergne, as late as the eighteenth century, against caterpillars.
The absurdity of these trials called forth several treatises during the middle ages. Phillip de Beaumanoir in the thirteenth century, in his “Customs of Beauvoisis,” complained of their folly; and in 1606, Cardinal Duperron forbade any exorcism of animals, or the use of prayers in church for their extermination without licence.
A book published in 1459, “De Fascino,” by a Spanish Benedictine monk, Leonard Vair, holds up the practice to ridicule. Eveillon, in his “Traité des Excommunications,” published in 1651, does the same.
One curious story more, and we shall give a detailed account of one of these trials.
We have taken this from Benoit’s “Histoire de l’Edit de Nantes” (tom. v., p. 754), and give it in the writer’s own words. “The Protestant chapel at La Rochelle was condemned to be demolished in 1685. The bell had a fate sufficiently droll: it was whipped, as a punishment for having assisted heretics; it was then buried, and disinterred, in order to represent its new birth, in passing into the hands of Catholics. . . . It was catechised, and had to reply; it was compelled to recant, and promise never again to relapse into sin; it then made ample and honourable recompense. Lastly, it was reconciled, baptised, and given to the parish which bears the name of Saint Bartholomew. But the point of the story is, that when the governor, who had sold it to the parish, asked for payment, the answer made him was, that it had been Huguenot, that it had been newly converted, and that, consequently, it had a right to demand a delay of three years before paying its debts, according to the law, passed by the king for the benefit of those recently converted!”
We propose now giving the particulars of a remarkable action brought against some ants, towards the commencement of the eighteenth century, for violation of the rights of property. It is related by P. Manoel Bernardes in his “Nova Floresta” (Lisboa, 1728), and is quoted by M. Emile Agnel among his “Curiosités Judicaires et Historiques;” to whom and to the paper of M. Menabréa, entitled “Procés fait aux Animaux,” in the twelfth volume of the Transactions of the Chambéry Society, we are indebted for much of our information.
“Action brought by the Friars Minor of the province of Pridade no Maranhao in Brazil, against the ants of the said territory.”
“It happened, according to the account of a monk of the said order in that province, that the ants, which thereabouts are both numerous, large, and destructive, had, in order to enlarge the limits of their subterranean empire, undermined the cellars of the Brethren, burrowing beneath the foundations, and thus weakening the walls which daily threatened ruin. Over and above the said offence was another, they had burglariously entered the stores, and carried off the flour which was kept for the service of the community. Since the hostile multitudes were united and indefatigable night and day,
Parvula, nam exemplo est, magni formica laboris
Ore trahit quodcumque potest, atque addit acervo
Quem struit . . . (Horace, Sat. i.),
the monks were brought into peril of famine, and were driven to seek a remedy for this intolerable nuisance: and, since all the means to which they resorted were unavailing, the unanimity of the multitude being quite insurmountable, as a last resource, one of the friars, moved by a superior instinct (we can easily believe that), gave his advice that, returning to the spirit of humility and simplicity which had qualified their seraphic founder, who termed all creatures his brethren—brother Sun, brother Wolf, sister Swallow, &c.—they should bring an action against their sisters the Ants before the divine tribunal of Providence, and should name counsel for defendants and plaintiffs; also that the bishop should, in the name of supreme Justice, hear the case and give judgment.
The plan was approved of; and after all arrangements had been made, an indictment was presented by the counsel for the plaintiffs, and as it was contested by the counsel for the defendants, he produced his reasons, requiring protection for his clients. These latter lived on the alms which they received from the faithful, collecting offerings with much labour and personal inconvenience; whilst the ants, creatures whose morals and manner of life were clearly contrary to the Gospel precepts, and were regarded with horror, on that account, by S. Francis, the founder of the confraternity, lived by fraud; and not content with acts of larceny, proceeded to open violence and endeavours to ruin the house. Consequently they were bound to show reason, or in default, he concluded that they should all be put to death by