“Yes, and the documents are irrefutable.  I’ll put you into a position to prove them whenever you wish.

“At the end of the fifteenth century, that is to say at the time of Gilles de Rais—­to go no further back—­Satanism had assumed the proportions that you know.  In the sixteenth it was worse yet.  No need to remind you, I think, of the demoniac pactions of Catherine de Medici and of the Valois, of the trial of the monk Jean de Vaulx, of the investigations of the Sprengers and the Lancres and those learned inquisitors who had thousands of necromancers and sorcerers roasted alive.  All that is known, too well known.  One case is not too well known for me to cite here:  that of the priest Benedictus who cohabited with the she-devil Armellina and consecrated the hosts holding them upside down.  Here are the diabolical threads which bind that century to this.  In the seventeenth century, in which the sorcery trials continue, and in which the ‘possessed’ of Loudun appear, the black religion nourishes, but already it has been driven under cover.

“I will cite you an example, one among many, if you like.

“A certain abbe Guibourg made a specialty of these abominations.  On a table serving as tabernacle a woman lay down, naked or with her skirts lifted up over her head, and with her arms outstretched.  She held the altar lights during the whole office.

“Guibourg thus celebrated masses on the abdomen of Mme. de Montespan, of Mme. d’Argenson, of Mme. de Saint-Pont.  As a matter of fact these masses were very frequent under the Grand Monarch.  Numbers of women went to them as in our times women flock to have their fortunes told with cards.

“The ritual of these ceremonies was sufficiently atrocious.  Generally a child was kidnapped and burnt in a furnace out in the country somewhere, the ashes were saved and mixed with the blood of another child whose throat had been cut, and of this mixture a paste was made resembling that of the Manicheans of which I was speaking.  Abbe Guibourg officiated, consecrated the host, cut it into little pieces and mixed it with this mixture of blood and ashes.  That was the material of the Sacrament.”

“What a horrible priest!” cried Mme. Carhaix, indignant.

“Yes, he celebrated another kind of mass, too, that abbe did.  It was called—­hang it—­it’s unpleasant to say—­”

“Say it, Monsieur des Hermies.  When people have as great a hatred for that sort of thing as we here, they need not blink any fact.  It isn’t that kind of thing which is going to take me away from my prayers.”

“Nor me,” added her husband.

“Well, this sacrifice was called the Spermatic Mass.”

“Oh!”

“Guibourg, wearing the alb, the stole, and the maniple, celebrated this mass with the sole object of making pastes to conjure with.  The archives of the Bastille inform us that he acted thus at the request of a lady named Des Oeillettes: