“Absolutely.”

“But come now, you have proofs?”

Gevingey was silent, then, “The subject is so grave and I have gone so far that I had better go the rest of the way.  I am not mad nor the victim of hallucination.  Well, messieurs, I slept one time in the room of the most redoubtable master Satanism now can claim.”

“Canon Docre,” Des Hermies interposed.

“Yes, and my sleep was fitful.  It was broad daylight.  I swear to you that the succubus came, irritant and palpable and most tenacious.  Happily, I remembered the formula of deliverance, which kept me—­

“So I ran that very day to Doctor Johannes, of whom I have spoken.  He immediately and forever, I hope, liberated me from the spell.”

“If I did not fear to be indiscreet, I would ask you what kind of thing this succubus was, whose attack you repulsed.”

“Why, it was like any naked woman,” said the astrologer hesitantly.

“Curious, now, if it had demanded its little gifts, its little gloves—­” said Durtal, biting his lips.

“And do you know what has become of the terrible Docre?” Des Hermies inquired.

“No, thank God.  They say he is in the south, somewhere around Nimes, where he formerly resided.”

“But what does this abbe do?” inquired Durtal.

“What does he do?  He evokes the Devil, and he feeds white mice on the hosts which he consecrates.  His frenzy for sacrilege is such that he had the image of Christ tattooed on his heels so that he could always step on the Saviour!”

“Well,” murmured Carhaix, whose militant moustache bristled while his great eyes flamed, “if that abominable priest were here, I swear to you that I would respect his feet, but that I would throw him downstairs head first.”

“And the black mass?” inquired Des Hermies.

“He celebrates it with foul men and women.  He is openly accused of having influenced people to make wills in his favor and of causing inexplicable death.  Unfortunately, there are no laws to repress sacrilege, and how can you prosecute a man who sends maladies from a distance and kills slowly in such a way that at the autopsy no traces of poison appear?”

“The modern Gilles de Rais!” exclaimed Durtal.

“Yes, less savage, less frank, more hypocritically cruel.  He does not cut throats.  He probably limits himself to ‘sendings’ or to causing suicide by suggestion,” said Des Hermies, “for he is, I believe, a master hypnotist.”

“Could he insinuate into a victim the idea to drink, regularly, in graduated doses, a toxin which he would designate, and which would simulate the phases of a malady?” asked Durtal.

“Nothing simpler.  ‘Open window burglars’ that the physicians of the present day are, they recognize perfectly the ability of a more skilful man to pull off such jobs.  The experiments of Beaunis, Liegois, Liebaut, and Bernheim are conclusive:  you can even get a person assassinated by another to whom you suggest, without his knowledge, the will to the crime.”