Note 105 — GEORGE LYMAN KITTREDGE

Jean d’Espaignet and Pierre de Lancre, the special commissioners, are said to have condemned more than 600 in four months (Soldan, ed. Heppe, II, 162; cf. Baissac, Les Grands Jours de la Sorcellerie, 1890, p. 401). I have no certain evidence of the accuracy of these figures, for I have seen only one of de Lancre’s two books, and I find in it no distinct statement of the number of witches convicted. He makes various remarks, however, which seem to show that 600 is no exaggeration. Thus he says that the Parliament of Bordeaux, under whose authority he acted, condemned “an infinity” of sorcerers to death in 1609 (Tableau de l’Inconstance des Mauvais Anges et Demons, Paris, 1613, p. 100). “On fait estat qu’il y a trente mille ames en ce pays de Labourt, contant ceux qui sont en voyage sur mer, & que parmy tout ce peuple, il y a bien peu de familles qui ne touchent au Sortilege par quelque bout” (p. 38). The commission lasted from July to November (pp. 66, 456, 470); besides those that the two commissioners tried during this period, they left behind them so many witches and wizards that the prisons of Bordeaux were crowded and it became necessary to lodge the defendants in the ruined château du Hâ (pp. 144, 560). Cf. pp. 35 ff., 64, 92, 114, 546. The panic fear that witchcraft excites is described by de Lancre in a striking passage:—“Qu’il n’y ayt qu’vne seule sorciere dans vn grand village, dans peu de temps vous voyez tant d’enfans perdus, tant de femmes enceintes perdãs leur fruit, tant de haut mal donné à des pauures creatures, tant d’animaux perdus, tant de fruicts gastes, que le foudre ni autre fleau du ciel ne sont rien en comparaison” (pp. 543-544).