This notion of a personal and private treaty with the Evil One has
something of dignity about it that has made it perennially attractive to
the most imaginative minds. It rather flatters than mocks our feeling of
the dignity of man. As we come down to the vulgar parody of it in the
confessions of wretched old women on the rack, our pity and indignation
are mingled with disgust. One of the most particular of these confessions
is that of Abel de la Rue, convicted in 1584. The accused was a novice in
the Franciscan Convent at Meaux. Having been punished by the master of
the novices for stealing some apples and nuts in the convent garden, the
Devil appeared to him in the shape of a black dog, promising him his
protection, and advising him to leave the convent. Not long after going
into the sacristy, he saw a large volume fastened by a chain, and further
secured by bars of iron. The name of this book was _Grimoire_. Thrusting
his hands through the bars, he contrived to open it, and having read a
sentence (which Bodin carefully suppresses), there suddenly appeared to
him a man of middle stature, with a pale and very frightful countenance,
clad in a long black robe of the Italian fashion, and with faces of men
like his own on his breast and knees.
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