. New France and New England. province with re-gard to them ; it being moreover a question in which areconcerned the glory of God and the relief of your sufferingsubjects, who groan under their fears from the threats andmenaces of this sort of persons. . We humbly supplicateyour Majesty to* reflect once more upon the extraordinaryresults which proceed from the malevolence of these ^^g jj.^.people ; on the loss of goods and chattels, and the ™^ °f , r i- ^ o Normandy deaths from unknown diseases, which are often proteststhe consequence of their menaces ; ... all of which mayeasily be proved to
. New France and New England. province with re-gard to them ; it being moreover a question in which areconcerned the glory of God and the relief of your sufferingsubjects, who groan under their fears from the threats andmenaces of this sort of persons. . We humbly supplicateyour Majesty to* reflect once more upon the extraordinaryresults which proceed from the malevolence of these ^^g jj.^.people ; on the loss of goods and chattels, and the ™^ °f , r i- ^ o Normandy deaths from unknown diseases, which are often proteststhe consequence of their menaces ; ... all of which mayeasily be proved to your Majestys satisfaction by the recordsof various trials before your parliaments. It is pleasant tobe able to add that Louis XIV. was too well ^•ersed in theprofessional etiquette of royalty to withdraw a pardon whichhe had once granted, and so the poor women were saved I 22 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND from the flames. What we have especially to note is thatthe highest court of Normandy, representing the best legal. LOUIS XIV knowledge of that province, in defining witchcraft as the in-fliction of disease or the destruction of property by unknownand mysterious means, describes it as the greatest of allcrimes, and has no more doubt of its reality than of burglaryor highway robbery.^ [For the original text and further particulars in regard to this peti-tion Lecky refers to Garinet, Hist aire de la Magie en France, p. also Rambaud, Hist, de la Civilisation Frangaise, ii. 154. In1672, Colbert directed the magistrates to receive no accusations ofsorcery. Lecky, Hist, of Rationalism, i. 118.] WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 123 This unquestioning belief in the reality of witchcraft hasbeen shared b}- the whole human race, civilized and luicixil-ized alike, from prehistoric ages to the end of the -jhebeliefseventeenth century.^ There are tribes of men craftuni-with minds so little developed that travellers have ^^*^doubted the existence of religious ideas among them ; butnon
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