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Early in the same year the Marquis de Maintenon, commanding the frigate "La Sorcière," and aided by some French filibusters from Tortuga, was on the coast of Caracas, where he ravaged the islands of Margarita and Trinidad. He had arrived in the West Indies from France in the latter part of 1676, and when he sailed from Tortuga was at the head of 700 or 800 men.
In the Bishopric of Wurtzburg, so late as 1750, a nun was burnt for witchcraft: 'Cette malheureuse fille soutint opiniâtrément qu'elle était sorcière.... Elle était folle, ses juges furent imbécilles et barbares. Voltaire's Works, ed. 1819, xxvi. 285.
Even here, in the heart of this rural country, you would have to walk far before you could find vne vraie sorciere, one who, by looking into a glass of water, for instance, could read the future as in a book, or one who, if your cow dried up, could name the evil spirit, the demon, who, among the peasants was exercising the curse. All this science was lost.
We find her in different countries and in different times; but she always lures and fascinates a man, storms against insuperable circumstance, coos and caws, and in the outcome dies. One of Sardou's latest efforts, La Sorcière, presents the dry bones of the formula without the flesh and blood of life.
Many had learned this from long practice in running in with the early gamblers at the morning opening of the Casino, when it is "first come, first served," at the chairs. Those who had been watching the play at other tables, or those who had been losing, joined the rush. "What is she going to do now, cette petite sorcière?" was the question.
He no longer called it 'la sorciere glauque. He had shed away all his French phrases. He had become a plain, unvarnished, Preston man. Failure, if it be a plain, unvarnished, complete failure, and even though it be a squalid failure, has always a certain dignity. I avoided Soames because he made me feel rather vulgar.
The Nganga of Congo-land, the Mganga of the Wasawahili and the Uganga of the Gaboon, exactly corresponds with M. Michelet's Sorciere of the Middle Ages, "physicienne," that is doctor for the people and poisoner; we cannot, however, apply in Africa the adage of Louis XIII.'s day, "To one wizard ten thousand witches."
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