474 SORCERY AND OCCULT ARTS. cried out that he saw a great green serpent as large as a dog coiled up on the floor, and both took to their heels. Then Gilles armed himself with a crucifix containing a particle of the true cross, and insisted on returning, but Prelati warned him that such expedients only increased the danger, and he desisted. Finally the malicious demon changed the gold into tinsel, which, when handled, turned into a tawny dust. It was in vain that Gilles gave to Prelati com- pacts signed with his blood, pledging himself to obedience in re- turn for the three gifts of knowledge, wealth, and power ; Barron would have none of them. The demon was offended with Gilles for not keeping a promise to make some offering to him ; if a small request were made it should be a trifle, such as a pullet or a dove ; if something greater it must be the member of a child. Children's bodies were not scarce where Gilles resided, and he speedily placed in a glass vessel a child's hand, heart, eyes, and blood, and gave them to Prelati to offer. Still the demon was ob- durate, and Prelati, as he said, buried the rejected offering in conse- crated ground. Gilles has had the reputation of sacrificing unnum- bered children in his necromantic operations, but this is the only case elicited on his trial, and the number of times it is brought into the evidence shows the immense importance attached to it by the prosecution.* It was impossible that a career such as this could continue for eight years without exciting suspicion. Though for the most part Gilles selected his victims from among the beggars who crowded his castle gates, attracted by his ostentatious charities — children for whom there was no one to make inquiry — yet he had his agents out through the land enticing from parents the offspring whom they would see no more. Two women, Etiennette Blanchu and Perrine Martin, better known as La Meffraye, were the most successful of these purveyors, and it came to be noticed that when he was in Kantes the children who frequented the gates of his Hotel de la Suze were apt to disappear unaccountably. His con- fidential servants, Henri Griart, known as Henriet, and Etienne Corillaut, nicknamed Poitou, when they saw a handsome youth would engage him as a page without concealment, ride off with
- Bossard et Maulde, Pr. pp. xxvi., xxxiv., xlvii.-lii., lv.-lvi., lxii.-lxxii.,
lxxxviii., xcviii., ci., cxvii. — Monstrelet, II. 248.
