Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/478

510 NOTES AND QUERIES. P* & iv. dec. ie. '99. Solomon; and other acceptable contents. It has many admirable engravings, and a very prettily designed cover. In addition to these, there is given with the magazine a large-size and effective en- fraving of Mr. Cooke's fine picture 'The Fortune- 'eller, exhibited in this year s Royal Academy. , The IntertmkUaire for 22 October contains several i interesting notes on the French churches in which ! the choir and the nave form a broken lino. There seem to be many instances of this deviation both in parochial and conventual churches. Viollet-le-Duc, it is stated, held the opinion that the irregularity was, in most cases, brought about by the com- pletion of one part of a church before the foundation of the rest was laid. If, for instance, an old choir was retained as a place of worship till the new nave built to it was finished, and was then pulled down to make way for further work, a difficulty would arise. The open end of the nave would have to be temporarily closed for the convenient performance of divine service, and unless great care were taken in making the measurements, this fact might readily cause a deviation in the line of the walls. It is easy to see that an error of a few millimetres in the beginning would end by causing an irregularity which could not fail to strike the eye when nave and choir were again thrown together. In the list of Roman Catholic bishops who have entered on the wedded state, which is being put together by the correspondents of the Inlermidiaire, occurs Francois tie l'Hospital, Count du Hallier, who, it appears, was once Bishop of Meaux, and subse- quently became a marshal of France. The widow, whom he married many years after he had renounced his orders to enter on a military career, was even- tually the wife of John Casimir, King of Poland, formerly a cardinal in minor orders. It was a strange freak of destiny which permitted a woman to espouse two dignitaries of the Church, one of whom had replaced his bishop's crosier by a mar- shal's baton, and the other the hat of a cardinal by a royal crown. The principal article in MHusine for September- October is an elaborate notice of Rodolphe Reuss's work on Alsace in the seventeenth century, so far as it relates to popular superstition and witchcraft. " Superstition is everywhere in the seventeenth century," says the reviewer, "in the ranks of the nobles and m those of the bourgeoisie as well as among the peasants; it spares the clergy as little as the laics, it is as rigorous with the followers of Luther as with the disciples of Loyola, and even those who combat the cruel acts of tho executioner for charity's sake dare not deny the deeds with which the victims are upbraided It is a relative consolation to be able to tell oneself that at least some of the innumerable victims of the witchcraft mania were punished for actual misdeeds, for crimes justly chastised by the law at all times and in all countries But for how many others must this explanation be invalid ! It is while reading in our archival documents the so-called avowals of their ' noces au sabbat,' made by little boys and girls incapable of understanding anything about the things they were made to say, that one asks oneself if the confessions are true for the others, even, or if they also have been extracted by torture." The genesis of the sorcery trials, the means used to obtain confessions, and tho nature of these con- fessions themselves, are almost identical every- where. Contrary to what might be supposed at first sight, all the dossier*, collected in the north and south of Alsace, " are of an extreme monotony, and it is very rarely that the more active or wanton imagination of a judge or witness makes them emerge from the traditional rut. All the misdeeds committed were either included in the rubric of ordinary crimes (and perhaps these were some- times real), or else they belonged to the irrational domain, whether they were the result of momen- tary hallucination or simply of judiciary sugges- tions. In the last place come the meteorological phenomena (nocturnal frosts in the district, terrible storms ravaging the harvest and the vineyards), epidemic illnesses, cattle plagues, &c When the action of the French Government began to make itself felt in Alsace, it was exercised from the first in the direction of prudence and moderation in what concerned witchcraft trials As soon as evil speakers feel themselves to be observed, as soon as sham informers are reached by legal prosecution, denunciators become rare, and—natural consequence —trials for sorcery become rare also." The reviews and notes in the Giornale di Erudi- zione are quite up to their usual level. We note with pleasure that a movemeut is on foot for the establishment of a society for the pro- motion of antiquarian study and research, to be styled theCambridgeshireand Hunts Archaeological Society. It is proposed to call a meeting in each county at an early date to arrange preliminaries and to issue printed particulars, with a view to the immediate formation of the society. Two excur- sions yearly—one in each county—and an annual issue of Transactions are contemplated. IJfltins to Corrrspn&fnts. We must call special attention to the following tiotices :— On all communications must be written the name and address of the Bender, not necessarily for pub- lication, but as a guarantee of good faith. We cannot undertake to answer queries privately. To secure insertion of communications corre- spondents must observe the following rule. Let each note, query, or reply be written on a separate slip of paper, with the signature of the writer and such address as he wishes to appear. Correspond- ents who repeat queries are requested to head the second communication " Duplicate." W. T. (Southsea).—" Uglier" in your Shakesj)eare quotation (' Richard II.,' L i.) is used in the ordinary meaning given in the dictionaries: "contrary to beauty; hateful." You should give proper refer- ences to your queries, as the editorial time is limited. NOTICE. Editorial Communications should be addressed to " The Editor of ' Notes and Queries'"—Advertise- ments and Business Letters to "The Publisher"— at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.C. We beg leave to state that we decline to return communications which, for any reason, we do not print; and to this rule we can make no exception. Terms of Subscription by Post. For Twelve Montbt For Six Months ... 1 o 0 10