Virgina Krause, Confessional Fictions

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Confessional Fictions and Demonology in Renaissance France

Virginia KrauseBrown UniversityProvidence, Rhode Island

. . . j’allais épiant et écoutant ce qu’elles [les sorcières] confessaient de nouveau et de rare.

—Pierre de Lancre

With his De la démonomanie des sorciers (), Jean Bodin attacks the skep-tics of demonology as much as the legions of demons and execrable witches supposedly plotting universal destruction. In the chapter devoted to con-fessions in trials (bk. , chap. ), he refers to an idea apparently voiced by some of his peers. Th ese reticent judges hesitate to condemn witches because they believe that their confessions are so strange that they must be “fables.” Strange indeed are these witches’ confessions, carefully extracted during tri-als and then recorded, surveyed, scrutinized, and interpreted by specialists in demonology, the so-called science of demons. Th ese confessions tell of nocturnal assemblies where witches and demons are said to fornicate and dance naked, where members of an underground cult affi rm and reaffi rm their allegiance to the devil, where would-be plots are made and spells are cast, where children are sacrifi ced and then consumed in anthropophagous rituals. Strange stories, and yet remarkably coherent, as Bodin observes: “we see that the confessions of witches in Germany, in Italy, in France, in Spain, in Ancient Greece and Rome, are all similar.” Confession was indeed a cen-tral resource for demonologists across Europe who used it in their concerted eff ort to condemn witches and to understand witchcraft. Without confes-sion, there would have been no demonology—at least not in the form of the discursive and institutional practice elaborated between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. And without demonology, there would have been no “witches,” for the villain of the story told by demonologists—the “witch”

Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 35:2, Spring 2005. Copyright © by Duke University Press / 2005 / $2.00.

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herself—was produced by the very institution that ostensibly sought to destroy her.

Th e debt of my analysis to Foucault’s study of confession in vol-ume of L’Histoire de la sexualité is no doubt already apparent. A central piece in his critique of the “repressive hypothesis” was the confessional tech-nology put in place in the thirteenth century. Indeed, this was an era in which confession was given a central role in judicial and religious institu-tions. With the introduction of Roman-canon law that replaced the system of ordeals, confession assumed a new importance in judicial practices. At the same time, private auricular confession was made into a yearly obligation for all Christians having reached the “age of discretion.” It was in fact Lat-eran IV (), the same council that mandated annual auricular confession, that banned clerical participation in ordeals. Th e imperative to “confess” imposed in thirteenth-century Europe was to undergo considerable refi ne-ment and elaboration throughout the early modern and modern periods as other institutions joined in the chorus mandating confession, particularly when it came to the most intimate, sexual secrets. Chief among modern institutions eliciting confessional speech is perhaps psychoanalysis, which has been compared to a secular form of confession of the most complex order. Yet early modern demonology no doubt deserves its own modest place in this history of the proliferation of discourse on sexuality that is Western scientia sexualis. Th eir detailed refl ections on the nature of sexual intercourse with demons, on the pleasure and pain experienced by witches coupling with demons, and on the generalized lubricity of the sabbat suggest that demonologists were deeply interested in eliciting confessions of sexual secrets. With good reason, early modern demonology has been described as a kind of scholarly pornography.

However, Foucault maintained that his primary interest was not sexuality itself (repressed or constructed), but rather its place in the pro-duction of knowledge. “I don’t want to write the sociological history of a prohibition but rather the political history of a production of ‘truth.’ ” By understanding the salacious stories extracted during witch trials as part of demonologists’ “will to truth,” I wish to give a Foucauldian emphasis to my discussion of demonology (demono-logos). Th e following pages seek to uncover an elaborate machinery to produce “truth” beneath demonology’s pretension simply to reveal a hidden (occult) truth. And as in Foucault’s history of sexuality, confession played a crucial role in the demonological production of “truth.” Demonology, I argue, made confession serve a dual vocation, at once judicial and epistemological. To condemn a witch one had

Krause / Confessional Fictions and Demonology 329

to extract a confession—proof of guilt in capital cases such as witchcraft. But in the Renaissance’s science of demons, confession was also used as the primary method of investigation, verifi cation, and validation. Th e fi rst-person narratives furnished by the “witches” themselves were deemed to be the demonologist’s only access to the occult—the hidden world of demons and their earthly agents. At the core of demonology was a complex intertwin-ing of judicial and epistemological uses of confession—cogs in a machine that produced guilt, the science of demons, and as a by-product, the so-called witches themselves. But let us begin with the circumstances that made confession the demonologist’s tool of choice. What legal and cultural factors placed confession at the core of demonology?

Demonologist confessors in Renaissance witch trials

As witch trials grew out of the inquisitorial procedure, becoming more fre-quent by the mid–fourteenth century, confession maintained its privileged position as “the queen of proofs.” From the earliest witch hunts conducted by inquisitors to the secular judges who replaced them in France by , confession constituted compelling proof of guilt. Early modern demonolo-gists, including Jean Bodin, Henry Boguet, Nicolas Rémy, and Pierre de Lancre, built upon the basis put in place by the founding fathers of demon-ology—inquisitors such as Nicholas Eymeric, author of the authoritative Directorium inquisitorium (), and of course Jakob Sprenger and Hein-rich Kramer (alias Institoris), whose “hammer” for smashing witches—the Malleus malefi carum (/)—remained the basic manual for judges in witch trials throughout the French Renaissance.

Despite their strong theoretical interests, these were very practical men concerned with meeting the legal criteria for proving guilt. Demono-logical treatises commonly rehearse the three ways to establish culpability: () circumstantial evidences or indicia; () testimony by two eyewitnesses; () confession. Of these three criteria, confession emerged as being the easi-est path to conviction, all the more since a judge could secure a conviction on the basis of confession alone. To be sure, the application of the inquisi-torial procedure came with certain safeguards designed to protect a defen-dant from being coerced into producing a false confession. Th us any “forced confession” (i.e., made under torture) had to be reiterated “voluntarily” out-side the torture chamber. Moreover, the suspect’s confession was supposed to provide specifi c details that “none but the criminal could possibly know.” Finally, the information supplied by confession was supposed to be exam-


ined and verifi ed by other means. However, when it came to “occult crimes,” jurists acknowledged the diffi culty of confi rming confessions. Th us, in prac-tice, in cases of witchcraft and heresy, a defendant could be condemned on the sole basis of unverifi ed confession. Confession consequently became a powerful weapon in the arsenal of a judge eager to secure a conviction.

In the Malleus malefi carum, little time is wasted on indicia (circum-stantial evidences)—famously diffi cult to produce, even with the relatively loose standards applied, and in any case never enough to serve as the sole basis for a conviction. Instead, the discussion skips straight to the tried and true method—confession—and how to extract it. In contrast, Jean Bodin devotes considerably more attention to indicia—what he terms “la verité du faict notoire, & permanent” (acknowledged and concrete facts). Clearly for Bodin, this is a more solid way to prove guilt. Bodin grants this sort of proof an empirical basis, since he specifi es that the judge can “see, know, touch, or otherwise perceive it with one of the fi ve senses.” However, despite this attempt to lay claim to what he clearly considers to be a fi rmer epistemo-logical basis, the rest of the treatise is a tacit acknowledgment that confession and testimony were the consecrated path to convicting and understanding witches. Like others of its kind, Bodin’s treatise is punctuated with regular references to judicial confessions extracted during trials: “Jeanne Harvillier, who was burned alive . . . confessed that she had cast a spell to kill a man. . . . and had prayed to the Devil”; “. . . the cook of the convent, named Elsa von Kamen . . . confessed that she was a witch, stating that she had prayed to Satan, and cast spells”; “At Toulouse there was a woman who indulged in this abuse. . . . She confessed the truth, and was burned” (Démonomanie, r, r; , –).

She confessed the truth . . . in the vast majority of Renaissance tri-als, to confess the “truth” was to admit to having participated in the sabbat. In Renaissance France, attending the sabbat (and thereby being party to its pacts with the devil, ritualistic murder, and extreme sexual license) was considered the ultimate treason against God and man, a threat so grave that its confession warranted capital punishment. To quote Bodin, confessing to having gone to the assemblies and having a pact with the devil “faict preuve”; this confession “constitutes proof” (Démonomanie, r; ). Some thirty years later, Pierre de Lancre, the great specialist of the sabbat, invoked Bodin’s authority in asserting that the crime of attending the sabbat war-ranted an automatic death sentence.

Among contemporary historians, there is consensus that the witches’ sabbat is sheer myth—the stuff of demonologists’ nightmares rather


than actual occurrences. Nevertheless, thousands of accused “witches” produced these fi rst-person narratives that sealed their fate, for documents reveal that defendants almost inevitably abandon their initial denials and confess to being guilty. Witch trials rehearse the same ritual proceeding from denial to confession, the fi rst-person narrative having the eff ect of a deus ex machina that brings the process to a close. For the judge’s immediate objective was to push the suspect to adopt the fi rst-person in a precise utter-ance. But the fi rst-person should not obscure the fact that what was at stake was not a personal truth, but rather a metaphysical truth. Th e judge’s goal was to get the “witch” to adopt some version of a ready-made narrative: “I have been to the sabbat, I have signed a pact with the Devil, I have had sex with demons. . . .” With slight variation, this formula was repeated over and over again with each new trial and each new confession. In a very real sense, the confession existed before its would-be author. For a suspect, to confess was to demonstrate willingness to assume the fi rst-person in a preexisting utterance supplied by the judge and ultimately by demonological theory. Th rough confession, accused witches were in eff ect constrained to reproduce demonological theory, each reiteration serving to confi rm both the reality of the sabbat and the necessity of the witch hunt. How and under what condi-tions were defendants in witch trials led to confess to implausible crimes that never took place?

Th e most obvious element in this puzzle is the use of judicial tor-ture. From its introduction in the thirteenth-century inquisitorial procedure to its application in Renaissance witch trials, la question seems to have served essentially as a technology used for the extraction of confession. Th us the third part of the Malleus malefi carum, devoted to the mechanics of the trial, provides detailed instruction on how to extract a confession “from the witch’s mouth.” Th e fourth part of Bodin’s De la démonomanie des sorciers serves a comparable function: in this most practical of discussions, the demonologist attends meticulously to the fi ner points of how to “get the truth by every means that he can imagine” (Scott, ).

Torture was the most obvious resource available to judges eager to secure a confession. But there were other ways: lying to the accused, threat-ening to submit a spouse or child to “questioning” (Bodin famously accepted testimony from children as legally sound [Démonomanie, r; ]), send-ing friends as spies. But what if no confession was forthcoming? Bodin recounts how one of the famous thieves condemned at the Châtelet of Paris refused to confess even under torture and even though there was compelling evidence against him. However, when his confessor was called to the stand,


he revealed that the man had confessed to being as guilty as the others: “il declara à son confesseur qu’il estoit aussi coupable que les autres le priant de n’en rien dire” (r). Th is anecdote suggests not only the prevailing attitude of getting a judicial confession “by any means necessary” (and in this case, even if the seal of sacramental confession is violated), but also the extent to which confession was deemed a reliable measure of guilt. Clearly, the idea of executing a man who had not confessed was a troubling one, as though he might somehow still be innocent despite the evidence against him. His-torians have suggested that confession served a function comparable to the older system of ordeals based on the revelation of unequivocal guilt through divine intervention. In the new procedure that called upon human agents of the law to prove guilt through rational means (the inquest), some semblance of a transcendent sanction was preserved in the form of confession. Th at is, confession was invested with the mission of producing unequivocal guilt in a procedure that otherwise required human conjecture.

So strong was the reliance on confession that its absence proves a major stumbling block, one addressed by virtually all authors of demono-logical treatises popular in France. Th ese authors acknowledge that some “hardened witches” refuse to confess, no matter how much pain they endure and despite the interrogator’s best ruses. Th is refusal introduced an uncomfortable uncertainty into a procedure that tolerated no gray zones (as with Bodin’s thief—already proven all but guilty by “presomptions & tes-moignages des complices” but whose confession was still needed in order to dispel any residual doubt). Silence off ered a potentially strong position of resistance for those accused of witchcraft. But by , demonologists had devised a formula to account for this silence without undermining their enterprise. Th e notion of “the spell of silence” perversely made a defendant’s silence or refusal to confess additional proof of guilt. Under the “spell of silence,” a defendant who did not confess was not innocent, but rather under a charm that imposed silence, thereby preventing “the truth” from being spoken. Th is charm, which was sometimes thought to take the form of a small amulet hidden somewhere on the witch’s body, made the witch invulnerable to pain under torture. In , this logic was still fi rmly rooted in demonological discourse: “if the witch has the spell of silence on him, he will not feel any pain whatsoever under the question [torture], and will never confess the truth.”

Th rough the “spell of silence” demonologists thus redefi ned the cat-and-mouse process of extracting a confession as a metaphysical struggle taking place just beneath the surface. On one side, the judge, confession,


and divinely sanctioned “truth.” On the opposing side, the devil work-ing through silence to prevent his agent from speaking the truth. It is here that one can take full measure of demonology’s logic of certainty, its self-confi rming capacity: if the suspected witch confesses, then guilt is fi rmly established; if the suspect does not confess, she is bewitched but guilty none-theless. Demonologists push this logic of damned if you do, damned if you don’t, one step further: a silent or otherwise resistant person is even more guilty than a defendant who confesses easily. Th e Malleus malefi carum sug-gests that the devil allows only his weakest servants to confess. Th ose who adhere most fi rmly to him, those who are bound “by mouth and by heart,” are the ones least likely to confess. Th ese are the witches he defends with all his strength, hardening them with the charm of silence. In short, there are two kinds of defendants: the manifestly guilty (confessed witches) and the secretly even guiltier (stubbornly silent witches). In either case, the possibil-ity of innocence is fi rmly excluded from the equation.

Demonology’s will to truth

In the judicial drama I have been describing, confession’s primary func-tion was to produce the eff ect of absolute guilt. Demonologists resorted to confession as a weapon for convicting and condemning the members of what they perceived to be a satanic cult threatening the very fabric of soci-ety. Indeed, witches were believed to strike hard where the community was most vulnerable. Th ey were accused of jeopardizing the community’s mate-rial subsistence (by destroying crops); of preventing reproduction (by caus-ing impotence among men and by killing infants); and of threatening the community’s religious foundation (by signing a pact with the devil and by participating in the sabbat’s black mass or inversion of the liturgy). But this eminently practical objective pursued by demonologists was inextricably linked to a theoretical agenda: understanding the occult world of witches and their clandestine activities.

Th rough confession, the demonologist sought access to the world of witches that remained stubbornly elusive without these fi rst-person narra-tives. For he was excluded from the sabbat in the same way that if one of the participants made the sign of the cross, the assembly was thought to vanish into thin air. Bodin emphasizes the function of confession as a vehicle for information on the sabbat: “the assemblies, and other wickedness . . . cannot be learned except by their confession or from their accomplices”[. . . on ne peut sçavoir que par leur confession ou de leurs complices] (Démonomanie,


r; , my emphasis). To quote Walter Stephens, “witches were expert witnesses to the reality of demons.” And while some visual traces of their clandestine activities were believed to remain (such as the famous “mark” the devil supposedly left on the witch’s body), the stories they told were the key to unravelling the mystery of their covert operations. Th e judge had to listen more than observe. Hence, no doubt, Bodin’s elaborate attempts to demonstrate that among the fi ve senses hearing is more reliable than vision. “For hearing is not less, but much more certain than seeing; indeed all the more certain since hearing can be deceived less than seeing which is often mistaken” (r; ). It is perhaps with Bodin’s dubious demonstration in mind that Montaigne relates the story of a village terrorized by the prank of a youth who imitated the voice of a spirit. As though to emphasize the human ear’s vulnerability to error, Montaigne suggests that the entire village was taken in by what was in fact a rudimentary prank. Its author was neither a spirit nor even a fi endishly clever man, but rather a simpleton described as “stupid and foolish.”

While witches were charged with supplying confessions, demon-ology reserved for itself the privilege of deciphering them. Th e agent that articulated confession (the witch) was thus kept separate from the agency claiming to possess hermeneutic mastery (the institution of demonology). When it came to precise methods employed, demonology remained faithful to respected interpretive practices of the time including the use of author-ities, etymologies, and the method of parallel passages. In defense of the reality of witches’ fl ight, Bodin summarizes the hierarchy of confi rmations: “Now we have shown by divine and human authorities, and by the proof of all antiquity, and by divine and human laws, experience, judgments, convic-tions, confrontations and confessions, the transport of witches” (Démono-manie, v; ).

In the fi rst place, the demonologist-hermeneut respected a time-honored tradition by reading the strange stories told in trials against authori-ties—sacred texts, the writings of the church fathers, ancient philosophy and history. Th us when Bodin sets out to explain on what days evil spells can be cast, he begins by invoking evidence given during trials: “And in many trials I found that evil spells were set usually on Saturday” (Démono-manie, r; ). He proceeds to confi rm this supposition with biblical commentary, invoking Abraham ibn Ezra’s twelfth-century commentary on the Decalogue. Bodin relates the commentator’s observation that God “solemnly commanded that one abstain from work and sanctify Saturday above all.” He then provides an etymological explanation based on the word


for Saturn (the prince of witches) in Hebrew, Sabthai or “resting,” while linking it to the word Sabbath, meaning “rest.” Biblical commentary and etymology are thus called upon to explain and confi rm the narratives gath-ered in trials. With a fi nal fl ourish, Bodin then brings the reasoning full circle, using more judicial confessions to confi rm the association Saturday-Sabbath-witchcraft by invoking another trial “where the witches confessed that while dancing with devils they raised high their broom and cried, ‘Har, Har, Sabath, Sabath’ ” (v; ). Th e pattern described here is indeed cir-cular, for the fi rst-person narratives generated during trials provide both the initial hypothesis (spells are usually cast on Saturday) and the fi nal confi r-mation (witches cry out “Sabath, Sabath” at their sabbat).

Demonology soon claimed for itself an authoritative status as demon-ologists interpreted puzzling features of witchcraft in light of the work of other demonologists. In the Malleus malefi carum, references to Johannes Nider’s Formicarius reside comfortably alongside passages from Aquinas, both texts serving as authorities. Renaissance demonologists (Bodin, de Lan-cre, Rémy) cite reverentially the authoritative texts of demonology’s found-ing fathers in order to make sense of the ever-growing number of confessions generated by trials. Another passage from Bodin follows a pattern similar to the one observed above, with the authority now coming from demonol-ogy itself rather than biblical commentary. He begins by what he terms a fact “confi rmed by experience,” namely, that witches never cry. Th e author-ity here comes in the form of two inquisitors, Paolo Grillando and Jacques Sprenger, who “state that they were never able to make a single witch cry” (Démonomanie, r; ). Cross-referencing to other demonological trea-tises was by Bodin’s time a common strategy. Demonology had become in eff ect its own self-legitimating discourse.

In addition to the use of authorities and etymologies, the demonolo-gist-hermeneut applied the technique of parallel passages to elucidate confes-sions. Borrowed from exegesis, this method was based on the principle that “nothing is conveyed in a hidden manner in one place of the Holy Scripture that is not explained elsewhere in a manifest manner.” Th e judicial confes-sions extracted during trials constituted a veritable corpus—demonologists elucidated more obscure passages in light of clearer passages. Bodin states this principle succinctly: “Now to confi rm the proof of witches’ confessions, one must link them with the confessions of other witches” (Démonomanie, v; ). In this way, raw data generated by new confessions was con-fi rmed by preexisting confessions. Another passage shows Bodin applying this method to establish the hereditary dimension of witchcraft, believed to


pass from parent to child. He invokes Jeanne Harvillier (a convicted witch), whose daughter fl ed upon learning that her mother had been indicted for witchcraft. Th is case appears unclear: how can one know for sure if Jeanne’s daughter was a witch if she disappeared without a trace? Th e obscurity of this case is dispelled by a second “parallel passage” in the form of a another case: the daughters of Barbe Doré who also fl ed when their mother was arrested. In this second instance, however, an associate later testifi ed that everyone in the family was a witch. For Bodin, the clarity of the second pas-sage dispels the ambiguity of the fi rst. Th e demonologist can thus apply the same reasoning to all cases, namely, because witchcraft is hereditary, when the daughters of witches fl ee upon learning that their mothers have been accused, this fl ight shows that they, too, are witches. Bodin’s formulation also makes clear the interpretive move of adding ever more confessions from trials to prove that an initial supposition is true. Th e construction strings along with the conjunction and one example after another.

And indeed, when Jeanne Harvillier’s daughter saw that her mother was imprisoned, she fl ed, and since then it was learned that she was also one [a witch]: And upon learning that their mother was indicted for acts of witchcraft, the daughters of Barbe Doré fl ed, without being either accused or pursued, and since then one of the Witches who was familiar with the said Doré tes-tifi ed that the whole family were witches.

With the technique of parallel passages, confessional narratives were called upon to confi rm one another in what was a truly vicious circle.

Confession thus lay at the very basis of the house of cards that demonology had become. For let us recall that the same institution that was elaborating a complex theoretical model for making sense of confessions was also actively engaged in eliciting them by any means necessary. In this way, demonology’s epistemological and judicial endeavors converged.

It is within this convergence that one should situate the invention of the witches’ sabbat—demonology’s most spectacular fi ction. Drawing on Foucault’s work, we can better appreciate how the sabbat could be at once the primary object of demonology and its invention. To illustrate the dynamic at stake, this picture of demonology can be compared to the Foucauld-ian understanding of sexuality and the institution devoted to piercing its mysteries: psychoanalysis. In both cases, fi rst-person narratives constitute the institution’s primary instrument for penetrating a hidden empire. Both


demonologist and psychoanalyst claim to uncover an obscure truth—clan-destine satanism and unconscious drives respectively. What the demonolo-gist knows about the secret activities of witches he knows through listening to their confessions just as the psychoanalyst’s best access to an individual patient’s condition is listening to the patient’s own words. Further, in both cases hermeneutic expertise is reserved for the agency eliciting and listen-ing to the narratives instead of the subject producing them. But the most striking element common to both institutions gets to the heart of Foucault’s thesis that sexuality is not a biological given, an “object” described by mod-ern human sciences, but rather a construction. Likewise, the institution of demonology produced the sabbat—a fi ction manufactured by demonology rather than an actual event.

Finally, each institution elaborated a comparable self-legitimating device against doubt. Th e idea of the “spell of silence” in demonology is structurally analogous to the mechanism of repression in psychoanalysis. Th us if a patient does not acknowledge a sexual drive, it is because of the unconscious defense mechanism of repression; likewise, if a witch does not confess to having engaged in sex with demons or praying to the devil, it is because she is under a spell. Th e following diagram summarizes the Fou-cauldian model as applied to demonology:

Producing guilt and producing knowledge are thus inextricably tied together in demonological theory and practice. With confession resting at the base of the demonological edifi ce, it is not surprising to fi nd it sin-gled out by early critics of the abuses of demonology. In , for instance, Johann Weyer, the respected doctor of the Duke of Clèves, aimed part of his criticism at demonology’s reliance on confession. And in his virulent reply, Bodin felt obliged to respond to Weyer’s criticism of confession in particular. Th us, when Weyer wrote in his De praestigiis daemonum that “a confession must contain truth and possible things,” Bodin cited this phrase verba-tim, calling it a “sophistic argument”: “quand on dit que la confession pour y adjouster foy doibt porter chose qui soit possible, & veritable. . . . C’est

Institution Method Constructionproduced

Self-legitimatingmechanism

psychoanalysis talking cure sexuality repression

demonology confession sabbat spell of silence


un argument Sophistic & captieux” (Démonomanie, v–r; ). Weyer further understood the judicial confessions made by witches to be the result of coercion (torture), illness, demonic suggestion, or some combination of these factors. But in all cases, for Weyer the fantastic narratives could reveal nothing about real witchcraft. If Bodin went to great lengths to attack Weyer’s skepticism regarding the truth value of witches’ confessions, was it not because confession was indeed the fragile underpinning of the demono-logical superstructure?

At stake in the doubt Weyer casts on the “true” confessions extracted from witches and in Bodin’s virulent counterattack is the broader and per-sistent problem of the credibility of confession. What guarantees the reli-ability of confession? How can one draw the line between a fi rst-person fi c-tional narrative and a true confession? How indeed, when in early modern demonology “truth” was stranger than fi ction? If one acknowledges that the fi rst-person is not a guarantee of truth in and of itself, there remain at least three tried and true criteria for validating (or invalidating) a confession: () plausibility (the confession is persuasive given what is commonly agreed to be possible); () referentiality (the confession corresponds to a given set of facts that can be verifi ed by other means—empirically, for instance); () voluntariness (the confession was made without coercion). Weyer challenged the credibility of witches’ confessions in terms of all three of these criteria. And in his refutation, Bodin carefully addressed each one in turn. Th us if Weyer challenged the voluntariness of confessions, pointing to the use of coercion (torture), Bodin responded by spelling out the diff erence between “forced” confession (produced under torture) and “voluntary” confession (confi rmed outside the torture chamber). Only the latter could be used as proof, the demonologist explains using a didactic tone that masks what was in practice a weak distinction at best. For even “voluntary” confessions were inextricably tied to coercion: if a suspect refused to “voluntarily” reiterate a confession extracted under torture, (s)he would not be declared innocent, but rather sent back to the torture chamber.

As for plausibility and referentiality, these criteria proved to be less easily discounted. Bodin here mounts a sinuous argument. His fi rst move is to resort to defi nition: physical possibility (or plausibility) and truth are two very diff erent matters, he claims. By assimilating them (as Bodin accuses Weyer of doing), his opponent’s argument is fatally fl awed by virtue of its false premise (“l’assomption d’iceluy est faulce” [Démonomanie, r; ]). Is a miracle not real even though according to the laws of nature it is by defi nition impossible?


Car les grandes œuvres & merveilles de Dieu sont impossibles par nature, & toutesfois veritables: & les actions des intelligences & tout ce qui est de la Metaphysique, est impossible par nature, qui est la cause pourquoy la Metaphysique est du tout distincte & dif-ferente de la Physique, qui ne touche que la nature.

[For the great works and marvels of God are impossible by nature, and nonetheless true. Th e actions, moreover, of Intelligences and everything that pertains to Metaphysics is impossible by nature, which is the reason why Metaphysics is entirely distinct and dif-ferent from Physics, which treats only of nature.] (r; )

Physics may belong to the realm of the possible, but physical possibility—and impossibility—have no place in metaphysics. Lucien Febvre famously wrote that the very notion of the possible as opposed to the impossible was absent from the Renaissance mental universe. Th is explanation sheds light on what in eff ect is the demonologist’s willing suspension of disbelief in the face of fantastic tales reported in confessions. In the short term, this stance eff ectively made demonology nearly invulnerable to criticism, a virtually impenetrable fortress. For the long term, however, it would turn out to be a vulnerability. For plausibility proved to be the most diffi cult demon to exor-cise as debate intensifi ed in the seventeenth century. Critics such as Cyrano would delight in demonstrating the absurdity of demonology’s truths, so far removed from what we understand to be “humanly possible and ordi-nary.”

With the problem of the plausibility of judicial confessions, my dis-cussion has drifted onto a terrain familiar to literary scholars. Th e question of plausibility versus referentiality is of course one of the defi ning debates of seventeenth-century France, preoccupied as it was with vraisemblance on the stage and in its novels. Th e question of plausibility colored contemporary debate on no doubt the most famous literary confession of the early modern period: the confession made by the Princess of Clèves to her husband while Nemours listened in, unbeknownst to both parties. Here, as was the case within demonology, the implausibility of the narrative becomes the para-doxical guarantee of its truth value, as though to confi rm that the narrative came from another source than mere human conventions: metaphysics (in the case of demonology) or a deep personal truth (in the case of La Princesse de Clèves)—both forms of belief being radically opposed to public opin-ion. Th e remarkably productive potential in the technology of confession,


its capacity to generate new “truths,” is perhaps due in part to the relative autonomy it enjoys with respect to established notions of plausibility.

Inversely, confession off ers the critic a point of entry into the fi c-tional construct, be it the myth of the sabbat or the modern subject con-strued as the repository of its own truth. Close scrutiny of confessional technologies reveals the machinery at work; it allows the critic to point to the processes involved in the production of knowledge. Th us, for Michel de Montaigne, an outspoken critic of the witch hunt and contemporary of Jean Bodin, confession off ered a tool for unravelling the demonological web of truths. Montaigne did not challenge demonology on the metaphysical grounds that it claimed for itself. Th e absolute truth of the matter was thus quietly bracketed as the essayist linked demonological “truths” to their insti-tutional processes: confession and its facilitator, torture, combined with the use of authority and repetition.

Clearly infl uenced by Weyer’s positions, Montaigne pointed to the unreliability of confessions in witch trials in his chapters “Des boyteux” (Essais, bk. , chap. ) as well as to the general untrustworthiness of judicial confessions in “De la conscience” (bk. , chap. ). Th is time, the attack on demonology’s use of confession came from within the very milieu of mag-istrates active in the witch hunt. Montaigne’s cousin was none other than the famous demonologist Martin del Rio. During the second year of Mon-taigne’s tenure as mayor of Bordeaux (–), Pierre de Lancre became a member of the Parlement of Bordeaux. De Lancre went on to marry into Montaigne’s family in when he wed his great niece. Finally, the essay-ist’s strongest words against the persecution came in the immediate wake of the publication of De la démonomanie des sorciers, a treatise composed by a respected jurist (Bodin) and dedicated to the president of the Parlement of Paris (Chrestofl e de Th ou).

Montaigne’s basis for formulating his attack is both judicial and epistemological. In the fi rst place, he advances a critique on a legal terrain challenging the assumption that confessions are an accurate measure of guilt. He relates his own experience when he was invited to examine the case against an old woman accused of witchcraft. After examining confes-sions as well as other evidence against her, and after interviewing anyone he wished and giving the matter his full attention, he concluded that the poor woman was simply sick (Essais, :; ). Th e case just didn’t hold water from Montaigne’s skeptical and well-informed point of view. Even in cases of simple druggings or poisonings where demonologists alleged no demonic


involvement, the essayist suggests that confession is not a reliable measure of guilt (:; ).

Montaigne evaluates demonology’s use of confession in light of the criteria mentioned above, fi nding it to be catastrophically lacking on all three counts. Witches’ confessions are without plausibility, he contends, evoking the fantastic “stories” (contes) promoted by demonology. Th ey are equally unreliable when it comes to referentiality, the essayist suggests, by point-ing out that the people “witches” sometimes confess to murdering are later found to be alive and healthy. Th e essayist’s skepticism precludes any dog-matic assertions regarding unverifi able truths. But he does call into question the “facts” that demonologists are busy interpreting. Finally, he reserves much of his skepticism for the question of voluntariness, since this point was central to the legal tradition of the inquest. Montaigne is often associated with a deep conservatism when it comes to challenging the law, and indeed, he generally advocates following the law rather than attempting to change it. On the question of judicial torture, however, he takes what was a radical stand for his time. His opposition is based on the inhumanity of torture itself as well as the unreliability of the confessions it is used to elicit. In “De la conscience,” he maintains that confession under torture cannot serve as the guarantee of truth. What is said under torture can be just as easily false as true: “C’est une dangereuse invention que celle des gehenes, et semble que ce soit plustost un essay de patience que de vérité” [Tortures are a dangerous invention, and seem to be a test of endurance rather than of truth] (Essais, :; ). Rather than forcing the guilty to speak the truth, pain can just as easily force the innocent to lie, Montaigne suggests through Pub-lius Syrus: “Etiam innocentes cogit mentiri dolor” (:; ). So many innocent people have been sent to their deaths based on a false confession. “Mille et mille en ont chargé leur teste de fauces confessions” [Th ousands and thousands have thus loaded their head with false confessions] (:; ). Stripped of any judicial or truth value by the use of coercion, confes-sion becomes simply a process for generating narratives.

Th is rejection of judicial confession is part of a sustained attack on demonology conducted on a properly epistemological terrain. Demonology, he argues, elevates opinion to the status of certain knowledge. Inanity, illu-sion, dreams, conjectures, error, these terms scattered through “Des boyteux” are so many words for the “truths” promoted by the early modern science of demons. To be sure, opinion masquerading as certainty is for Montaigne a human trait: “there is nothing on which men are commonly more intent


than on making a way for their opinions” (Essais, :; ). However, demonology transforms this natural human tendency into an inhuman vio-lence, as the essayist suggests with a passage that must have enraged his peers in demonological circles: “it is putting a very high price on one’s conjectures to have a man roasted alive because of them” (:; ).

Th e chapter develops nuanced analysis of the methods of demonol-ogy, identifying the processes of manufacturing (false) certainty underlying its project. Demonology, Montaigne suggests, is a kind of infernal machine that produces its own truths to fi t its own reality.

Notre discours est capable d’estoff er cent autres mondes et d’en trouver les principes et la contexture. Il ne luy faut ny matiere ny baze; laissez le courre: il bastit aussi bien sur le vuide que sur le plain, et de l’inanité que de matière.

[Our reason (discours) is capable of fi lling out a hundred other worlds and fi nding their principles and contexture. It needs nei-ther matter nor basis; let it run on; it builds as well on emptiness as on fullness, and with inanity as with matter.] (Essais, :; )

Human discours (both discourse and reason) can determine the hidden laws of hundreds of imaginary worlds. How easy, then, to envisage how the insti-tution of demonology could supply for the myth of the sabbat a content complete with general principles (through its theoretical pursuits) and spe-cifi c participants (through its judicial endeavors). Th e fi rst-person narratives of “witches” are hollow dreams, the essayist goes on to suggest. It is the sci-ence of demons that provides the substance to fi ll these empty forms: “Les sorcieres de mon voisinage courent hazard de leur vie, sur l’advis de chaque nouvel autheur qui vient donner corps à leurs songes” (:; ).

As an analogy of demonology’s functioning, the essayist proposes the deceptively anodyne workings of the proverb in the fi nal sections of the chapter. Casting himself in the role of the credulous believer, he relates how he was taken in by a reifi ed opinion. In Italy, the essayist reports, there is a common proverb that would have it that lame women make the best sexual partners. Ancient philosophers and writers of history provide validation for this proverb. Montaigne cites Aristotle’s medical explanation based on blood fl ow while invoking the story of Amazons who crippled male slaves partly in order to make them more satisfying sex slaves. It was based solely on the authority of this proverb (with its historical and medico-philosophical sanc-


tions) that Montaigne admits to having been himself convinced that he had received more pleasure from a woman because she was lame. Making himself the dupe of the proverb, and exploiting a salacious anecdote as well, allows him to defl ate the deep criticism he is off ering. But he nevertheless brings home his point, fi rmly relating this fi nal anecdote to the chapter’s initial criticism of demonology by adding, “Do not these examples confi rm what I was saying at the beginning: that our reasons often anticipate the fact, and extend their jurisdiction so infi nitely that they exercise their judgment even in inanity and nonbeing?” (Essais, :; ). Th e judiciary subtext of this theoretical discussion is emphasized with the terms jurisdiction and judg-ment. Th e result is a damning portrait of the demonologist-judge extending his jurisdiction well beyond the scope of reason, pronouncing judgments and interpretations based on fantastic fi ctions or nothing at all (inanity or nonbeing). Montaigne identifi es the underlying logic to be one that provides causes for imaginary eff ects, substance for empty dreams, and fi rm facts for nonbeing.

But there is a second characteristic of the proverb that makes it an apt metaphor for demonology. Montaigne recognizes in the proverb the importance of repetition, which can give a luster of truth to any assertion. (Th is understanding of the proverb’s use of repetition is not unlike modern notions of propaganda’s reliance on repetition.) Th e proverb “he does not know Venus in her perfect sweetness who has not lain with a cripple” gath-ers part of its force because it has been “in the mouth of the people” [en la bouche du peuple] for a long time. Th e proverb is not an assertion, but rather a constant process of reiteration; it is not just stated, but repeatedly restated. And like the proverb, confession belongs to a process of legitima-tion through reiteration. Although confession requires the fi rst-person (“I confess”) as opposed to the impersonal mode of the proverb (“it is said”), in practice these two forms of discourse converge. Like the proverb, confes-sion is perhaps best understood not as an individual utterance, but rather as a reiteration and legitimation of a shared narrative—a metanarrative rather than an individual’s intimate and unique declaration. Just as the proverb disseminates a common opinion, so Renaissance confessional productions served to reinforce a collective narrative—be it of the most fantastic sort such as the nocturnal sabbat in demonology, or the more common under-standing of fallen humanity’s propensity to sin, in sacramental confession.

If confession has come to occupy a privileged place in Western cul-ture, we might conclude that this refl ects more the needs of institutions than the psychological needs of the individual. To be sure, demonology presents


an extreme example of institutional uses and abuses of confession. Yet the lessons of the Renaissance’s science of demons are all the more important to recall given demonology’s particular moment in history. For confession was increasingly hailed as the privileged instrument of self-discovery and self-expression, the occasion for an individual to express and affi rm his or her singularity. Poised on the threshold of the modern period, demonology stands as a sobering example of how the confessing subject can be called upon to reaffi rm an institution’s own narratives. As in Montaigne’s phrase quoted above, confession allows institutions to “exercise their judgment even in inanity and nonbeing.”

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Notes

Pierre de Lancre, Tableau de l’ inconstance des mauvais anges et demons, ed. Nicole Jacques-Chaquin (Paris: Aubier, ), .

“Souvent les Juges se trouvent empeschez sur les confessions des Sorcieres, & font dif-fi culté d’y asseoir jugement, veu les choses estranges qu’elles confessent, parce que les uns cuident que ce soyent fables de ce qu’elles disent.” Jean Bodin, De la démonomanie des sorciers (Paris, ), fol. v. In quoting from the original French, I have expanded abbreviations and diff erentiated between u and v, i and j. Translations, unless other-wise noted, are by Randy A. Scott, On the Demon-Mania of Witches (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, ). Further citations are given parentheti-cally in the text to folio references from the original French edition, followed by page numbers from the translation when available.

Th e translation is my own. Démonomanie, v: “on voit les confessions des Sorciers d’Allemaigne, d’Italie, de France, d’Espaigne, des anciens Grecs & Latins, estre sem-blables.”

Most demonological treatises generally presume witches to be female and adopt mostly feminine nouns and pronouns. Bodin’s generic terminology shifts back and forth be-tween feminine and masculine nouns (le sorcier/la sorcière), and this hesitation is re-fl ected in the passages cited below. In my own terminology when not quoting any given text, I have used feminine pronouns since this is the dominant trend in demonological discourse and since a clear majority of convicted witches were in fact women.

Michel Foucault, Histoire de la sexualité, vol. (Paris: Gallimard, ), –. See also Foucault’s lectures on confession in Les Anormaux: cours au Collège de France (–), ed. Valerio Marchetti and Antonella Salomoni (Paris: Seuil, ), –. My thanks to Pierre Saint-Amand for bringing Foucault’s elaboration on early modern confes-sional practices in Les Anormaux to my attention.

Jacques Chiff oleau, “Sur la pratique et la conjoncture de l’aveu judiciaire en France du XIIIe au XVe siècle,” L’Aveu: Antiquité et Moyen-Age (Rome: Ecole Française de Rome, ), .


See Matthew Senior, In the Grip of Minos: Confessional Discourse in Dante, Corneille, and Racine (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, ); and Peter Brooks, Trou-bling Confessions: Speaking Guilt in Law and Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ).

Robin Briggs, Witches and Neighbors: Th e Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft (New York: Viking, ), .

Michel Foucault, “End of the Monarchy of Sex,” trans. Dudley M. Marchi, Foucault Live (New York: Semiotext(e), ), .

Th e scientifi c or theoretical ambitions of demonology are the focus of two important recent works: Stuart Clark, Th inking with Demons: Th e Idea of Witchcraft in Early Mod-ern Europe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, ); and Walter Stephens, Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ). My essay has been shaped by their understanding of demonology as a theoretical enter-prise—an exercise in “epistemology and ontology” as much as “theology and morality” (Clark, ). However, I disagree with their tendency to make an abstraction of its emi-nently practical endeavors carried out in the judicial sphere—namely, identifying and convicting witches.

Edward Peters, Torture (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, ), . Robert Muchembled, La Sorcière au village XVe–XVIIIe s. (Paris: Gallimard, ),

–. Bodin, Démonomanie; Henry Boguet, Discours execrable des sorciers (Marseille: Laffi tte

Reprints, ); Boguet, “Instructions pour un juge en fait de sorcellerie,” in Roland Vil-leneuve, Les Procès de sorcellerie (Paris: Payot, ); Boguet, Les Procès inédits de Boguet en matière de sorcellerie dans la Grande Judicature de Saint-Claude (XVIe–XVIIe siècles), ed. Francis Bavoux (Dijon: Imprimerie Bernigaud et Privat, ); Nicolas Rémy, La Démonolâtrie, ed. and trans. Jean Boës (Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, ); and de Lancre, Tableau de l’ inconstance des mauvais anges et demons. For critical discus-sion of these treatises, see Clark, Th inking with Demons; Stephens, Demon Lovers; Mari-anne Closson, L’Imaginaire démoniaque en France (–): Genèse de la littérature fantastique (Geneva: Droz, ); and Sylvie Houdard, Les Sciences du Diable: Quatre discours sur la sorcellerie (XVe–XVIIe siècle) (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, ).

See the introduction to the recent French translation, Le Marteau des sorcières, trans. and ed. Amand Danet (Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, ), –. According to Danet, the editio princeps was published in either or . Walter Stephens gives the pub-lication date as , and he also argues that Sprenger probably had nothing to do with the writing of the work (Demon Lovers, ).

John H. Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof: Europe and England in the Ancien Régime (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ), .

Peters, Torture, , . Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof, . Robert Mandrou describes the procedure in

the following terms: “Dans la pratique judiciaire traditionnelle, les relaxes prononcées par les juges intervenaient dans le seul cas où le suspect soumis à la question ordinaire et extraordinaire pouvait maintenir ses dénégations: sans aveu, point de bûcher.” Mag-istrats et sorciers en France au XVIIe siècle: une analyse de psychologie historique (Paris: Plon, ), .


Th e Malleus malefi carum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, part III, questions –; trans. and ed. Montague Summers (; repr. New York: Dover, ), –.

Bodin writes that if an accused witch is found in possession of toads or a piece of the host, this constitutes “faict evident & permanent” (v). Jean Céard summarizes Bodin’s presentation of this three-part system (indicia, testimony, and confession) in “Le procès du carroi de Marlou et le système de la preuve,” Les Sorciers du carroi de Marlou: Un procès de sorcellerie en Berry (–) (Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, ), –.

“Aussi est telle preuve plus forte que la confession mesmes volontaire & judiciaire de l’accusé” (Démonomanie, v–r).

“Il faut donc s’arrester à la verité du fait permanent, que le Juge void ou cognoist, ou touche, ou perçoit, ou cognoist par l’un des cinq cens . . .” (Démonomanie, r). Bodin’s willingness to rely on indicia (circumstantial evidences) points to the general unravelling of the Roman-canon law of proof in use at the time. A subsidiary system of proof that allowed courts to punish without full proof (confession or testimony) emerged in the legal practice of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For instance, article of the Villers-Cotterêts ordinance () permitted the courts to punish on the basis of compelling circumstantial evidence. In contrast to earlier jurists eager to eliminate judicial discretion, Bodin’s position is in keeping with his time insofar as he seems willing to rely on the judge’s evaluation of evidence. See Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof, and .

Cf. Pierre de Lancre, who seems to assume that every confession comes with its cor-responding indicia: “Les confessions des Sorciers se rencontrent avec des indices si violents, qu’on peut assurer, qu’elles sont véritables, réelles et non prestigieuses ni par illusion: qui met les juges hors de tout scrupule. Car quand ils confessent les infanti-cides, les parents trouvent leurs enfants suff oqués, ou leur sang tout sucé: Quand le désensevelissement des corps, et la religion des sépulcres violée, on trouve que les corps arrachés de leurs sépulcres ne se trouvent plus ès lieux où ils avaient été mis . . .” (De l’ inconstance des mauvais anges et démons, ).

Briggs, Witches and Neighbors, . “C’est donc l’avis de Bodin en une infi nité de lieux en sa Démonomanie, et en la réfuta-

tion des opinions de Wier, qu’il faut faire mourir la sorcière pour avoir été simplement au sabbat, et beaucoup plutôt que pour autre maléfi ce que ce soit, pour raison duquel les juges ne font nulle diffi culté de les faire mourir” (de Lancre, De l’ inconstance des mauvais anges et démons, ).

“Historical European witchcraft is quite simply a fi ction, in the sense that there is no evidence that witches existed, still less that they celebrated black masses or worshipped strange gods” (Briggs, Witches and Neighbors, ). Infl uential earlier thinkers (Michelet and Murray) viewed the sabbat as a continuation of pagan rituals.

See Chiff oleau, “Sur la pratique et la conjoncture de l’aveu judiciaire en France du XIIIe au XVe siècle”; and Edward Peters, Th e Magician, the Witch, and the Law (Phila-delphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, ), .

Malleus malefi carum, pt. III, quest. ; trans. Summers, –: But it may be objected that the devil might, without the use of such charms, so harden the heart of a witch that she is unable to confess her crimes; just as it is


often found in the case of other criminals, no matter how great the torture to which they are exposed, or how much they are convicted by the evidence of the facts of witnesses. We answer that it is true that the devil can eff ect such tacitur-nity without the use of such charms; but he prefers to use them for the perdition of souls and the greater off ence to the Divine Majesty of God.

Démonomanie, r; . “. . . si le Sorcier à [sic] sur luy le Sort de silence, . . . il ne sen-tira douleur quelconques en la question, & ne confessera jamais la verité.” Rémy pro-vides similar accounts, including the story of one Quirine Xallé (executed in ) who fi rst resisted confession thanks to demonic intervention. She fi nally freed herself from this demon and gave a detailed confession. “Aff ranchie de la servitude du démon, qu’on lui ordonna d’abjurer d’abord en termes clairs, elle fi t en détail l’exposé de tout ce qu’elle avait commis depuis le jour où elle s’était vouée à lui” (La Démonolâtrie, trans. Boës, ). Rémy pushes the metaphor of freeing oneself (from the devil) through con-fession to an extreme: “elles [les sorcières] sont unanimes à répéter que leur premier jour de liberté fut, dans leur malheur, celui où le juge leur infl igea la violence terrifi ante de la torture” ().

“And many have been found who, driven by some necessity or poverty, have been in-duced by other witches, in the hope of ultimate forgiveness in confession, to become either total or partial apostates from the faith. And it is such whom the devil deserts without any compulsion by a holy Angel; and therefore they readily confess their crimes, whereas others, who have from their hearts bound themselves to the devil, are pro-tected by his power and preserve a stubborn silence” (Malleus malefi carum, pt. III, quest. ; trans. Summers, –).

Stephens, Demon Lovers, . See also Closson, L’Imaginaire démoniaque en France, . Michel de Montaigne, Les Essais, vols, ed. Pierre Villey and V.-L. Saulnier (Paris:

Presses Universitaires de France, ), :–; trans. Donald Frame, Th e Complete Essays of Montaigne (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, ), . Further citations, given parenthetically in the text, are to volume and page numbers from the French edition, followed by page numbers from Frame’s translation.

“Et en plusieurs procés j’ay trouvé que les malefi ces estoyent donnez ordinairement le Samedy” (Démonomanie, r).

Rémy uses confession along with sacred and profane authorities to “confi rm” the real-ity of witchcraft: “C’est se tromper que de nier, avec les épicuriens, que les démons fréquentent les hommes, leur apportent des consolations, leur inspirent des terreurs, leur tendent des pièges, leur causent injustices, ennuis et dommages, puisque tout cela est attesté un peu partout dans les histoires aussi bien sacrées que profanes, sans compter en outre que, de nos jours, les sorcières, d’une seule voix le confi rment” (La Démonolâtrie, ).

As Stephens, Demon Lovers, , states, “witches’ confessions proved that the system-atic theory correctly described reality.”

From Aquinas’s Summa theologica: “Nihil est quod occulte in aliquo loco sacrae Scrip-turae tradatur, quod alibi non manifeste exponatur”; quoted by Antoine Compagnon, Le Démon de la Th éorie (Paris: Seuil, ), ; my translation.

“Et de faict la fi lle de Jeanne Harvillier voyant sa mere prisonniere s’en fuit, & depuis on sçeut qu’elle en estoit aussi: & les fi lles de Barbe Doré aussi tost que leur mere fut


prise pour les Sorcelleries, s’en fuirent, sans estre accusees ny recherchees, & depuis l’un des Sorciers familier de ladicte Doré deposa que toute la race en estoit” (Démonomanie, v; my translation).

Johan Weyer, De praestigiis daemonum, Book VI, chap. ; quoted by Mandrou, Magis-trats et Sorciers, ; my translation.

On Weyer’s skepticism regarding witches’ confessions, see Clark, Th inking with Demons, .

“Or il y a double confession: l’une voluntaire, l’autre forcee” (Démonomanie, r; ). Th e importance of voluntariness is prolonged into contemporary debate in the United

States surrounding, for instance, the Miranda warnings. See Brooks, Troubling Confes-sions, –.

See Lucien Febvre, Le Problème de l’Incroyance au XVIe Siècle (; repr. Paris: Albin Michel, ), .

Cyrano de Bergerac, “Lettre contre les sorciers,” Œuvres complètes II, ed. Luciano Erba (Paris: Champion, ), : “. . . on ne doit croire d’un homme que ce qui est humain, c’est-à-dire possible et ordinaire.”

See Peter Shoemaker, “Lafayette’s Confi dence Game: Plausibility and Private Confes-sion in La Princesse de Clèves and Zaïde,” French Forum . (): –. Compare to Amy Wygant, who examines the notion of plausibility in light of neoclassical theater and the demonological imagination. “D’Aubignac, Demonologist, II: St. Anthony and the Satyr,” Seventeenth-Century French Studies (): –.

Th e terms are Inge Wimmers’s, Poetics of Reading: Approaches to the Novel (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, ), quoted by Shoemaker, “Lafayette’s Confi dence Game,” .

“La cognoissance des causes appartient seulement à celuy qui a la conduite des choses, non à nous qui n’en avons que la souff rance, et qui en avons l’usage parfaictement plein, selon nostre nature, sans en penetrer l’origine et l’essence” (Montaigne, Essais, :; ).

On Montaigne’s ties to this milieu, see Géralde Nakam, Les “Essais” de Montaigne: Miroir et Procès de leur Temps (Paris: Nizet, ), and .

“My ears are battered by a thousand stories like this: ‘Th ree people saw him on such-and-such a time, in such-and-such a place, dressed thus.’ Truly, I would not believe my own self about this. How much more natural and likely (vraysemblable) it seems to me that two men are lying than that one man should pass with the winds in twelve hours from the east to the west!” (Essais, :; ).

“However, even in such matters they say that we must not always be satisfi ed with con-fessions, for such persons have sometimes been known to accuse themselves of having killed people who were found to be alive and healthy” (ibid., :; ).

“Th ey pass over the facts, but they assiduously examine their consequences. Th ey ordi-narily begin thus: ‘How does this happen?’ What they should say is: ‘But does it hap-pen?’ ” (ibid., :–; ).

I borrow the notion of metanarrative from Jean-François Lyotard, La Condition post-moderne (Paris: Minuit, ).

Documents

Virgina Krause, Confessional Fictions