The ceremony of consolation, or heretication, was only performed at the point of death; but if the sick person should show signs of recovery, he or she was required to abstain from food, or to open a vein, so as to prevent convalescence and precipitate death. I may as well give a few instances which came under the notice of the inquisitors of Toulouse, from Limborch:--
"This admission was believed to save the soul of the person admitted, and was called spiritual baptism, the consolation, the reception, and the good end; and it was believed that those sanctified by it were bound from that moment to abstain from touching a person of another sex, and from food, or the soul fell from its state of purification. Thus we read of the trial of a woman whose father had been received amongst the Albigenses, 'that she was forbidden by her father to touch him, because after his reception no woman ought to touch him, and from that time she never did touch him.' (Fol. 49.) And in another woman's trial, 'that it was unlawful for her to touch Peter Sancii, and that she heard that it was reported amongst them that they neither touch a woman, nor suffer themselves to be touched by one.' (Fol. 68.) But inasmuch as it was possible that the person received might return to his former pollutions (says Limborch in his introduction to the Acts of the Inquisition), his reception was delayed to his last sickness, when there was no more hopes of recovery, that so he might not lose the good he had received; for which reason some were not admitted, though one of the Albigenses was present, because it was not believed they would immediately die. Thus it is reported of Peter Sancii (fol. 68) that having called 'to hereticate a certain sick woman, she was not then hereticated, because he did not think it proper, upon account of her not being weak enough.' And afterwards, though the distemper grew more violent, Peter Sancii did not hereticate her, because she recovered. As for those who were received during their illness, they were commanded to make use of the Endura, that is, fasting, and to hasten death by opening a vein and bathing. Thus it is related of a certain woman, that 'she persevered in the abstinence which they call the Endura many days, and hastened her bodily death by losing her blood, frequent bathing, and greedily taking a poisonous draught of the juice of wild cucumbers, mixing it with broken glass, that, by tearing her bowels, she might sooner die.' (Fol. 14-_b_.) Of another, it is said, 'that she was forbidden by her mother-in-law to give her little daughter, who had been hereticated by Peter Sancii, any milk to drink, by which the child died.' (Fol. 46.) Another confesses, 'that she had not seen her father since his heretication eating or drinking anything but cold water.' (Fol. 49.) But one Hugo, who continued several days in the Endura, did afterwards, by his mother's persuasion, eat and recover. (Fol. 63.) The same year, Peter Sancii invited him 'to enter into the Endura, and so to make a good end; but he would not agree to it till he came to die.' The same Hugo saw 'that Sancii procured and hastened his own death by bleeding, bathing, and cold.' Peter Auterii is said to have received another woman, 'and after her reception to have forbidden any meat being given to the said hereticated sick woman; and that there were two women who attended her, and watched that there should be neither meat nor drink given her the whole night, nor the following day, lest she should lose the good she had received, and contradict the order of Peter Auterii; although the said sick woman begged them to give her some food. But the third day after she did eat and grew well.' (Fol. 65-_b_.) In the sentence of Peter Raymund and of the Hugos, we read these things concerning the Endura: 'You voluntarily shorten your own corporal life, and inflict death upon yourself; because you put yourself in that abstinence, which the heretics call Endura, in which Endura you have now remained six days without meat or drink, and would not eat, nor will, though often invited to do so.' (Fol. 82-_b_.) However, all would not subject themselves to so severe a law. For we read of a certain woman 'that she suffered not her sick daughter, though near death, to be received; because then her said daughter must be put in the Endura.' (Fol. 71.) There is also an instance of a woman, who, for fear she should be taken up by the Inquisitors, put herself in the Endura; and sending for a surgeon, ordered him to open one of her veins in a bath, and after the surgeon was gone, she unbound her arm in the bath, that so the blood running out more freely, she might sooner die. After this she bought poison in order to destroy herself.