In studying the cult of the witches, plain and irrefragable proof is found that the personage called by Christian writers “the Devil,” was considered by the witches themselves to be God incarnate as a man. To this deity they made sacrifices of various kinds, the most important of such sacrifices being that of a child. The child was either a witch’s child, or was unbaptised; in other words, it did not belong to the Christian Church. This was an important point, and was the reason why unbaptised children were thought to be in more danger from witches than the baptised. “If there be anie children unbaptised, or not garded with the signe of the crosse, or orizons; then the witches may or doo catch them from their mothers sides in the night, or out of their cradles, or otherwise kill them with their ceremonies.” The same author quotes the following as among the crimes laid to the charge of witches: “They sacrifice their own children to the devil before baptism, holding them up in the air to him, and thrust a needle into their brains”; and “they burn their children when they have sacrified them.” Boguet says: “Les Matrones & sage femmes ont accoustomé d’offrir à Satan les petits enfans qu’elles reçoiuent, & puis les faire mourir auant qu’ils soient baptisez, par le moye d’vne grosse espingle qu’elles leur enfoncent dans le cerueau.” Boguet’s words imply that this was done at every birth at which a witch officiated; but it is very certain that this could not have been the case. The sacrifice was probably made for some special purpose, for which a new-born child was the appropriate victim.
The most detailed account of these sacrifices is given in the trial of the Paris witches (1679-81), whom Madame de Montespan consulted. The whole ceremony was performed to the end that the love of Louis XIV should return to Madame de Montespan, at that time his discarded mistress; it seems to be a more or less distorted fertility rite, hence its use on this occasion. The Abbé Guibourg was the sacrificing priest, and from other indications he appears to have been the Chief or Master of the witches, who, before a less educated tribunal, would have been called the Devil. Both he and the girl Montvoisin were practically agreed as to the rite; though, from the girl’s words, it would appear that the child was already dead, while Guibourg’s evidence implies that it was alive. The evidence of both witnesses was given gravely and soberly, and without torture. The Montvoisin girl, who was 18 years old, stated that she had presented “à la messe de Madame de Montespan, par l’ordre de sa mère, un enfant paraissant né avant terme, le mit dans un bassin, Guibourg l’égorgea, versa dans le calice, et consacra le sang avec hostie.” Guibourg’s evidence shows that the sacrifice was so far from being uncommon that the assistants were well used to the work, and did all that was required with the utmost celerity: “Il avait acheté un écu l’enfant qui fut sacrifié à cette messe qui lui fut presenté par une grande fille et ayant tiré du sang de l’enfant qu’il piqua à la gorge avec un canif, il en versa dans le calice, après quoi l’enfant fut retiré et emporté dans un autre lieu dont ensuite on lui rapporta le coeur et les entrailles pour en faire une deuxième [oblation].”
The whole of this ceremony seems to be traditional. Such a custom would account for the continued belief, in early times, of the blood or flesh of a sacrificed child in the most holy of religious rites. The belief is preserved in the accusations || brought constantly against the Jews, and it occurs also in Christian legend, notably the Holy Grail: “The bishop took a wafer which was made in the likeness of bread, and at the lifting up there came a figure in the likeness of a child, and the visage was as red and as bright as any fire, and smote himself into that bread, so that they all saw that the bread was formed of a fleshly man. And then he put it into the holy vessel again.” The same idea is expressed with, even more precise and ghastly detail in a legend of Christian Egypt: “When the time of the Mysteries arrived, there appeared to the three of them as it were a child on the table. And when the priest stretched out his hand to break the bread, behold the angel of the Lord came down from heaven with a knife in his hand, and he slew the child and pressed out his blood into the cup; and when the priest broke off from the bread small members, the old man drew nigh that he might partake of the Holy Offering, and a piece of living flesh smeared and dripping with blood was given to him.”
