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Abstract
The Tableau de l’inconstance des mauvais anges et démons (Portrait of the inconstancy of evil angels and demons, 1612) by the Bordeaux magistrate Pierre de Lancre offers a famous account of a witch-hunt conducted by the author in the French Basque country in 1609. Yet it also contains a detailed description of the 1603 trial for lycanthropy of thirteen-year-old Jean Grenier, likely the youngest person ever to be convicted as a werewolf. This article systematically compares De Lancre’s Tableau with other neglected accounts. Although all of these versions are second-hand, collating them brings us closer to the original trial records and helps us make sense of Grenier’s voluntary confession. At the same time, this comparison reveals what details De Lancre chose to highlight and omit in his Tableau and therefore also offers fresh insight into the mental world of the Bordeaux judge held responsible for France’s largest witch-hunt.
Acknowledgements
Early versions of this article were presented at the conferences ‘Bodies and Minds in the Early Modern Catholic Worlds’ (Warwick, 2017) and ‘Voice and Crime in Early Modern France’ (Trinity College, Cambridge, 2018). I would like to thank Elizabeth Tingle and Luc Racaut for the invitation to take part in a session on lycanthropy at the Warwick conference (without which this article would never have been written) and Tom Hamilton for inviting me to participate in the Cambridge workshop. I am also grateful to Willem de Blécourt, Robin Briggs, Tom Hamilton, Virginia Krause, Thibaut Maus de Rolley, and Caroline Oates, as well as the two anonymous reviewers, for their comments on drafts of this article. It has become a much richer study as a result. Special thanks are also due to the editor and assistant editor of Folklore, Jessica Hemming and Antone Minard, for their help and advice during the revision stage.
Notes
Notes
1 On Lorraine, see Briggs (2007, 122–26). For the ‘Wolf-banner’ of Carinthia, see Schulte (Citation2009b, 57–58). On the Livonian werewolf, see De Blécourt (Citation2007b). For the Franche-Comté, see Oates (1993) and Schulte (Citation2009a, 8–35).
2 Another inspiration is Thibaut Maus de Rolley’s forthcoming study of the confession of Louis Gaufridy, the priest held responsible for the demonic possession of Madeleine Demandols de La Palud and executed for witchcraft in Aix-en-Provence in 1611: ‘“Moi, Louis Gaufridy, ayant soufflé plus de mille femmes”: Un examen de la Confession de Louis Gaufridy (1611)’ (‘I, Louis Gaufridy, having breathed over a thousand women’: An examination of the confession of Louis Gaufridy [1611]).
3 BnF MS Français 13346, fols. 280–320. The MS is available on the library’s Gallica website (https://gallica.bnf.fr). There are some minor errors in the transcriptions of names and places. Mandrou also updated French spelling in a rather inconsistent fashion.
4 Mandrou later changed his mind, identifying Filesac as ‘un homme d’Eglise et de grande culture’ (a highly cultured man of the Church) (1979, 33).
5 The observation by Moréri that his writings are ‘pleins de citations, et ne sont presque qu’un tissu de passages … sans beaucoup d’ordre, ne de methode’ (full of citations and almost nothing more than a tissue of quotations … without much order or method) seems an apt description of the avis as well (Moréri Citation1732, 3: 632).
6 Filesac interrupts his digressive account suddenly (Mandrou Citation1979, 104–105): ‘Pour conclure cette prononciation, toutes ces raisons et plusieurs autres d’une part et d’autre ont esté examinées et posés, mais enfin la cour a eu égard à l’âge et imbecillité de cet enfant’ (To conclude this pronouncement, all these reasons and several others for both sides were examined and discussed but finally the court had regard for the age and imbecility of this child). For the arrêt, see Mandrou (1979, 109) and De Lancre (Citation1612, 211 [=311]). Both De Lancre’s Tableau and Automne’s Conférence contain pagination errors. In those instances, the correct page number is indicated using square brackets.
7 ‘Comme iestoy sur le point de rechercher curieusement et exactement ce que les bons livres disent de la Lycanthropie’ (De Lancre Citation1612, 254). Daffis died in 1610 (Le Mao Citation2007, 365). To keep the number of endnotes manageable, only lengthier quotations are provided in full. With shorter translations, I have provided the original French in-line when relevant.
8 ‘tout si mal rangé et si faulsement, comme passé par une infinité de diverses mains, qu’a pene pouvoy ie recognoistre l’ouvrier en son ouvrage’ (De Lancre Citation1612, 255).
9 ‘tres-necessaire d’en coucher icy les principaux poincts et les plus importants, qui esclairciront mesme ce qu’il en a dict, tirez mot à mot de la procedure, tout ainsi qu’elle est és registres de la Cour de Parlement de Bourdeaux, sans y rien adiouster ny diminuer’ (De Lancre Citation1612, 256).
10 ‘la chair des enfants estoit grandement savoureuse’ (Gaufreteau 1877–78, 2: 45).
11 ‘tria fere millia velut oracula’ (Automne Citation1610, sig. ē1v).
12 The list of ‘fonctionnaires et artisans’ (officials and artisans) provided by Aymar de Saint-Saud (Citation1992, chap. 12, esp. pages 148 and 153) suggests that the name of the procureur d’office was Pierre Ardouin.
13 ‘qu’il n’y avoit pas encores demie heure que sur le sueil de sa porte luy avoit esté ravie du loup une petitte fillette’ (Prieur Citation1596, fol. 32r).
14 On the history of this region, which saw considerable conflict during the early years of the Wars of Religion, see Saint-Saud (Citation1992). For a table with population figures, the earliest of which date to 1709, see Florenty (Citation1996, 608).
15 ‘si stupide et idiot que les enfans de sept à huit ans témoignent ordinairement plus de jugemens’ (Mandrou Citation1979, 105).
16 ‘aucunement hebeté … choses legeres qui consistent en sens commun’ (De Lancre Citation1612, 315).
17 ‘Par ce (dict il) que ie me veux marier avec elle, si bien que si c’est vous ie me veux marier avec vous’ (De Lancre Citation1612, 257).
18 ‘les enfans et les filles estoient beaucoup plus plaisantes et delicates à manger’ (De Lancre Citation1612, 257, 258). Compare Mandrou (1979, 43) and Automne (1610, 994 [=1002]).
19 ‘s’il eust pu la jetter par terre, il l’aurait bien mordue’ (Mandrou Citation1979, 50).
20 According to De Lancre, Grenier worked for two weeks as a herdsman before changing masters (De Lancre Citation1612, 258). This could have coincided with his two-week stay at La Reynerie. The date for the March assault is variously given as ‘le premier vendredy de la lune de mars’ (the first Friday of the moon of March) and ‘le premier vendredy de la lune de Pasques’ (the first Friday of the moon of Easter). Assuming this refers to the full moon, this works out as the same date. I am grateful to Philipp Nothaft for discussing this chronological puzzle with me.
21 ‘le procès fut fait et parfait et qu’il ne restat qu’à donner la sentence’ (Mandrou Citation1979, 53–54).
22 ‘tout ce qu’il a dit est veritable, mesmes de Pierre del Tillaire et de son pere, et que sa belle mere a quitté son pere, parce qu’elle luy vit vomir des mains de petis enfans des des pieds de chien: qu’ils ont couru ensemble, mangerent une fille aux Grillaus, dont il ya deux, et depuis il ne la mené courir avec luy, comme aussi il a esté deux ans sans courir, et n’a couru que puis trois mois’ (Automne Citation1610, 1004). A road called the ‘Chemin des Grillaux’ is located twenty kilometres to the west of Saint-Antoine-sur-l’Isle.
23 ‘il persiste en ce qui le concerne, bien qu’en plusieurs choses il soit trouvé variant mesme en ce qui regarde son père et Pierre du Tillaire’ (Mandrou Citation1979, 58–59).
24 ‘ils ne cherchoyent des filles que pour eniouïer et non les manger, mais pour son regard ayant persisté d’avoir mangé des filles’ (Automne Citation1610, 1007). See also Mandrou (1979, 59), where Grenier declared that ‘quelquefois qu’ils cherchaient des filles pour en abuser’ (sometimes they looked for girls to abuse).
25 ‘qu’ ils couraient par les bois, brandes et chemins, cherchant des filles pour les embrasser, mais n’en trouvèrent, et que pour luy il en avait defloré trois’ (Mandrou Citation1979, 58).
26 ‘Jean fils est idiot, que pour une pomme il dire ce que l’on voudra, et pour témoignage de son imbecillité de cerveau, que tous ceux qui se voulaient donner du plaisir, luy faisaient confesser qu’il avait couché avec toutes les femmes qu’ils luy nommaient’ (Mandrou Citation1979, 52).
27 If we confine ourselves to the attacks Grenier confessed to carrying out alone, his victims consisted of two boys (the unnamed infant taken from its crib and the two-year-old from Puy Arnaud) and four girls (an unnamed girl in a black dress, Marguerite Poirier, three-year-old Guyonne, and an unnamed girl from La Ronce).
28 ‘sans qu’elle s’estait mise en défense et qu’il estait seul, il l’eut mangée et peignée mieux qu’avec un peigne de fer’ (Mandrou Citation1979, 43).
29 ‘la deposition et tesmoignage d’un fils de treze ans est receu contre le pere’ (De Lancre Citation1612, 261). Several of De Lancre’s teenaged witnesses were led to the sabbat by their parents (De Lancre Citation1612, 108 and 143).
30 Filesac’s description of the case, as edited by Mandrou, takes up pages 42–60 (Mandrou Citation1979), Automne’s pages 1001–1008 (Automne Citation1610); leaving aside the confrontation with the father, the Tableau covers the same events until page 51 (Mandrou Citation1979) and page 1004 (Automne Citation1610), respectively, in these other accounts.
31 Note, in particular, the opening ‘discours’ on ‘l’inconstance des Demons’ (on the inconstancy of demons) (De Lancre Citation1612, 1–25). One could also cite here De Lancre’s earlier Tableau de l’inconstance et instabilité de toutes choses (Portrait of the inconstancy and instability of all things, 1607). The 1612 Tableau is styled as a follow-up to this earlier attempt at philosophy.
32 In Lorraine in 1624, a thirteen-year-old witness similarly described the sabbat as taking place ‘dans une maison toute de fer ou tout brusloit, neanmoins ne sentoient aucune chaleur’ (in a house made of steel where everything was on fire, but one nevertheless did not feel any heat) (Briggs Citation1993, 172).
33 ‘Qu’il la print, la voulant tuer, … qu’ il se vouloit marier avec elle’ (De Lancre Citation1612, 259).
34 ‘Mais il est remarquable qu’il dict que ce fut luy avant faict couler la robe en bas, car il ne la luy dechira pas: qui est une chose qu’on a observee, pour monstrer qu’encore que les vrays loup dechirent avec les griffes, neantmoins les loups-garoux dechirent avec les dens, et comme hommes sçavant depouiller les robes aux filles qu’ils veulent manger, sans les dechirer’ (De Lancre Citation1612, 260).
35 ‘qui monstre clairement qu’il a faict le mestier de loup-garou, et qu’il usoit de ses mains, et pour courir, et pour prendre les enfans et les chiens à la gorge’ (De Lancre Citation1612, 315).
36 ‘un ieune garçon abandonné et chassé par son pere, qui a une marastre pour mere, vaguant par les champs, sans guide et sans personne du monde qui en ait du soing, mendiant son pain’ (De Lancre Citation1612, 307; cf. Mandrou Citation1979, 105).
37 I am grateful to Robin Briggs for sharing his transcription of this case with me.
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Jan Machielsen
Jan Machielsen is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at Cardiff University, UK. He is currently working on a monograph study of the witch-hunt of the Pays de Labourd (1600–20). He is the author of Martin Delrio: Demonology and Scholarship in the Counter-Reformation (2015).