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 kind of fertility rite, hence its use on this occasion. The Abbé Guibourg was the sacrificing priest, and from this and other indications he appears to have been the Chief or Grand-master 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. Both witnesses gave their evidence soberly and gravely and without torture. Montvoisin, who was eighteen 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 présenté 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 cœur et les entrailles pour en faire une deuxieme [oblation].'[1]
In Scotland it was firmly believed that sacrifices of children took place in all classes of society: 'The justices of the peace were seen familiarly conversing with the foul fiend, to whom one in Dumfries-shire actually offered up his firstborn child immediately after birth, stepping out with it in his arms to the staircase, where the devil stood ready, as it was suspected, to receive the innocent victim.'[2] In the later witch-trials the sacrifice of the child seems to have been made after its burying, as in the case of the Witch of Calder in 1720, who confessed that she had given the Devil 'the body of a dead child of her own to make a roast of'.[3]
