TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2129, 18 May 1920, Page 4

TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT.

STORY OF A WEEPING STATUE

Psychologists who are interested in observing the persistence of mediaeval superstition in this age of unbelief will find a rich held of observation in a trial at the Bordeaux Assize Court, where four well-edu-cated men will be called on to answer a charge of serirously assaults ing a priest whom they accuse of. witchcraft.

The facts of the case (says the Paris correspondent of the Morning Post) dale from some years ago, when a devout concierge was

astounded to note that tears were falling from the sightless eyes of a small statue of Notre Dame de Lourdes, which she had in her lodge. The tears were so abundant that they first filled a saucer which was put to catch them, so that they might be used to cure the sick, and then another receptacle, which had to he emptied several Times.

News of the miraculous statue quickly spread, and soon a number of devout men and women grouped themselves round the concierge, whom they revered as the confidante 'of Notre Dame de Lourdes. Among this devoted band were the four accused persons in the pending trial a' stockbroker on the Bordeaux Bourse, an inspector attached to the French Scotland Yard, an orchestral director, and a bank clerk. Another was the venerable Canon de Bonnoit, senior canon of Notre Dame in Paris. The latter has since died- —“prematurely” (he was 81 years of age), according to one witness, “from a pulmonary affection due to his having been bewitched by the Abbe Sapounghi.” The last-named is a Syrian priest and"'vicar-general, who is the/prosecutor in the Bordeaux trial. Borne time before the war, early in 191-1, Abbe Sapounghi went to lodge in the house where Mine. Mesmin, “the confidante of the Holy Virgin,’ was concierge. She provided him with lodgings rent free, she stales, collected money for him, and went short herself in order to feed and clothe him.

Eventually differences arose between them—owing to the priest, it is alleged, trying to monopolise the statue —and Sapounghi was ordered by the ecclesiastical authorities to retire to a monastery at Nantes, while the statue was removed to a convent. From that moment it ceased to shed tears. Mhe. Mesmin replaced it with another image, beautiful in amber and rose, which soon began to exhale wonder!ul perfumes. Ari-ording K/lhe story disclosed to the investigating magistrate, Mine. Mesmin fell a victim, as soon as the weeping statue was removed from to a series ot absolutely Satanic persecutions.

“From the monastery at Nantes,’ - she stated, “Sauounghi obsessed me. He tried to drive me mud. He sent me homicidal thoughts against everybody to such an extent that I was obliged to lock myself in to prevent myself from murdering people. Ho must have had magnetic power over me, for 1 tell asleep whenever he came into my presence.”

In order to put an end to this intolerable slate of things, four of Madame Mesiuin’s devout iriends the four accused men already referred to —decided to take the law into their own hands. They accordingly armed themselves with what they considered to be the most suitable spiritual and temporal weapons to be used in a tight with the Evil One, and set out for Saponnghi’s residence at Nantes. The evidence offered at the preliminary inquiry all Tends to show that the tour men were undoubtedly sincere in their belief, which was that by resorting to purely physical means they would he able to break the j tower of the priest to practice further “sorceries, incantation, and other devilries.” The stockbroker carried a dog-whip, and the hank clerk a. hollow guttapercha slick lilted with lead.

According to their own admissions, the tour crusaders occupied three-quarters of an hour in indicting a sound thrashing on the abbe. Eventually he was bound with ropes :,nd made to hand over.- the keys of. bis desk. After appropriating (531 letters they departed, leaving their victim in a pool of blood on the iioor.

At this very moment, according to the sworn testimony of witnesses who behind the locked doors had heard the lamentations of the abbe on the sound of the blows, Madame Mesmin, in her concierge’s lodge at Bordeaux, something like .a hundred miles away, suddenly ceased to endure the sufferings she had experienced for so many months.