Some time after, Mirable asked Anquier to pay the note. Anquier denied everything. A great lawsuit ensued; informations were taken and perquisitions held in Anquier's house; sentence was given on the 10th of September, 1727, importing that Anquier should be arrested, and have the question applied to him. An appeal was made to the Parliament of Aix. Anquier's note was declared a forgery. Bernard, who was said to have been present at the discovery of the treasure, was not cited at all; the other witnesses only deposed from hearsay; Magdalen Caillot alone, who was present, acknowledged having seen the packet wrapped round with linen, and had heard a ringing as of pieces of gold or silver, and had seen one of them, a piece about as large as a piece of two liards.
The Parliament of Aix issued its decree the 17th of February, 1728, by which it ordained that Bernard, farming servant at the _Bastide du Paret_, should be heard; he was heard on different days, and deposed that he had seen neither treasure, nor rags, nor gold pieces. Then came another decree of the 2d of June, 1728, which ordered that the attorney-general should proceed by way of ecclesiastical censures on the facts resulting from these proceedings.
The indictment was published, fifty-three witnesses were heard; another sentence of the 18th of February, 1729, discharged Anquier from the courts and the lawsuit; condemned Mirable to the galleys to perpetuity after having previously undergone the question; and Caillot was to pay a fine of ten francs. Such was the end of this grand lawsuit. If we examine narrowly these stories of spectres who watch over treasures, we shall doubtless find, as here, a great deal of superstition, deception, and fancy.
Delrio relates some instances of people who have been put to death, or who have perished miserably as they searched for hidden treasures. In all this we may perceive the spirit of lying and seduction on the part of the demon, bounds set to his power, and his malice arrested by the will of God; the impiety of man, his avarice, his idle curiosity, the confidence which he places in the angel of darkness, by the loss of his wealth, his life, and his soul.
John Wierus, in his work entitled "_De Præstigiis Dæmonum_," printed at Basle in 1577, relates that in his time, 1430, the demon revealed to a certain priest at Nuremberg some treasures hidden in a cavern near the town, and enclosed in a crystal vase. The priest took one of his friends with him as a companion; they began to dig up the ground in the spot designated, and they discovered in a subterranean cavern a kind of chest, near which a black dog was lying; the priest eagerly advanced to seize the treasure, but hardly had he entered the cavern, than it fell in, crushed the priest, and was filled up with earth as before.