From Capefigue's _Histoire de Philippe-Auguste_]
It is much worse when you make a direct pact with the devil. Some time ago, it is affirmed, there was a young scholar at Paris. He was much troubled because he progressed slowly in his studies. Then Satan visited him, saying: "Do me homage. I will make you excel in wisdom!" He gave the youth a stone, asserting that, "So long as you hold this stone in your hand you will know everything." Soon the lad astonished the schools by his erudition, but, on falling sick, confessed his crime, threw away his stone, and at once forgot all his learning. Speedily he died. At once the devils began to torture his soul, but God promptly sent an angel ordering them "to let alone this soul which you have tormented." Immediately the soul flew back into the body, which sprang to life even as the Paris students were celebrating the funeral service. The revived scholar, however, at once entered a convent and took no more chances with carnal studies.
Very many people, however, have compounded with the devil and been less fortunate. The fiend apparently will not come unless one is in a desperate plight and willing to promise everything. Then usually the unhappy mortal must deny the Christian faith, repudiate the saints, utter blasphemies, and, it is even asserted, kiss the arch fiend upon the buttocks. Next a horrid oath must be taken, standing inside of three magic circles and burning incense. After that the devil will, it is true, give his votary great worldly prosperity and especially riches through a long life, but in the end the fiend never fails to claim his soul for an eternal possession. It is even said that Satan made such a bargain with the great ecclesiastic Gerbert, who became Pope Sylvester II. He was very wise[87] or very wicked, probably both; and in the opinion of many he rose to be Pope by the aid of "a hierarchy of demons and a brass idol which uttered oracles." But on the day of his death (A.D. 1002) Satan demanded his own; and whenever a pope lies near his end the bones of Sylvester II rattle in the tomb. The Church discredits this scandalous story, but it is widely believed.
Since the recent trial of a witch and a wizard before the bishop at Pontdebois, the folk near St. Aliquis have gained a much more precise knowledge of the black art. Magicians usually begin their ceremonies by creating a magic smoke of various inflammables and spices, also by burning such fiend-compelling ingredients as the brain of an eagle, the blood of a black cat, and plenty of hellebore. The smoke thus created is so dense and foul that uninitiated customers are readily convinced there are demons rising in the vapor and talking to the wizard. Thanks to such assistance, the magician, and his even more sinful wife, the witch, were able to instruct how to find a pot of gold and how to rob the house of a rich Jew, but especially they could prepare philters--some of them intended to inspire love and others hatred. Wives could buy fearful compounds made of substances from "the three domains of nature"--the entrails of animals, scales of fishes, parings of nails, human blood, pulverized load-stone, and such powerful drugs as mandragora--which, if duly brewed and beaten up together, then put in an unfaithful husband's goblet, would win back his affection. Other such potions, a little changed, however, would make sworn lovers separate.
