Do not let us insist any longer on that confession which we expect from you. Declare that your father had no sooner inculcated in your mind his abominable principles, than you conceived a sovereign contempt for the Catho lic, Apostolic and Roman religion, and the most implacable hatred for the Holy Inquisition; that by the means of that contempt and hatred, the devil took possession of your soul, seduced you by his delusions, and you gave yourself up to him. Own that you have made use of witchchraft. Do'nt pretend to deny those horrid crimes which you have committed towards the church and its ministers; tell us the names of your accomplices;-let us know your father's retreat, and that of his adherents, that we may open their eyes, and be enabled to recal them from the way of perdition which they so boldly tread. Ah! as to my father! exclaimed the poor girl, did I actually know where he is, were he the most criminal of mankind, I shall obey in that respect the voice of nature, only that moving & amiable voice which whispers me to spare my own blood. As to his adherents, I know but few of them who differ in opinion from you, as far as reason warrants them so to do, and their concience dictates; who perform good from a love of it; who, as much as it is in their power mark each of their days by some laudable deed, whom I would not betray did I know their retreat. On the contrary, if the purest faith, the strictest virtue, which I have professed all my life, is rewarded among you by the torments I have endured since I fell in your hands, and

that I must still suffer. I beseech heaven to preserve them from such a reward. In answer to the accusation of contempt and hatred which I am charged with entertaining against the church and its ministers, I can only say that my parents have uniformly taught me not to despise or hate any person of whatever religion that lesson I have constantly practised to this day. They have unvariably informed me, that superstition alone was despicable, and vice hateful: That I ought to deplore the fate of the superstitious and vicious, take pitv on them, to enlighten them if possible, and treat them as brethren; and such is the fruit of the education I have received, that notwithstanding what I have undergone since I have fallen into your power, my patience, together with the hope I have always entertained, that time & truth would finally convince you of my innocence, has smothered my resentment. Therefore, that hatred, those pretended delusions of the devil, with their consequences, have no existence but in the disordered brains of those who through weakness or wickedness have invented against me the most absurd and cruel calumnies.- -My dear child, said the inquisitor, you have owned, while off your guard, that you were an heretic. Let us know the particular points in which you err, the consequence of your errors; do not force us to have recourse to rigor; confess, and at once, otherwise you shall be put to the rack.

Great God! exclaimed the poor wretch, the rack! alas!-Shall I be able to bear it! Ah! fathers, who authorises you to torment your fel

low creatures, when possessing every moral virtue, and guilty only of a difference in opinion? Who authorises us? retorted the inquisitor; the honor of religion, the glory of a wrathful God, of a terrible God! of the Lord of Hosts.-Stop, stop, exclaimed the girl, that God is not my God my God is not terrible, yet my God is the Lord of Hosts. My God neither approves nor commands persecution, nor the desolation of the human race; he hates discord, injustice, vengeance, violence, cruelty and fury—and generally all the fatal consequences of ambition, fanaticism and interest. My God is good all nature teaches me so; in him it does not shew me a threatening God, thundering and spreading alarm every where; neither does it offer to my view a cruel and capricious God, quenching his thirst with blood and tears, or appeased by the foolish practices of a fruitless penance. Nature bids me behold a God who makes us the tenderest of his care, who with a prodigal hand bestrews the path of life with bounties, and gives us reason to use them with moderation. In him I see a God loving mildness, justice, charity, beneficence, and expecting of me the practice of the same virtues: a God-who pities our weaknesses, who, when he corrects, punishes like a father. And if he has in store some awful judgment, it must pour on the head of the obstinate sinner; but above all, on those vain and cruel men, who have created a God similar to themselves, that is to say, a monster composed of the horrid medley of all human passions and vices, a monster whom they mix in all their

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interests, in the name of whom they assume the shocking right of tyrannizing over the conscience, become the scourge of humanity, and the horror and opprobrium of human nature.

Just heavens, what impiety! exclaimed the inquisitor abominable creature, the devil alone could have inspired thee with such blasphemies against the attributes of divinity, so well ascer tained in the Holy Scriptures, and against its divine worship, so positively enjoined by the church, Executioners, to your duty; let the keenest torments force from her a confession of her connexion with Satan, her master, of her other crimes, and of the names of her accompli

ces.

The inquisitor had hardly ended these words, when two of the four spectres who had conduc. ted the unfortunate creature, stripped her of the rags that covered her, and the two others prepared the rest of the necessaries for the execu tion of the friar's orders.

The profound silence which reigned in that mournful place during the dreadful preparations, the glimmering light in the dungeon, the fatal instruments, the grief and discouragement of the victim, the glances of the enraged judges, the ferocious looks of the executioners, suspended the operation of my senses, and overwhelmed me with fear and anguish.

The poor girl having no garment left but a cloth round her waist, was seized by the execu tioners, who tied her hands behind her back, and, by means of a rope fastened round her wrists, and passed through a block made fast to

the ceiling, raised her suddenly as high as they could; having held her suspended for a while, they let go the rope, and she came down with full force within a foot from the floor: this terrible shock dislocated all her joints; the rope which was tied round her arms, entered the flesh, and the torture she experienced drew from her a piercing shriek. In a little while the operation was repeated; her groans and cries inereased; but they could not force her to confess that she was a witch, since she was not, neither could they learn her father's place of abode, not the retreat of his adherents, because she did not know it, and that she would rather have suffered death, than expose another to undergo the torments she now endured.

They had tortured her for about an hour in the most excruciating manner, when her strength forsaking her, she at once appeared lifeless; one of the inquisitors having drawn near, applied his lecherous hand to the livid and bruised breast of the unfortunate girl, and said with a determined tone-it is needless to call a doctor, it will be sufficient at present that the bottle of hartshorn be applied to her nostrils to restore her.

The essence had the desired effect; but she remained extended on the ground, unable to move a limb. Then the inquisitors having apapproached her, one of them upbraided her in the strongest terms, reproaching her with the unheard of blasphemies she had thrown out against God and his worship; he added afterwards that she ought not to despair of his infi