beggar, of whom the Sieur Boguet (an old
acquaintance of ours) tells a singular story in his
Treatise on Sorcerers. This beggar was the
proprietor of one of those Imps called the
Cambion (or Devil's-brat)—the natural child of
those two very agreeable demons, the Incubus
and the Succubus—a creature of extraordinary
weight that always drains its nurses dry and
never, by any chance, gets fat. The beggar,
with the imp in his arms, made his appearance
one day in a certain town in Gallicia,
and seemed so much encumbered by his
charge, in endeavouring to ford a deep stream
which ran through the place, that a gentleman
on horseback, who was passing by, took
compassion on him and offered to convey the
child across. He accordingly set it on his
horse and plunged into the stream; but the
little demon was so heavy that the animal
sank and the cavalier had to swim for his
life. A short time afterwards, the beggar,
who had run away on witnessing this
catastrophe was captured, and he acknowledged
that the child was a Cambion, and had been
very useful to him in his calling, and turned
people's minds towards alms-givings. What
became of the Cambion is not stated, but I
believe the beggar was burnt. These heavy
little devils are the same as the German
Wechselkinder, the changelings of the old
English ballad.

The mention of almsgiving recalls a somewhat
ludicrous story of modern date, where a
most inopportune miracle was wrought. The
well-known French missionary, Father
Bridaine, was always poor, for the simple reason
that he gave away everything he had. One
evening he asked for a night's lodging of the
curate of a village through which he passed,
and the worthy man having only one bed,
shared it with him. At daybreak Father
Bridaine rose, according to custom, and went
to say his prayers at the neighbouring church.
Returning from this sacred duty he met a
beggar, who asked an alms. "Alas, my
friend, I have nothing!" said the good
priest, mechanically putting his hand in his
breeches pocket, where, to his astonishment,
he found something hard wrapped up in
paper, which he knew he had not left there.
He hastily opened the paper, and seeing four
crowns in it, cried out that it was a miracle!
He gave the money to the beggar, and
hastened into the church to return thanks to
God. The curate soon after arrived there,
and Father Bridaine related the miracle with
the greatest unction; the curate turned pale,
put his hand in his pocket, and in an instant
perceived that Father Bridaine, in getting
up in the dark, had taken the wrong pair of
breeches; he had performed a miracle with
the curate's crowns!

At a period rather more remote, Saint
Antide, Bishop of Besançon, was one day
walking in the fields, when he met with a
very thin, ugly devil, who boasted to the
bishop that he had just been committing
some sad mischief in one of the churches at
Rome.

"Come here, you slave of Satan,"
exclaimed Saint Antide, "and kneel down!"

The demon obeyed, placed himself on all-
fours, and the saint, getting astride on his
back, ordered him to fly off immediately to
Rome. Arrived there, the bishop put everything
to rights in the dilapidated church, and
then returned to his diocese by the same
conveyance: not forgetting, however, as he
dismounted, to bestow a hearty kick on the
demon, which sent him howling back to the
unblissful regions.

There are many similar stories related
of demons who have been serviceable to
mortal masters; generally speaking,
however, against the grain. Of the most
usual kind was the Familiar, who was
always at hand. Bodin relates that about
two years before he published his
Demonomania (4to, Paris, 1587), there was
a nobleman at Villars-Costerets, who had
one of these imps confined in a ring,
which he had at his command, to do what he
pleased with, and treat exactly like a slave;
having bought it at a very high price from a
Spaniard. But, the nobleman, as commonly
happened, came to grief through this Familiar,
for the spirit was possessed with an invincible
habit of telling lies, and on one occasion,
being very much enraged, the nobleman
threw his ring into the fire, thinking thereby
to burn the demon; it was, however, the
creature's native element, it released him
from thraldom, and the demon thereupon,
tormented his former master, until he drove
him mad. The witch's Familiar was almost
invariably a toad, but a frog was made to
figure in that capacity only a few years ago
with very fatal consequences. The history of
the occurrence is a sad example of the effects
of superstitious fear. It happened in the
commune of Bussy-en-Oth, in the department
of the Aube, in France, in the year eighteen
hundred and forty-one. A young man of that
village had been passing the day enjoying the
very French amusement of fishing for frogs.
He had caught a great many, and placed
them alive in a bag. On his way home he
saw a peasant walking slowly on the road
before him, the large half-open pocket of
whose waistcoat invited the fisherman to
the perpetration of a practical joke.
Accordingly, as he passed the peasant, he
managed, unperceived, to slip one of the
frogs into his pocket. The peasant
unsuspectingly walked on, reached his cottage,
and, tired with the labours of the day, soon
afterwards went to rest, throwing his clothes
as usual on his bed. In the middle of the
night, Jacquemin—that was the peasant's
name—was awakened by feeling something
cold crawling over his face, and uttering
indistinct cries; it was, of course, the frog
that had crept out of Jacquemin's pocket, and
had paused on its journey to croak. Jacquemin,