These pleasures were tempered to his woeful state.

And thereby he gained a further advantage,--that of unarming his victim,--for virginity is as a coat of mail against which the darts of hell are but blades of straw.

Hence it was all but certain that a soul vowed to the devil could not reside within a maid.[783] Wherefore, there was one infallible way of proving that the peasant girl from Vaucouleurs was not given up to magic or to sorcery, and had made no pact with the Evil One.

Recourse was had to it.
[Footnote 782: Du Cange, _Glossaire_, under the word _Matrimonium_.] [Footnote 783: Pierre Le Loyer, _Livre des spectres_, 1586, in 4to, pp.

527, 551.] Jeanne was seen, visited, privately inspected, and thoroughly examined by wise women, _mulieres doctas_; by knowing virgins, _peritas virgines_; by widows and wives, _viduas et conjugates_.