In this year, a very extraordinary event happened in Brittany. The lord of Retz, then marshal of France and of a very noble birth, and a great landed proprietor, was accused and convicted of sorcery, which he had long followed, by the instigation of the devil and his adherents. He confessed having put to death many young children and women with child, with the intent of arriving at great fortunes and honours,—and that with the blood of these victims to his superstition, whom he had violently murdered, were written divers books of diabolical conjurations, and other things contrary to the catholic faith.

When he was arrested and examined, he confessed that in this way, he had caused upward of eight score persons of different sexes and ages to be put to death. After a trial before competent judges, he was condemned to be hanged and strangled until he should be dead, and then his body to be burnt.

The duke of Brittany and numbers of the nobility, as well secular as ecclesiastical, were present at this trial in the town of Nantes, where the sentence was executed. However, when the first part of it was done, and his body partly burnt, some ladies and damsels of his family requested the body of the duke, that they might inter it in holy ground, which the duke granted.

Notwithstanding the many and horrid cruelties he had been guilty of, he made a very devout end, full of repentance, requesting most humbly of his Creator to have mercy on his manifold sins and wickednesses. The greater part of the nobles of Brittany, more especially those of his kindred, were in the utmost grief and confusion at his disgraceful death. Before this event, he was much renowned as a most valiant knight at arms.