Sexuality, Magic and Perversion (14 page)

It was over forty years before the last of these chained, silenced prisoners met his death.
¹⁵
As for Madame de Montespan, the proprieties were observed; for ten years the King simulated a continuing friendship for her and then she retired to the country where she remained until her death some sixteen years later. Her last years were spent in an atmosphere of devoutness and Catholic piety, but, in spite of this, she grew to fear darkness, solitude and, above all, death.

¹
I am, of course, well aware that theologically speaking the priest has no magical powers, that there is a gulf between the Catholic belief in the sacramental gifts of the Holy Spirit and the theurgic conception (ultimately derived from later Neo-Platonism) of magical rites. Nevertheless there is no doubt that at a popular level the priest was (and to some extent still is; in the Catholicism of, for example, Southern Italy) regarded as having quasi-magical powers.

²
As early as the seventh century the Council of Toledo prohibited a Requiem Mass wherein the Mass was said not for a soul in purgatory but for a living man—with the intention that he might die.

³
I have heard occasional stories of strange religio-magical practices on the crazier fringes of the religious underworld of the
episcopi vagantes
.

⁴
He seems to have been an extraordinarily lucky man; on one occasion he refused the soup prepared for him after he had noticed that it was dissolving his silver spoon, on another he was violently sick just after eating his dinner and escaped with his life—although after the experience he endured an attack of hiccoughs, accompanied by nose-bleeds, of eighteen months’ duration!

⁵
In the England of today, of course, this aspect of La Voisin’s activities would be considered neither brutal nor socially undesirable!

⁶
It is worth saying that the French historian Jean Lemoine held that Madame de Montespan was innocent of any connection with either Guibourg or La Voisin. Although he devoted over thirty years to his study of the matter there seems little doubt that he gave his verdict against the evidence.

⁷
The then mistress of Louis XIV.

⁸
He had been promised a sum equivalent to about £200 at current values and presentation to an ecclesiastical living in return for his help.

⁹
It seems possible that at least some of the many digestive upsets and other illnesses suffered by Louis XIV were caused by the noxious powders secreted in his food by Madame de Montespan. Cantharides was a particularly dangerous component of these powders; it is a powerful aphrodisiac—it is still used today on stud farms in order to revive the flagging sexual energies of exhausted stallions—but in small doses it is ineffective and in large doses can be fatal. It is a vesicant, a powerful irritant of the mucous membranes, and causes considerable loss of body fluid by vomiting and purging.

¹⁰
Another of the Black Mass priests arrested at the same time as Guibourg admitted to consecrating snakes which were then killed, pickled and used for masturbation by ladies of the Court!

¹¹
One of de Montespan’s ladies-in-waiting. A mysterious English Milord was also present at this conjuration. It has been conjectured that this was either the dissolute Duke of Buckingham or that stalwart Protestant the “Good Duke” of Monmouth, bastard son of Charles II.

¹²
Until quite recently it was commonly believed that the vaginal secretions of a sexually excited woman (which in reality have only a lubricating function) were a sort of “female sperm”.

¹³
No such poison existed at the time, but its existence—it was usually supposed to be a distillation of arsenic and decomposing toads—was widely believed in. Curiously enough in modern times such poisons have come into existence; nicotine and some of the organic phosphorous compounds are examples of such poisons.

¹⁴
By a deputy executioner. The public executioner showed some delicacy and refused the job because La Voisin was an old mistress of his.

¹⁵
Guibourg survived for only three years; his remote descendants from a theological point of view, were the White Mass Priests of Boullan, a nineteenth-century French Heresiarch (see Appendix “Copulating with Cleopatra”).

In 1786 the Dilettanti Society—an organisation of which it was said that the nominal qualification for membership was having been in Italy, the real one being permanently in a state of drunkenness—published
An Essay on the Worship of Priapus
.

The author of the
Essay
was thirty-six-year-old Richard Payne Knight, a Member of Parliament, an associate of Charles James Fox, the owner of a sizeable fortune, the author of
An Analytical Essay on the Greek Alphabet
and a collector of classical coins, medals and bronzes.

Payne Knight’s interest in the worship of Priapus, the ithyphallic garden god of classical Rome, seems to have been first aroused by the reading of a letter sent by Sir William Hamilton, the British Ambassador to the Bourbon kingdom of Naples,
¹
to Sir Joseph Banks, at that time President of the Royal Society; both Hamilton and Banks were, like Payne Knight himself, members of the Dilettanti Society.

The letter in question described certain alleged survivals of classical fertility worship in popular Neapolitan Catholicism and is worthy of reproduction in full:

“Having last year made a curious discovery, that in a Province of this Kingdom, and not fifty miles from its Capital, a sort of devotion is still paid to
PRIAPUS,
the obscene Divinity of the Ancients (though under another denomination), I thought it a circumstance worth recording; particularly, as it offers a fresh proof of the similitude of the Popish and Pagan Religion, so well observed by Dr. Middleton, in his celebrated Letter from Rome: and therefore I mean to deposit the
authentic proofs of this assertion in the British Museum, when a proper opportunity shall offer. In the mean time I send you the following account, which, I flatter myself, will amuse you for the present, and may in future serve to illustrate those proofs.

“I had long ago discovered, that the women and children of the lower class, at Naples, and in its neighbourhood, frequently wore, as an ornament of dress, a sort of Amulets (which they imagine to be a preservative from the
mal occhii, evil eyes
, or enchantment) exactly similar to those which were worn by the ancient Inhabitants of this country for the very same purpose, as likewise for their supposed invigorating influence; and all of which have evidently a relation to the Cult of Priapus. Struck with this conformity in ancient and modern superstition, I made a collection of both the ancient and modern Amulets of this sort, and placed them together in the British Museum, where they remain. The modern Amulet most in vogue represents a hand clinched, with the point of the thumb thrust betwixt the index and middle finger; the next is a shell; and the third is a half-moon. These Amulets (except the shell, which usually worn in its natural state) are most commonly made of silver, but sometimes of ivory, coral, amber, crystal, or some curious gem, or pebble. We have a proof of the hand above described having a connection with Priapus, in a most elegant small idol of bronze of that Divinity, now in the Royal Museum of Portici, and which was found in the ruins of Herculaneum: It has an enormous Phallus, and, with an arch look and gesture, stretches out its right hand in the form above mentioned; and which probably was an emblem of consummation: and as a further proof of it, the Amulet which occurs most frequently amongst those of the Ancients (next to that which represents the simple Priapus), is such a hand united with the Phallus; of which you may see several specimens in my collection in the British Museum. One in particular, I recollect, has also the half-moon joined to the hand and Phallus; which half-moon is supposed to have an allusion to the female
menses
. The shell, or
concha veneris
, is evidently an emblem of the female part of generation. It is very natural then to suppose, that the Amulets representing the Phallus alone, so visibly indecent, may have been long out of use in this civilized capital; but I have been assured, that it is but very lately that the Priests have put an end to the wearing of such Amulets in Calabria, and other distant Provinces of this Kingdom.

“A new road having been made last year from this Capital to the Province of Abruzzo, passing through the City of Isernia (anciently belonging to the Samnites, and very populous), a person of liberal education, employed in that work, chanced to be at Isernia just at the time of the celebration of the Feast of the modern Priapus, St. Cosmo; and having been struck with the singularity of the ceremony, so very similar to that which attended the ancient Cult of the God of the Gardens, and knowing my taste for antiquities, told me of it. From this Gentleman’s report, and from what I learnt on the spot from the Governor of Isernia himself, having gone to that city on purpose in the month of February last, I have drawn up the following account, which I have reason to believe is strictly true. I did intend to have been present at the Feast of St. Cosmo this year; but the indecency of this ceremony having probably transpired, from the country’s having been more frequented since the new road was made, orders have been given, that the
Great Toe
²
of the Saint should no longer be exposed. The following is the account of the Fete of St. Cosmo and Damiano, as it actually was celebrated at Isernia, on the confines of Abruzzo, in the Kingdom of Naples, so late as in the year of our Lord 1780.

“On the 27th of September, at Isernia, one of the most ancient cities of the Kingdom of Naples, situated in the Province called the Contado di Molise, and adjoining to Abruzzo, an annual Fair is held, which lasts three days. The situation of this Fair is on a rising ground, between two rivers, about half a mile from the town of Isernia; on the most elevated part of which there is an ancient church, with a vestibule. The architecture is of the style of the lower ages; and it is said to have been a church and convent belonging to the Benedictine Monks in the time of their poverty. This church is dedicated to St. Cosmus and Damianus. One of the days of the Fair, the relicks of the Saints are exposed, and afterwards carried in procession from the cathedral of the city to this church, attended by a prodigious concourse of people. In the city, and at the fair,
ex-voti
of wax, representing the male parts of generation, of various dimensions, some even of the length of a palm, are publicly offered to sale. There are also waxen vows, that represent other parts of the body mixed with them; but of these there are few in comparison of the number of the
Priapi. The devout distributors of these vows carry a basket full of them in one hand, and hold a plate in the other to receive the money, crying aloud, ‘St. Cosmo and Damiano!’ If you ask the price of one, the answer is,
piu ci metti, piu meriti:
‘The more you give, the more’s the merit.’ In the vestibule are two tables, at each of which one of the canons of the church presides, this crying out,
Qui, si riceveno le Misse, e Litanie:
‘Here Masses and Litanies are received;’ and the other,
Qui si riceveno li Voti:
‘Here the Vows are received.’ The price of a Mass is fifteen Neapolitan grains, and of a Litany five grains. On each table is a large bason for the reception of the different offerings. The Vows are chiefly presented by the female sex; and they are seldom such as represent legs, arms, &c., but most commonly the male parts of generation. The person who was at this fete in the year 1780, and who gave me this account (the authenticity of every article of which has since been fully confirmed to me by the Governor of Isernia), told me also, that he heard a woman say, at the time she presented a Vow, in the shape of an erect penis,
Santo Cosimo benedetto, cosi lo voglio:
‘Blessed St. Cosmo, let it be like this;’ another,
St. Cosimo, a te mi raccommendo:
‘St. Cosmo, I recommend myself to you;’ and a third,
St. Cosimo, ti ringrazio:
‘St. Cosmo, I thank you.’ The Vow is never presented without being accompanied by a piece of money, and is always kissed by the devotee at the moment of presentation.

“At the great altar in the church, another of its canons attends to give the holy unction, with the oil of St. Cosmo; which is prepared by the same receipt as that of the Roman Ritual, with the addition only of the prayer of the Holy Martyrs, St. Cosmus and Damianus. Those who have an infirmity in any of their members, present themselves at the great altar, and uncover the member affected (not even excepting that which is most frequently represented by the
ex-voti
); and the reverend canon anoints it, saying,
Per intercessionem beati Cosmi, liberet te ab omni malo. Amen
.

“The ceremony finishes by the canons of the church dividing the spoils, both money and wax, which must be to a very considerable amount, as the concourse at this fete is said to be prodigiously numerous.