Heir we saw first that miraculous stone (of which we also brought away some relicts) which if not touched has no smell, if rubed hard or stricken wt a key or any other thing, casteth a most pestilentious, intollerable smell, which we could not indure.  We tried the thing and fand it so.  The occasion and cause of this they relate wariously.  Some sayes that the stone was a sepulchre stone, and under it was buried a wicked man that had led a ill life, whos body the Dewill came on a tyme and carried away; whence the stone ever stinks in that maner since.  Others say that when the Church was a bigging, the Dewill appeared to one of the maisons, in the signe [shape][138] of a mulet and troubled him; wheirupon the maison complained to St. Hilaire the Bischop, who watched the nixt day wt the maison, and the Dewill appearing in that shape he caused take him and yoke him in a cart to draw stones to the bigging of the church.  They gott him to draw patiently that great stone which we saw and which stinks so, but he got away and would draw no more.

    [138] Interlined.

Nixt we saw St. Hilaires berceau, wheirin they report he lay, a great long peice of wood hollowed (for it wil hold a man and I had the curiosite to lay in it a while) halfe filled wt straw that they may lay the softer.  To this the blinded papists attributes the vertue of recovering madmen or those that are besydes themselfes to their right wites, if they lay in it 9 dayes and 9 nights wt their handes bound, a priest saying a masse for them once every day.  And indeed according to the beleife of this place it hath bein oft verified.  The fellow that hes a care of thess that are brought hither told us of a Mademoisselle who was extraordinarly distracted and who was fully recovered by this means.  Another of a gentleman who had gone mad for love to a gentlewoman whom he could not obtaine, and who being brought their in that tyme recovered his right wits as weill as ever he had them in his dayes.  Its commonly called the berceau de fols; so that heir in their flitting they cannot anger or affront one another worse then to cast up that they most be rockt in St. Hilaires cradle, since its none but fools or madmen that are used so.

The greatest man in the province of Poictou is the governour, who in all things representes the king their, save only that he hath not the power to pardon offenders or guilty persones.  Tho a man of wast estat, to wit of 300,000 livres a year, yet he keips sick a low saile[139] that he wil not spend the thrid of his rent a year, only a pitty garde or 7 or 8 persons on foot going before his coach; and 4 or 5 lacquais behind; yea he sells vin, which heir is thought no disparadgement to no peir of France, since theirs a certain tym of the year that the King himselfe professes to sell win, and for that effect he causes at the Louwre hing out a bunch of ivy, the symbol of vin to be sold.

    [139] Lives so quietly.