Queen of the Sabbat (Sinossi)
^Jacques
Dindonneau^ [Guillaume le Morve], charcoal-burner and poacher, hunting a stag
by night in the forest of Averoigne, stumbles inadvertently upon a Shabbat held
by local sorcerers and witches. The throned figure of a great ram presides over
the gathering; and on the right of the ram, naked, is seated the young girl,
Nicole Morin, of whom Jacques is enamored. On the left is the girl's mother,
long suspected of being a witch. The Shabbat has reached the climax with the celebration
of the Black Mass, and certain of the celebrants are abandoning themselves to
the debaucheries in which such meetings always terminated. The ram-like figure
of the Master begins to paw the girl Nicole, and Jacques, mad with fury and
horror, leaps forward into the whirling mob. He is overpowered and knocked
unconscious. He awakes in pitch darkness, in a dank, noisome oubliette, his
clothing in rags, his flesh sore and bleeding from the claws of the coven.
Anon, the trap-door of the oubliette is opened, and the face of ^Guillaume^
[Raoul], Comte de la Frênaie, peers sneeringly down by torchlight. Guillaume,
who reveals himself as the Master of the Shabbat, taunts Jacques with his
plight and then closes the trap, leaving the young poacher to die. After many
hours, as it seems, Jacques lapses into slumber, and awakes to find the girl
Nicole beside him. She had brought food and drink, and a rope by which they
climb from the dungeon. Through dismal vaults, they emerge at night from the
chateau. Nicole, in spite of Jacques' pleadings, leaves him in the forest.
Later, armed with his crossbow and clad in the skin of a stag, he spies on
another meeting of the coven, and shoots a bolt through the heart of the
Master. Then, his antlered head lowered, he charges into the confused and
fleeing coven. He overtakes Nicole, who has fled like the others. She
accompanies him later when he quits the province.
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