Devised originally for more timorous and less conscientious infidels who were often disposed to skulk in obscure places and to renounce without really abandoning their errors, it was provided with a set of venomous familiars who glided through every chamber and coiled themselves at every fireside.

The secret details of each household in the realm being therefore known to the holy office and to the monarch, no infidel or heretic could escape discovery.

This invisible machinery was less requisite for the Netherlands.

There was comparatively little difficulty in ferreting out the "vermin"-- to use the expression of a Walloon historian of that age--so that it was only necessary to maintain in good working order the apparatus for destroying the noxious creatures when unearthed.

The heretics of the provinces assembled at each other's houses to practise those rites described in such simple language by Baldwin Ogier, and denounced under such horrible penalties by the edicts.