Satanism and Witchcraft

Satanism and Witchcraft is a book by Jules Michelet, first published in Paris in 1862 under the French title La Sorcière. It is a history of witchcraft written from a romantic and sympathetic standpoint toward the women and peasants accused of practicing it. Michelet, the historian of the French Revolution and of France, wrote it at the height of his career, when he was seeking to give voice to the popular classes overlooked by official history.

The book is divided into two parts of twelve chapters each. The first is an imaginative reconstruction of the experiences of a series of medieval witches who led a secret religion, rooted in paganism and belief in fairies, which began as a form of social protest and gradually declined into decadence. The second part recounts episodes from the European witch trials, among them the affair of Louis Gaufridi, the possessed women of Loudun and Louviers, and the execution of Charlotte Cadière. For Michelet, witchcraft was a popular rebellion against feudalism and the Roman Catholic Church, and history should focus on the people rather than only on their leaders or institutions.

Today the work is widely regarded as largely inaccurate in its factual claims, yet it remains notable as one of the first sympathetic histories of witchcraft and as an early anticipation of sociological and micro-historical approaches. Its style blends scholarly research with narrative storytelling, so that it often reads more like a novel or a tragedy than a conventional historical treatise. Its influence extended into later culture: in the early 1970s it became the basis for Alain Robbe-Grillet's film Glissements progressifs du plaisir and for the Japanese animated film Kanashimi no Belladonna.