152 ANTEMURALE
funeral, on 12 December 1791, resplendent in eastern splendour and Polish cos-
tumes, was the last act of a supreme impresario, the perfect charlatan.
Throughout these thirty years, Frank's followers in the Republic remained
unwaveringly faithful. They developed an amazing cult which they called 'Das'
(It), and produced the extraordinary 'Balamutna Bible' - a mystical fantasy
filled with animal symbolism, with stories of treasure hidden in mythical caves,
and with dreams of a chosen land conquered by their legions to the greater glory
of the 'Sennor Santo', 'Der Heiliger Herr', their absolute master. In the 1760s
they were baptized into the Catholic Church in large numbers. At the
Coronation Sejm of 1764, they established their claim, as converts to
Catholicism, to qualify for certificates of nobility - which they bought at 500
ducats a head. Most amazingly, they continued to subsidize their master at
Oberrad. It has been calculated, no doubt with some degree of exaggeration,
that 24,000 believers, of whom one-quarter lived in Warsaw, subscribed on
average 4.5 million zt. per year. This sum was larger than the income of the
state, and is indicative of the excesses of sectarianism in a supposedly Catholic
country.
In comparison to the troubles caused by religious differences, witchcraft and
witch-hunting gave rise to more human misery, and more persecution of inno-
cents, than everything else combined. As elsewhere in Europe, the distinctions
between blasphemy, heresy, sorcery, and necromancy were not always clear,
and their supposed practitioners could expect no charity. In the Republic, the
craze for witch-hunting reached its height in Mazovia in the first quarter of the
eighteenth century. But isolated incidents occurred over three hundred years.
Suspicions of witchcraft in tiny rural communities were usually aroused by
natural disasters, by plague, drought, or crop failure, or simply by neighbourly
spite. Charges of sorcery invariably snowballed, as one woman under invest-
igation would denounce her acquaintances in desperate attempts to exonerate
herself. In the seventeenth century, there are instances of unscrupulous noble-
men employing teams of witches as instruments of private warfare. The duck-
ing-stool formed part of the essential equipment of every village, and torture
was a normal ingredient of most examinations. Naked; shaved above and
below; anointed with holy oil; and suspended from the ceiling, lest by touch-
ing the ground she should summon the Devil to her aid, the miserable suspect
was examined by the magistrates, who fortified themselves with alcohol and
urged her to confess. Two such unfortunates among thousands were Dorota
Siedlikowa and her 'accomplice', interrogated at Kalisz in 1612. Dorota was
suspected of curdling her neighbour's beer, and had been overheard by her
stepfather to say: 'By the power of the Virgin, and the help of the Saints, may
all such evil people be overturned, and good people take their place, in
the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.' Her accomplice, who had
claimed that she was not with Dorota on the day in question, was duly put on
the rack: