# Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders/The Devil Dance on Orleans

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THE DEVIL DANCE ON ORLEANS
WHEN Marie Josèphe Corriveau, of Quebec, was condemned to death in 1763, by one of General Murray's courts-martial, everybody said that she deserved it. She had killed her first husband by pouring melted lead into his ear. Number two she choked with a noose, which he succeeded in casting off, and after he had forgiven her for this discourtesy she beat his brains out. To other ​people it was rumored that she had given subtile poisons. Her guiltless old father tried to save her by alleging her crime upon himself; but the only result of his plea was to get himself hanged without saving her. The execution occurred on the Heights of Abraham, but the body of La Corriveau was encased in an iron cage and swung from a gibbet near the site of the temperance monument at Point Lévis. Some say that she was never hanged, but was shut in this cage to perish of cold, hunger, thirst, and madness, and that her groans and cries lasted for several days, growing weaker and weaker, until at last only the creak of the chains was heard. This creaking was said to be the call of the body for interment, and it excited such terror that the young men of the district cut it down and buried it at night in a spot where, eighty-seven years later, it was discovered by the parish grave-digger—and sold to Barnum. The cage on being opened was found to contain only a thigh-bone.
But burial did not silence the creature. She somehow got out of her cage and her grave and walked after people who were late on the road,—blue, brown, withered, with tangled locks, an altogether fearful object. Among these late goers was citizen Dubé, a truthful man, never timid in the daytime, nor at night either, if he could get rum enough. It was his fate to be abroad in the small hours on the south shore of the river. He had prayed for the peace of the Corriveau in passing, ​and, seeing a bluish light over on the island of Orleans, concluded that something was astir there: so, tethering his horse on a good patch of grass, he huddled in his cabriolet and watched the light for very comfort. Not but that he knew of the ignes fatui, the fool fires or will-o'-the-wisps, that were carried by the devils over on Orleans to lure people into swamps and fly off with their souls as they were drowning, but this light was brighter than the will-o'-the-wisps. And now he could see figures moving. Their aspect did not quiet him. They were of uncommon height and size, were bony, hare-lipped, and pig-snouted, had tusks, and flourished long tails. Had not the night been uncommonly clear and he uncommonly sharp-sighted, he could not have seen these handsome fellows at that distance, nor could he have heard their remarks about him unless his ears had been wide open,—proof enough, as he afterward submitted, that he was not drunk. The demons, for such they doubtless were, began to dance and sing. Their voices brayed and growled and cackled, and they sang a fool song to the effect that they would soon have Dubé for supper. Their master, a huge creature in a cap with a spruce-tree on it by way of feather, pounded a mighty pot with the clapper of an unblessed bell, holding the vessel up toward the goggling farmer, to show in what they intended to boil him; but, though he was disturbed, Dubé did not lose his self-possession. "You rascals," he bawled, ​"you'll get none of the pork that lards my ribs for your supper."
They answered only with gibbering laughter and capered the higher. Then two fleshless hands caught him by the shoulders. It was La Corriveau out of her cage. His hair crawled over his scalp like worms, and he sweat ice-water. My dear François," squealed the hag, "do me the favor to dance with my friends."
"You limb of the Old One, is this what I get for praying for the quiet of your soul?"
She laughed—the sound was like a wind playing over empty bottles—and butted him with her unfleshed head. "Take me over to the island, there's a dear. I must meet them, and only a Christian can ferry me, for the river is blessed." Here she tickled the unhappy man under the chin with her claw-like fingers. Dubé pulled away from her. "Get over as best you may, old gallows-bird," he cried.
"Dog of a Christian, bring her here, or it will be the worse for you," clamored the imps.
"Yes, my dear; obey the gentlemen," croaked the bare-bones.
"But how in the dev—how, in the name of the good Sainte Anne" (here a shuddering silence fell), "am I to get over? I have no boat."
"Then I'll strangle you, and fly across on your departing soul."
Dubé saw the blue light flame up, saw the ​company leap in a more frantic dance than before, and heard the screech of the vampire as she sprang at his throat. He gurgled a prayer and tumbled in a heap in his cabriolet. When his senses returned to him he sneezed himself into a sitting posture. He was alone, and it was a chilly morning. Dawn was flushing the east. He reached for his bottle, for he sorely needed spirituous comfort, but the Corriveau had emptied it. Nor did he fill it when he got to town. He was a light drinker after that adventure, and died in an odor of sanctity which, his neighbors held, was better than that of alcohol.