Bertrand Guilladot

Bertrand Guilladot (died 1742), a French priest and an alleged sorcerer, was among the last people to be executed for witchcraft in France and in Europe.

Officially, the last witchcraft execution in France took place in Bordeaux in 1718 after a man was denounced as a sorcerer. However, a donkey-driver and the nobleman des Chauffors were in fact executed for the same crimes in Paris in 1724 and 1726, and from 1742 to 1745, witch trials took place in Dijon and Lyon.

Bertrand Guilladot, a Catholic priest in Dijon, was arrested and confessed to have made a pact with the Devil. In his confession, he identified twenty-nine other individuals, all of them male, who reportedly had participated in the pact with him.

Guilladot was judged guilty of sorcery and witchcraft and executed in 1742. The witch trials that began by his confession continued for three years more while his "accomplices" were put on trial. The accused were executed in 1745 with five other men who were guilty of making "devil's pacts" with them. Twenty-three more men were sent to the gallows for the same crime.

Father Louis Debaraz, burnt-alive in Lyon in 1745 for having performed a black mass to find a treasure, was the last person executed for witchcraft in France.

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