This article takes as its starting point the story of the hoax ghost that Montaigne tells in Chapter 11 of Book 3 of the Essais, ‘Des boyteux’. Montaigne employs a consistent vocabulary of the theatre in describing this hoax as a ‘farce’ and a ‘battelage’. The article explores the sixteenth‐century contexts this intersection between demonology and theatricality throws into relief: the traditional suspicion of the theatre as diabolical, the efforts of demonologists to quantify and explain juggling tricks, and the impact a whiff of the theatre had on both witch‐finders’ certainty and sceptics’ critiques. Montaigne's chapter is also a meditation on political action, and accordingly the article examines how the theatrical model that appears through the story of the hoax ghost offers a different way of thinking and acting in a France polarized by the religious wars.

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We describe the contents of an unpublished seventeenth century French encyclopaedia of ornithology by Jean-Baptiste Faultrier dated 1660, located in the library of The Earl of Derby at Knowsley Hall, England. The manuscript appears to have escaped the attention of ornithologists and historians and as a result has not previously been evaluated in terms of its contribution to the history of ornithology. The manuscript is based closely on Belon's (1555) encyclopaedia but contains descriptions of many more species or forms. A full evaluation of the ornithological significance of Faultrier's manuscript is needed.

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