Zedekias
Notwithstanding the credulity of the French people in the reign of Pepin the Short, they refused to believe in the existence of elementary spirits. The Kabalist Zedekias, being minded to convince the world, thereupon commanded the sylphs to become visible to all men.
According to the Abbé de Villars, the admirable creatures Ziito responded magnificently. They were beheld in human form, sometimes ranged in battle, whether marching in good order, or under arms, or camping in superb pavilions; and, again, in aerial navies of marvellous structure, whose flying flotillas sailed through the air, at the will of the Zephyrs. But the ignorant generation to which they appeared failed entirely to understand the significance of the strange spectatle. They believed at first that the creatures were sorcerers who had betaken themselves to aerial regions for the purpose of exciting storms and sending down hail on the harvests. The sages and jurisconsuls were of the popular opinion. The emperors shared the same idea, which became so widespread that even the wise Charlemagne, and after him Louis the Debonnair, imposed heavy penalties on these supposed aerial tyrants. (See Elementary Spirits and France.)