The case of the nuns of Loudun has never been satisfactorily explained; the "possessions" and exorcisms were witnessed by a large number of persons, none of whom were able to convict the nuns of fraud. Urbain Grandier, the priest who was believed to have bewitched them, was burned in 1634. The following account of Mother des Anges is taken from a biography, written towards the end of the seventeenth century, of Mother Louise Eugénie de la Fontaine of the Order of the Visitation: "Mère des Anges etoit une âme dont les conduites extraordinaires de Dieu sur elle donnoient beaucoup d'admiration. Chacun scait que dans les fameuses possessions de Loudun ces saintes filles eprouvèrent cet effroyable fléau. La mère des Anges (que le feu Père Surin conduisit et admiroit) en etoit une; il chassa de son corps quatre demons dont le premier écrivit en sortant en gros ses lettres sur la main droite Jésus, le second en moindre caractère Marie, et le troisième Joseph en plus petit, et le quatrième encore moindre François de Sales; ces noms etoient gravez sous le peau, ils paroissoient comme de coleur de rose sèches mais ils prenoient un vermeil miraculeux au moment de la sainte communion."] [Footnote 190: Montagu to Richelieu, November 30th, 1635. Aff. Etran. Ang., t. 45.] [Footnote 191: See Killigrew's own account of the _affaire_ printed in _European Magazine_, 1803, Vol. 43, p. 102.] [Footnote 192: "The coppy of a letter sent from France by Mr. Walter Montagu to his father the Lord Privie Seale with his answere thereunto. Also a second answer to the same letter by the Lord Falkland" (1641), p. 20.] [Footnote 193: Ferrero: _Lettres de Henriette Marie de France reine d'Angleterre à sa soeur Christine duchesse de Savoie_ (1881), p. 45.] [Footnote 194: _Lignea Ligenda_ (1653), p. 169.] [Footnote 195: Copies of Montagu's letters to Barberini, extending over many years, are among the Roman Transcripts in the P.R.O.] [Footnote 196: P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.] [Footnote 197: Laud wrote to Wentworth November 1st, 1637. Laud's Works, Vol. VII, p. 379. See the account of the matter from Laud's point of view in Heylin: _Cyprians Anglians_, Bk. IV, p. 359 (1668).] [Footnote 198: Conway to Strafford. _The Earl of Stafford's Letters and Dispatches_, II, 125.] [Footnote 199: Turner MS., LXVII.] [Footnote 200: _The Earl of Stafford's Letters and Dispatches_, II, 165.] [Footnote 201: Salvetti. Add. MS., 27,962, H., f. 125.] CHAPTER VI THE EVE OF THE WAR I Some happy wind over the ocean blow This tempest yet, which frights our island so. EDMUND WALLER