Triumphant over Sainte-Baume, she hits out even at Marseilles. Her Flemish exorciser, being reduced to the strange part of secretary and bosom-counsellor to the Devil, writes, under her dictation, five letters: first, to the Capuchins of Marseilles, that they may call upon Gauffridi to recant; second, to the same Capuchins, that they may arrest Gauffridi, bind him fast with a stole, and keep him prisoner in a house of her describing; thirdly, several letters to the moderate party, to Catherine of France, to the Doctrinal Priests, who had declared against her; and then this lewd, outrageous termagant ends with insulting her own prioress: “When I left, you bade me be humble and obedient. Now take back your own advice.” Her devil Verrine, spirit of air and wind, whispered to her some trivial nonsense, words of senseless pride which harmed friends and foes, and the Inquisition itself. One day she took to laughing at Michaëlis, who was shivering at Aix, preaching in a desert while all the world was gone to hear strange things at Sainte-Baume. “Michaëlis, you preach away, indeed, but you get no further forward; while Louisa has reached, has caught hold of the quintessence of all perfection.” This savage joy was mainly caused by her having quite conquered Madeline at last. One word had done more for her than a hundred sermons: “Thou shalt be burnt.” Thenceforth in her distraction the young girl said whatever the other pleased, and upheld her statements in the meanest way. Humbling herself before them all, she besought forgiveness of her mother, of her superior Romillion, of the bystanders, of Louisa. According to the latter, the frightened girl took her aside, and begged her to be merciful, not to chasten her too much. The other woman, tender as a rock and merciful as a hidden reef, felt that Madeline was now hers, to do whatever she might choose. She caught her, folded her round, and bedazed her out of what little spirit she had left. It was a second enchantment; but all unlike that by Gauffridi, a _possession_ by means of terror. The poor downtrodden wretch, moving under rod and scourge, was pushed onward in a path of exquisite suffering which led her to accuse and murder the man she loved still. Had Madeline stood out, Gauffridi would have escaped, for every one was against Louisa. Michaëlis himself at Aix, eclipsed by her as a preacher, treated by her with so much coolness, would have stopped the whole business rather than leave the honour of it in her hands. Marseilles supported Gauffridi, being fearful of seeing the Inquisition of Avignon pushed into her neighbourhood, and one of her own children carried off from her threshold. The Bishop and Chapter were specially eager to defend their priest, maintaining that the whole affair sprang from nothing but a rivalry between confessors, nothing but the hatred commonly shown by monks towards secular priests.