The history of witchcraft and demonologySummers, Montague
History
The history of witchcraft and demonology
Summers, Montague
Demonology; Demonology -- History; Witchcraft; Witchcraft -- History
They are, however, amply paralleled, if not exceeded, by the narrative
of Madeleine Bavent, a Franciscan sister of the Third Order, attached
to the convent of SS. Louis and Elizabeth at Louviers. Her confessions,
which she wrote at length by the direction of her confessor, des Marets,
an Oratorian, meticulously describe scenes of the most hideous blasphemy
in which were involved three chaplains, David, Maturin Picard, the curé
of Mesnil-Jourdain, and Thomas Boullé, sometime his assistant. Amongst
other enormities they had revived the heresy of the Adamites, an early
Gnostic sect, and celebrated the Mass in a state of stark nudity amid
circumstances of the grossest indecency. Upon one Good Friday Picard
and Boullé had compelled her to defile the crucifix and to break a
consecrated Host, throwing the fragments upon the ground and trampling
them. David and Picard were dead, but Boullé was burned at Rouen, 21
August, 1647.[117]
During the reign of Louis XIV a veritable epidemic of sacrilege seemed
to rage throughout Paris.[118] The horrors of the black mass were said
in many houses, especially in that of La Voisin (Catherine Deshayes)
who lived in the rue Beauregard. The leading spirit of this crew was
the infamous abbé Guibourg, a bastard son—so gossip said—of Henri de
Montmorency. With him were joined Brigallier, almoner of the Grande
Mademoiselle; Bouchot, director of the convent of La Saussaye; Dulong, a
canon of Notre-Dame; Dulausens, vicar of Saint-Leu; Dubousquet; Seysson;
Dussis; Lempérier; Lépreux; Davot, vicar of Notre-Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle;
Mariette, vicar of Saint-Séverin, skilled in maledictions; Lemeignan,
vicar of Saint-Eustache, who was convicted of having sacrificed
numberless children to Satan; Toumet; Le Franc; Cotton, vicar of St.
Paul, who had baptized a baby with the chrism of Extreme Unction and then
throttled him upon the altar; Guignard and Sébault of the diocese of
Bourges, who officiated at the black mass in the cellars of a house at
Paris, and confected filthy charms under conditions of the most fearful
impiety.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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