For the next ten or twelve days Mignon and Barre spent the greater part
of their time at the convent; sometimes remaining there for six hours at
a stretch, sometimes the entire day. At length, on Monday, the 11th of
October, 1632, they wrote to the priest of Venier, to Messire Guillaume
Cerisay de la Gueriniere, bailiff of the Loudenois, and to Messire Louis
Chauvet, civil lieutenant, begging them to visit the Ursuline convent,
in order to examine two nuns who were possessed by evil spirits, and to
verify the strange and almost incredible manifestations of this
possession. Being thus formally appealed to, the two magistrates could
not avoid compliance with the request. It must be confessed that they
were not free from curiosity, and felt far from sorry at being able to
get to the bottom of the mystery of which for some time the whole town
was talking. They repaired, therefore, to the convent, intending to make
a thorough investigation as to the reality of the possession and as to
the efficacy of the exorcisms employed. Should they judge that the nuns
were really possessed, and that those who tried to deliver them were in
earnest, they would authorise the continuation of the efforts at
exorcism; but if they were not satisfied on these two points, they would
soon put an end to the whole thing as a comedy. When they reached the
door, Mignon, wearing alb and stole, came to meet them. He told them
that the feelings of the nuns had for more than two weeks been harrowed
by the apparition of spectres and other blood-curdling visions, that the
mother superior and two nuns had evidently been possessed by evil
spirits for over a week; that owing to the efforts of Barre and same
Carmelite friars who were good enough to assist him against their common
enemies, the devils had been temporarily driven out, but on the previous
Sunday night, the 10th of October, the mother superior, Jeanne de
Belfield, whose conventual name was Jeanne des Anges, and a lay sister
called Jeanne Dumagnoux, had again been entered into by the same
spirits. It had, however, been discovered by means of exorcisms that a
new compact, of which the symbol and token was a bunch of roses, had
been concluded, the symbol and token of the first having been three
black thorns. He added that during the time of the first possession the
demons had refused to give their names, but by the power of his
exorcisms this reluctance had been overcome, the spirit which had
resumed possession of the mother superior having at length revealed that
its name was Ashtaroth, one of the greatest enemies of God, while the
devil which had entered into the lay sister was of a lower order, and
was called Sabulon. Unfortunately, continued Mignon, just now the two
afflicted nuns were resting, and he requested the bailiff and the civil
lieutenant to put off their inspection till a little later. The two
magistrates were just about to go away, when a nun appeared, saying that
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