Despite this logical protest from Grandier and the barefaced knavery of
the exorcist, M. de Laubardemont prepared a report of the expulsion of
the three devils, Asmodeus, Gresil, and Aman, from the body of sister
Jeanne des Anges, through three wounds below the region of the heart; a
report which was afterwards shamelessly used against Grandier, and of
which the memorandum still exists, a monument, not so much of credulity
and superstition, as of hatred and revenge. Pere Lactance, in order to
allay the suspicions which the pretended miracle had aroused among the
eye-wittnesses, asked Balaam, one of the four demons who still remained
in the superior’s body, the following day, why Asmodeus and his two
companions had gone out against their promise, while the superior’s face
and hands were hidden from the people.
“To lengthen the incredulity of certain people,” answered Balaam.
As for Pere Tranquille, he published a little volume describing the
whole affair, in which, with the irresponsible frivolity of a true
Capuchin, he poked fun at those who could not swallow the miracles
wholesale.
“They had every reason to feel vexed,” he said, “at the small courtesy
or civility shown by the demons to persons of their merit and station;
but if they had examined their consciences, perhaps they would have
found the real reason of their discontent, and, turning their anger
against themselves, would have done penance for having come to the
exorcisms led by a depraved moral sense and a prying spirit.”
Nothing remarkable happened from the 20th May till the 13th June, a day
which became noteworthy by reason of the superior’s vomiting a quill a
finger long. It was doubtless this last miracle which brought the Bishop
of Poitiers to Loudun, “not,” as he said to those who came to pay their
respects to him, “to examine into the genuineness of the possession, but
to force those to believe who still doubted, and to discover the classes
which Urbain had founded to teach the black art to pupils of both
sexes.”
Thereupon the opinion began to prevail among the people that it would be
prudent to believe in the possession, since the king, the cardinal-duke,
and the bishop believed in it, and that continued doubt would lay them
open to the charges of disloyalty to their king and their Church, and of
complicity in the crimes of Grandier, and thus draw down upon them the
ruthless punishment of Laubardemont.
“The reason we feel so certain that our work is pleasing to God is that
it is also pleasing to the king,” wrote Pere Lactance.
The arrival of the bishop was followed by a new exorcism; and of this an
eye-witness, who was a good Catholic and a firm believer in possession,
has left us a written description, more interesting than any we could
give. We shall present it to our readers, word for word, as it stands:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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