“On Friday, 23rd June 1634, on the Eve of Saint John, about 3 p.m., the
Lord Bishop of Poitiers and M. de Laubardemont being present in the
church of Sainte-Croix of Loudun, to continue the exorcisms of the
Ursuline nuns, by order of M. de Laubardemont, commissioner, Urbain
Grandier, priest-in-charge, accused and denounced as a magician by the
said possessed nuns, was brought from his prison to the said church.
“There were produced by the said commissioner to the said Urbain
Grandier four pacts mentioned several times by the said possessed nuns
at the preceding exorcisms, which the devils who possessed the nuns
declared they had made with the said Grandier on several occasions:
there was one in especial which Leviathan gave up on Saturday the 17th
inst., composed of an infant’s heart procured at a witches’ sabbath,
held in Orleans in 1631; the ashes of a consecrated wafer, blood, etc.,
of the said Grandier, whereby Leviathan asserted he had entered the body
of the sister, Jeanne des Anges, the superior of the said nuns, and took
possession of her with his coadjutors Beherit, Eazas, and Balaam, on
December 8th, 1632. Another such pact was composed of the pips of
Grenada oranges, and was given up by Asmodeus and a number of other
devils. It had been made to hinder Beherit from keeping his promise to
lift the commissioner’s hat two inches from his head and to hold it
there the length of a Miseyere, as a sign that he had come out of the
nun. On all these pacts being shown to the said Grandier, he said,
without astonishment, but with much firmness and resolution, that he had
no knowledge of them whatever, that he had never made them, and had not
the skill by which to make them, that he had held no communication with
devils, and knew nothing of what they were talking about. A report of
all this being made and shown to him, he signed it.
“This done, they brought all the possessed nuns, to the number of eleven
or twelve, including three lay sisters, also possessed, into the choir
of the said church, accompanied by a great many monks, Carmelites,
Capuchins, and Franciscans; and by three physicians and a surgeon. The
sisters on entering made some wanton remarks, calling Grandier their
master, and exhibiting great delight at seeing him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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