“Upon this, some of those present exclaimed that it was heretical to
profess such a belief; that the contrary was indubitable, believed by
the whole Church and approved by the Sorbonne. To which he replied that
his mind on that point was not yet irrevocably made up, that what he had
said was simply his own idea, and that in any case he submitted to the
opinion of the whole body of which he was only a member; that nobody was
declared a heretic for having doubts, but only for persisting in them,
and that what he had advanced was only for the purpose of drawing an
assurance from the bishop that in doing what he was about to do he would
not be abusing the authority of the Church. Sister Catherine having been
brought to him by the Franciscan as the most ignorant of all the nuns,
and the least open to the suspicion of being acquainted with Latin, he
began the exorcism in the form prescribed by the ritual. But as soon as
he began to question her he was interrupted, for all the other nuns were
attacked by devils, and uttered strange and terrible noises. Amongst the
rest, Sister Claire came near, and reproached him for his blindness and
obstinacy, so that he was forced to leave the nun with whom he had
begun, and address his words to the said Sister Claire, who during the
entire duration of the exorcism continued to talk at random, without
paying any heed to Grandier’s words, which were also interrupted by the
mother superior, to whom he of last gave attention, leaving Sister
Claire. But it is to be noted that before beginning to exorcise the
superior, he said, speaking in Latin as heretofore, that knowing she
understood Latin, he would question her in Greek. To which the devil
replied by the mouth of the possessed:
“‘Ah! how clever you are! You know it was one of the first conditions of
our pact that I was not to answer in Greek.’
“Upon this, he cried, ‘O pulchra illusio, egregica evasio!’ ( O superb
fraud, outrageous evasion!)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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