the priests and auditors a great sensation was occasioned by the appearance of a cat, into whom it was hoped that Astaroth had transmigrated. The solemnities of exorcism having been expended on the animal with no effect, it was discovered to be no demon, but, in truth, "a harmless, necessary cat,"-a cat above all suspicion of diabolic dealings, the favourite cat of the convent.

Before proceeding further, it is necessary to make some mention of the principal personage of this history, in whose character and fate its interest henceforth centres. Urbain Grandier, the curé of St. Peter's, is described as a man of brilliant powers both as a preacher and a writer, of great personal beauty, and of fascinating address. He was celebrated for his successes out of the pulpit not less than for his triumphs in it, -successes of a kind which, it must be admitted, have too often illustrated the relations of "priests, women, and families." Personal jealousy, and also, perhaps, an angry resentment of the scandal cast by his life upon the ministers of the Church, joined to make him an object of odium to his brethren. There were other incentives to hostility not likely to be less powerful. Grandier was always more or less entangled in disputes, which swelled the number of his enemies. He had instituted a lawsuit against the canons of the church of the Holy Cross, in which Mignon had been his principal opponent, and had gained his cause. Rumour whispered another ground of quarrel between the confessor of the Ursulines and Grandier, in a liaison between Grandier and a female cousin of Mignon's.

In 1630 the enemies of the curé of St. Peter's gained a shortlived triumph over him, which, however, only gave occasion to their own more signal overthrow. He was convicted, on their accusation, of various acts of impiety and profligacy, and subjected, together with lesser penalties, to an interdict à divinis for five years in the diocese of Poitiers, and in Loudun for ever. On appeal to the Parliament of Paris, which referred the matter to the présidial of Poitiers, the witnesses against him retracted their evidence, and confessed that they had been suborned. The Archbishop of Bordeaux removed the interdict, but counselled Grandier, as a matter of prudence, to quit Loudun. It would have been well for him if he had taken this advice. But he was not the man to be driven away by defeated adversaries. His fearless nature, and the haughty contempt which he felt for them, and which he spared no opportunity of displaying, made him eager to witness and aggravate their humiliation. "He made his entry into the town waving laurel-branches, which he carried in his hand as a sign of victory." Not content with this rational and conciliatory proceeding, he instituted an action against the promoters of the late suit against him, for reparation

and restitution of the fruits of his benefice. A wordy war which ensued in consequence, between himself and a certain Sieur Duthebant, led the latter à verbis ad verbera. He assaulted Grandier with a cudgel as the priest was entering his church in full canonicals. Grandier proceeded at once to Paris, and laid the matter before the king. Duthebant was blamé téte nue, and condemned, besides costs, to divers amends and reparations.

Taking these things into account, it is not unnatural to suppose that the accusation of sorcery levelled against Urbain Grandier was, if not the result of a plot against him on the part of his old enemies, or directly suggested by them, at least by no means disagreeable to them. To M. Figuier another explanation, which, though different from, does not positively conflict with the foregoing, recommends itself. We quote it here, leaving discussion to a later page:

"Since the opening of the Ursuline convent at Loudun, Grandier had not paid the sisters a single visit, and had never meddled in their affairs; but perhaps the nuns had meddled a good deal with his. They were not so hermetically shut out from the world that the renown of the great and various merits admired in the curé of St. Peter's had not penetrated the bars of their convent. They had heard speak of his eloquence, of his beauty, of his successes in the pulpit and elsewhere; of his incessant struggles against his enemies, and of his victories, of which the fame had resounded throughout Loudun. It is even said that he had been thought of as a suitable person to fill the office of confessor at the convent of the Ursulines, which had become vacant by the death of Moussaut, and which was granted, as we have seen, to the canon Mignon. This point, however, has not been established. Be it as it may, the name of the curé of St. Peter's must have been often pronounced in the cloister of the Ursulines; and, without doubt, his mundane inclinations, his adventures of gallantry, were the principal features in which his unknown image presented itself to the imagination of these young nuns. It is evident how the Ursulines, a prey to fits of hysteria, and having to search out the author of the injuries of which they believed themselves the victims, should have promptly substituted in their accusations the brilliant curé of St. Peter's for poor Moussaut, whose ashes they had for a moment troubled, and who even in his lifetime seems to have been no very great conjurer.

This is without doubt the reason why Urbain Grandier succeeded in the imaginations of the Ursulines the late director of their consciences, and why he was accused of having cast the lot and the pacts from which all the evil came.'

The good fortune which had hitherto brought Grandier triumphantly through his difficulties did not at once desert him. After a variety of proceedings, which prove the bitter hostility

• Vol. i. pp. 101-2

of the exorcists, and throw light upon the ridiculous nature of their accusations, and of the evidence intended to support them, the Archbishop of Bordeaux interfered. On the report of a physician commissioned by him to inquire into the facts which had occurred in the Ursuline convent, Mignon was relieved of his office of exorcist. Instructions were drawn up for testing the reality of the alleged possession, so judicious and stringent, that they had themselves the effect of an exorcism, and it became unnecessary to put them in force. "At the mere sight of the ordinance of Monseigneur de Sourdis, the demons beat a retreat, and ceased to torment the Ursulines."

For a time peace reigned in Loudun-that sort of peace which follows complete victory on the one side, and crushing defeat on the other. Grandier enjoyed his triumph haughtily. The discredited nuns sank into poverty and contempt; not richly endowed, they had previously supported themselves by the reception of boarders and day-pupils within the convent walls. These pupils were now withdrawn. But another turn of Fortune's wheel was destined to change the state of things again. Within a year the demons returned to the convent whence they had been expelled, and the proceedings against Grandier were renewed.

The political circumstances which were concurrent with this re-possession of the Ursulines deserve to be stated. They had a direct influence on Grandier's fate. After the taking of Rochelle, Richelieu, in pursuance of the great design of his life, the aggrandisement of the royal power in France by weakening the nobles and crushing the Huguenots, determined on the destruction of the feudal castles and fortresses in the interior of the kingdom, which had afforded or might afford strongholds and means of resistance to the disaffected. The castle of Loudun was among those destined to be rased; and Laubardemont was appointed to superintend its demolition. Now Laubardemont was a relative of the superior of the convent, and shared, it is scarcely necessary to say, the almost universal belief of his age in sorcery and demoniacal possession. We can hardly wonder at his being the dupe of a superstition which, at about the same time, had in England a more illustrious votary in the person of Sir Matthew Hale. Thus predisposed, he was easily accessible to the machinations of the exorcists and their faction, and became the zealous accomplice of their odious designs. Unfortunately, Grandier had a still more formidable enemy in yet higher quarters. His evil genius, or his combative and defiant temper, had early in life embroiled him with Richelieu, between himself and whom, when yet only prior of Coussai, a silly quarrel about precedency had occurred. The offence may or may not have

been forgiven and forgotten by the cardinal, among whose great qualities neither the meeker Christian nor the more generous natural virtues were very conspicuous. But it further suited the purposes of Grandier's enemies to represent him as cognisant of and concerned in a satire professedly written by one of his female parishioners named Hammon, entitled La Cordonnière de la Reine Mère, in which "were exhibited, with scandalous details, several particularités of Richelieu's life and ministry." The civil authorities, who in the former proceedings against the cure of St. Peter's, had honestly, if timidly, stood by him, or rather by the cause of common humanity and fair-dealing, were now ranged with overwhelming force on the opposite side. The issue is easily foreseen. Grandier's enemies were determined to hunt him down, and they succeeded. They were bent on the most uncompromising and cruel revenge, and they had it.

It would be foreign to the purpose of this paper to enter into any detailed narrative of Grandier's trial, except in so far as it throws light upon the belief in that diabolic superstition which gave occasion to it. The iniquitous proceedings by which the associated priests and politicians gained their end, and the unflinching calmness and courage with which Grandier bore himself to the last, are personal to the actors in the tragedy. The interest of the story, as M. Figuier relates it, is indeed intense; but the pain exceeds the interest. The reader feels like some helpless spectator compelled by a refinement of cruelty to witness to the end barbarities from which, as he is powerless to prevent them, he would willingly turn away his eyes and thoughts. A kind of ineffectual indignation is the prevailing sentiment which the narrative excites. There are few who are free to read or not to read it at their pleasure who will not turn rather to some less melancholy part of M. Figuier's melancholy book,-melancholy in its substance though not in its tone, which is Voltairian. The author laughs at follies rather than weeps at crimes. Perhaps only by the assumption of such a temper could he carry his task through.

On the 6th of December 1633, Grandier was arrested as he was proceeding to church, breviary in hand, to say Matins. The details of his imprisonment, of the barbarities practised upon his person, of the shameless denial or perversion by his opponents of every principle and form of law and justice, and of his own heroic demeanour, must, as we have said, be passed over very briefly. Immediately after his arrest, his papers were seized. Among them was a Ms. treatise on the Celibacy of the Priesthood, of which he disclaimed the authorship, but which is said to have been written by him to calm the scruples of Madeleine de Brou, the nouvelle Héloise of this new Abelard. The author

was satisfied with his own arguments; for he concludes with the following couplet:

“Si ton gentil esprit prend bien cette science,

Tu mettras en repos ta bonne conscience."

In the castle of Angers, where he was confined, he was deprived of a bed, fire, and every other comfort. The means necessary for preparing his defence were withheld. Defamatory writings containing the most horrible and unproved charges against him were published and circulated by authority; witnesses against him were invited to come forward and assured of protection. The efforts of his mother and brother to secure an appeal were illegally thwarted. The sequestration of the nuns said to be possessed was evaded: they were kept together to excite and countenance each other's frenzy. The people of Loudun were prohibited from speaking against the exorcists and the nuns, and were otherwise intimidated. A petition which they addressed to the king was intercepted by Laubardemont. The medical commission appointed to inquire into the state of the énergumènes was purposely made up almost entirely of men of no consideration or sagacity. The trickery and falsehood practised during the exorcism of the demoniacs were transparent; we shall speak of them presently. It is sufficient now to say that the proceedings against Urbain Grandier, which commenced on the 6th of April 1633, were terminated by his death, on the 18th of August in the same year. He was burned alive, after having been first put to the torture. He met his trials with noble serenity and. patience, protesting his innocence to the last, and praying God's mercy and forgiveness for himself and his enemies. We had marked for extract some passages describing the closing scene of Grandier's life, but our space is not extended enough to allow of their insertion.

In considering the case of the nuns of Loudun, several issues have to be tried. First, with regard to the conduct of the exorcists and of the judges who passed sentence upon Grandier, the question is, how far the criteria of demoniacal possession insisted on by the Roman Church were faithfully applied by them. If the phenomena displayed by the nuns of Loudun were in their nature genuine, if they were free from all taint of collusion and jugglery, the priests and their civil abettors are personally absolved of a crime which casts its dark shadow merely on their age and on human nature. If, on the contrary, there is evidence of fraudulent tampering with facts, no greater guilt has ever been incurred even by blind fanaticism and priestly jealousy. Was the death of Grandier an act of mistaken piety and duty, or a cruel judicial murder? This is the first point to be examined. Secondly, taking, as we may fairly do, the conditions described in