moment, we should have
gained no insight into the real lot of that great world of women who
died in those gloomy dwellings; not one word should we have heard of
the things that passed behind those parlour gratings, within those
mighty walls which only the confessor could overleap.

The example of the Basque priest, whom Lancre presents to us as
worldly, trifling, going with his sword upon him, and his deaconess by
his side, to dance all night at the Sabbath, was not one to inspire
fear. It was not such as he whom the Inquisition took such pains to
screen, or towards whom a body so stern for others, proved itself, for
once, indulgent. It is easy to see through all Lancre's reticences
the existence of _something else_. And the States-General of 1614,
affirming that priests should not be tried by priests, are also
thinking of _something else_. This very mystery it is which gets torn
in twain by the Parliament of Provence. The director of nuns gaining
the mastery over them and disposing of them, body and soul, by means
of witchcraft,--such is the fact which comes forth from the trial of
Gauffridi; at a later date from the dreadful occurrences at Loudun and
Louviers; and also in the scenes described by Llorente, Ricci, and
several more.

One common method was employed alike for reducing the scandal, for
misleading the public, for hiding away the inner fact while it was
busied with the outer aspects of it. On the trial of a priestly
wizard, all was done to juggle away the priest by bringing out the
wizard; to impute everything to the art of the magician, and put out
of sight the natural fascination wielded by the master of a troop of
women all abandoned to his charge.

But there was no way of hushing up the first affair. It had been
noised abroad in all Provence, in a land of light, where the sun
pierces without any disguise. The chief scene of it lay not only in
Aix and Marseilles, but also in Sainte-Baume, the famous centre of
pilgrimage for a crowd of curious people, who thronged from all parts
of France to be present at a deadly duel between two bewitched nuns
and their demons. The Dominicans, who attacked the affair as
inquisitors, committed themselves by the noise they made about it
through their partiality for one of these nuns. For all the care
Parliament presently took to hurry the conclusion, these monks were
exceedingly anxious to excuse her and justify themselves. Hence the
important work of the monk Michaelis