f adultery
comes before him.

The right thing in matters of this sort was, to spin out the play
through Advent, Christmas, Lent, and burn no one before the Holy Week,
the vigil, as it were, of the great day of Easter. Michaelis kept
himself for the last act, entrusting the bulk of the business to a
Flemish Dominican in his service, Doctor Dompt, from Louvain, who had
already exorcised, was well-skilled in fooleries of that nature.

The best thing the Fleming could do, was to do nothing. In Louisa, he
found a terrible helpmate, with thrice as much zeal in her as the
Inquisition itself, unquenchable in her rage, of a burning eloquence,
whimsical, and sometimes very odd, but always raising a shudder; a
very torch of Hell.

The matter was reduced to a public duel between the two devils, Louisa
and Madeline.

Some simple folk who came thither on a pilgrimage to Sainte-Baume, a
worthy goldsmith, for instance, and a draper, both from Troyes, in
Champagne, were charmed to see Louisa's devil deal such cruel blows at
the other demons, and give so sound a thrashing to the magicians. They
wept for joy, and went away thanking God.

It is a terrible sight, however, even in the dull wording of the
Fleming's official statement, to look upon this unequal strife; to
watch the elder woman, the strong and sturdy Provencial, come of a
race hard as the flints of its native Crau, as day after day she
stones, knocks down, and crushes her young and almost childish victim,
who, wasted with love and shame, has already been fearfully punished
by her own distemper, her attacks of epilepsy.

The Fleming's volume, which, with the additions made by Michaelis,
reaches to four hundred pages in all, is one condensed epitome of the
invectives, threats, and insults spewed forth by this young woman in
five months; interspersed with sermons also, for she used to preach on
every subject, on the sacraments, on the next coming of Antichrist, on
the frailty of women, and so forth. Thence, on the mention of her
devils, she fell into the old rage, and renewed twice a-day, the
execution of the poor little girl; never taking breath, never for one
minute staying the frightful torrent, until at least the other in her
wild distraction, "with one foot in hell"--to use her own
words--should have fallen into a convulsive fit, and begun beating the
flags with her knees, her body, her swooning head.

It must be acknowledged that Louisa herself is a trifle mad: no a