dealings with magic; among others
a poor girl named Honoria, "blind of both eyes," who was burnt alive.

"God grant," says Father Michaelis, in conclusion, "that all this may
redound to His own glory and to that of His Church!"

CHAPTER VII.

THE DEMONIACS OF LOUDUN--URBAN GRANDIER: 1632-1634.

In the _State Memoirs_, written by the famous Father Joseph, and known
to us by extracts only--the work itself having, no doubt, been wisely
suppressed as too instructive--the good Father explained how, in 1633,
he had the luck to discover a heresy, a huge heresy, in which ever so
many confessors and directors were concerned. That excellent army of
Church-constables, those dogs of the Holy Troop, the Capuchins, had,
not only in the wildernesses, but even in the populous parts of
France--at Chartres, in Picardy, everywhere--got scent of some
dreadful game; the _Alumbrados_ namely, or Illuminate, of Spain, who
being sorely persecuted there, had fled for shelter into France,
where, in the world of women, especially among the convents, they
dropped the gentle poison which was afterwards called by the name of
Molinos.[90]

[90] Molinos, born at Saragossa in 1627, died a prisoner to
the Inquisition in 1696. His followers were called
Quietists.--TRANS.

The wonder was, that the matter had not been sooner known. Having
spread so far, it could not have been wholly hidden. The Capuchins
swore that in Picardy alone, where the girls are weak and
warmer-blooded than in the South, this amorously mystic folly owned
some sixty thousand professors. Did all the clergy share in it--all
the confessors and directors? We must remember, that attached to the
official directors were a good many laymen, who glowed with the same
zeal for the souls of women. One of them, who afterwards made some
noise by his talent and boldness, is the author of _Spiritual
Delights_, Desmarets of Saint Sorlin.

* * * * *

Without remembering the new state of things, we should fail to
understand the all-powerful attitude of the director towards the nuns,
of whom he was now a hundred-fold more the master than he had been in
days of yore.

The reforming movement of the Council of Trent, for the better
enclosing of monasteries, was not much followed up in the reign of
Henry IV., when the nuns received company, gave balls, danced, and so
forth. In the reign, however, of Louis XIII., it began afresh with
greater ear