ir turn, his
enemies called to remembrance the affair of Gauffridi, where the
Devil, the Father of Lies, was restored to his honours and accepted in
a court of justice as a right truthful witness, worthy of belief on
the side of the Church, worthy of belief on the side of His Majesty's
servants. In despair they invoked a devil and found one at their
command. He showed himself among the Ursulines.

A dangerous thing; but then, how many were nearly concerned in its
success! The prioress saw her poor humble convent suddenly attracting
the gaze of the Court, of the provinces, of all the world. The monks
saw themselves victorious over their rivals the priests. They pictured
anew those popular battles waged with the Devil in a former century,
and often, as at Soissons, before the church doors; the terror of the
people, and their joy at the triumph of the Good Spirit; the
confession drawn from the Devil touching God's presence in the
Sacrament; and the humiliation of the Huguenots at being refuted by
the Demon himself.

In these tragi-comedies the exorciser represented God, or at any rate
the Archangel, overthrowing the dragon. He came down from the platform
in utter exhaustion, streaming with sweat, but victorious, to be borne
away in the arms of the crowd, amidst the blessings of good women who
shed tears of joy the while.

Therefore it was that in these trials a dash of witchcraft was always
needful. The Devil alone roused the interest of the vulgar. They could
not always see him coming out of a body in the shape of a black toad,
as at Bordeaux in 1610. But it was easy to make it up to them by a
grand display of splendid stage scenery. The affair of Provence owed
much of its success to Madeline's desolate wildness and the terror of
Sainte-Baume. Loudun was regaled with the uproar and the bacchanal
frenzy of a host of exorcisers distributed among several churches.
Lastly, Louviers, as we shall presently see, put a little new life
into this fading fashion by inventing midnight scenes, in which the
demons who possessed the nuns began digging by the glimmer of torches,
until they drew forth certain charms from the holes wherein they had
been concealed.

* * * * *

The Loudun business began with the prioress and a lay sister of hers.
They had convulsive fits, and talked infernal gibberish. Other of the
nuns began copying them, one bold girl especially taking up Louisa's
part at Marseilles, w