f her, and her imprecations and blasphemies brought
consternation wherever she went. Myth-making began on a large scale;
stories grew and sped. The Capuchin monks thundered from the pulpit
throughout France regarding these proofs of the power of Satan: the
alarm spread, until at last even jovial, sceptical King Henry IV was
disquieted, and the reigning Pope was asked to take measures to ward off
the evil.

Fortunately, there then sat in the episcopal chair of Angers a prelate
who had apparently imbibed something of Montaigne's scepticism--Miron;
and, when the case was brought before him, he submitted it to the most
time-honoured of sacred tests. He first brought into the girl's presence
two bowls, one containing holy water, the other ordinary spring water,
but allowed her to draw a false inference regarding the contents of
each: the result was that at the presentation of the holy water the
devils were perfectly calm, but when tried with the ordinary water they
threw Martha into convulsions.

The next experiment made by the shrewd bishop was to similar purpose.
He commanded loudly that a book of exorcisms be brought, and under a
previous arrangement, his attendants brought him a copy of Virgil. No
sooner had the bishop begun to read the first line of the Aeneid than
the devils threw Martha into convulsions. On another occasion a Latin
dictionary, which she had reason to believe was a book of exorcisms,
produced a similar effect.

Although the bishop was thereby led to pronounce the whole matter a
mixture of insanity and imposture, the Capuchin monks denounced this
view as godless. They insisted that these tests really proved the
presence of Satan--showing his cunning in covering up the proofs of his
existence. The people at large sided with their preachers, and Martha
was taken to Paris, where various exorcisms were tried, and the Parisian
mob became as devoted to her as they had been twenty years before to
the murderers of the Huguenots, as they became two centuries later to
Robespierre, and as they more recently were to General Boulanger.

But Bishop Miron was not the only sceptic. The Cardinal de Gondi,
Archbishop of Paris, charged the most eminent physicians of the city,
and among them Riolan, to report upon the case. Various examinations
were made, and the verdict was that Martha was simply a hysterical
impostor. Thanks, then, to medical science, and to these two enlightened
ecclesiastics who summoned its aid, w