oulder-blade, and the other on the thigh.

Then took place one of the most abominable performances that can be
imagined. Mannouri held in his hand a probe, with a hollow handle,
into which the needle slipped when a spring was touched: when Mannouri
applied the probe to those parts of Grandier's body which, according to
the superior, were insensible, he touched the spring, and the needle,
while seeming to bury itself in the flesh, really retreated into the
handle, thus causing no pain; but when he touched one of the marks said
to be vulnerable, he left the needle fixed, and drove it in to the
depth of several inches. The first time he did this it drew from poor
Grandier, who was taken unprepared, such a piercing cry that it was
heard in the street by the crowd which had gathered round the door. From
the mark on the shoulder-blade with which he had commenced, Mannouri
passed to that on the thigh, but though he plunged the needle in to its
full depth Grandier uttered neither cry nor groan, but went on quietly
repeating a prayer, and notwithstanding that Mannouri stabbed him twice
more through each of the two marks, he could draw nothing from his
victim but prayers for his tormentors.

M. de Laubardemont was present at this scene.

The next day the devil was addressed in such forcible terms that an
acknowledgment was wrung from him that Grandier's body bore, not five,
but two marks only; and also, to the vast admiration of the spectators,
he was able this time to indicate their precise situation.

Unfortunately for the demon, a joke in which he indulged on this
occasion detracted from the effect of the above proof of cleverness.
Having been asked why he had refused to speak on the preceding Saturday,
he said he had not been at Loudun on that day, as the whole morning
he had been occupied in accompanying the soul of a certain Le Proust,
attorney to the Parliament of Paris, to hell. This answer awoke such
doubts in the breasts of some of the laymen present that they took the
trouble to examine the register of deaths, and found that no one of the
name of Le Proust, belonging to any profession whatever, had died on
that date. This discovery rendered the devil less terrible, and perhaps
less amusing.

Meantime the progress of the other exorcisms met with like
interruptions. Pere Pierre de Saint Thomas, who conducted the operations
in the Carmelite church, asked one of the possessed sisters where
Grandier's books of magic we