presented himself early on that day at
Grandier's prison, caused him to be stripped naked and cleanly shaven,
then ordered him to be laid on a table and his eyes bandaged. But the
devil was wrong again: Grandier had only two marks, instead of five--one
on the shoulder-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