La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages Part 20

They took her again, at least her body. But her soul? Michaelis knew not how to catch that again. Luckily he caught sight of her magic ring, which was taken off, cut up, destroyed, and thrown into the fire. Fancying, moreover, that this perverseness on the part of one so gentle was due to unseen wizards who found their way into her room, he set there a very substantial man at arms, with a sword to slash about him everywhere, and cut the invisible imps into pieces.

But the best physic for the conversion of Madeline was the death of Gauffridi. On the 5th February, the inquisitor went to Aix for his Lent preachings, saw the judges, and stirred them up. The Parliament, swiftly yielding to such a pressure, sent off to Ma.r.s.eilles an order to seize the rash man, who, finding himself so well backed by Bishop, Chapter, Capuchins, and all the world, had fancied they would never dare so far.

Madeline from one quarter, Gauffridi from another, arrived at Aix. She was so disturbed that they were forced to bind her. Her disorder was frightful, and all were in great perplexity what to do. They bethought them at least of one bold way of dealing with this sick child; one of those fearful tricks that throw a woman into fits, and sometimes kill her outright. A vicar-general of the archbishopric said that the palace contained a dark narrow charnel-house, such as you may see in the Escurial, and called in Spain a "rotting vat."

There, in olden days, old bones of unknown dead were left to waste away. Into this tomb-like cave the trembling girl was led. They exorcised her by putting those chilly bones to her face. She did not die of fright, but thenceforth gave herself up to their will and pleasure; and so they got what they wanted, the death of the conscience, the destruction of all that remained to her of moral insight and free will.

She became their pliant tool, ready to obey their least desire, to flatter them, to try and guess beforehand what would give them most pleasure. Huguenots were brought before her: she called them names.

Confronted with Gauffridi, she told forth by heart her grievances against him, better than the King's own officers could have done. This did not prevent her from squalling violently, when she was brought to the church to excite the people against Gauffridi, by making her devil blaspheme in the magician's name. Beelzebub speaking through her said, "In the name of Gauffridi I abjure G.o.d;" and again, at the lifting up of the Host, "Let the blood of the just be upon me, in the name of Gauffridi!"

An awful fellows.h.i.+p indeed! This twofold devil condemns one out of the other's mouth; whatever Madeline says, is ascribed to Gauffridi. And the scared crowd were impatient to behold the burning of the dumb blasphemer, whose unG.o.dliness so loudly declared itself by the voice of the girl.

The exorcisers then put to her this cruel question, to which they themselves could have given the best answer:--"Why, Beelzebub, do you speak so ill of your great friend?" Her answer was frightful: "If there be traitors among men, why not among demons also? When I am with Gauffridi, I am his to do all his will. But when you constrain me, I betray him and turn him to scorn."

However, she could not keep up this hateful mockery. Though the demon of fear and fawning seemed to have gotten fast hold of her, there was room still for despair. She could no longer take the slightest food; and they who for five months had been killing her with exorcisms and pretending to relieve her of six or seven thousand devils, were fain to admit that she longed only to die, and greedily sought after any means of self-destruction. Courage alone was wanting to her. Once she p.r.i.c.ked herself with a lancet, but lacked the spirit to persevere.

Once she caught up a knife, and when that was taken from her, tried to strangle herself. She dug needles into her body, and then made one last foolish effort to drive a long pin through her ear into her head.

What became of Gauffridi? The inquisitor, who dwells so long on the two women, says almost nothing about him. He walks as it were over the fire. The little he does say is very strange. He relates that having bound Gauffridi's eyes, they p.r.i.c.ked him with needles all over the body, to find out the callous places where the Devil had made his mark. On the removal of the bandage, he learned, to his horror and amazement, that the needle had thrice been stuck into him without his feeling it; so he was marked in three places with the sign of h.e.l.l.

And the inquisitor added, "If we were in Avignon, this man should be burnt to-morrow."

He felt himself a lost man; and defended himself no more. His only thought now was to see if he could save his life through any of the Dominicans' foes. He wished, he said, to confess himself to the Oratorians. But this new order, which might have been called the right mean of Catholicism, was too cold and wary to take up a matter already so hopeless and so far advanced.

Thereon he went back again to the Begging Friars, confessing himself to the Capuchins, and acknowledging all and more than all the truth, that he might purchase life with dishonour. In Spain he would a.s.suredly have been enlarged, barring a term of penance in some convent. But our Parliaments were sterner: they felt bound to prove the greater purity of the lay jurisdiction. The Capuchins, themselves a little shaky in the matter of morals, were not the people to draw the lightning down on their own body. They surrounded Gauffridi, sheltered him, gave him comfort day and night; but only in order that he might own himself a magician, and so, because magic formed the main head of his indictment, the seduction wrought by a confessor to the great discredit of the clergy might be left entirely in the background.

So his friends the Capuchins, by dint of tender caresses and urgent counsel, drew from him the fatal confession which, by their showing, was to save his soul, but which was very certain to hand his body over to the stake.

The man thus lost and done for, they made an end with the girls whom it was not their part to burn. A farcical scene took place. In a large gathering of the clergy and the Parliament, Madeline was made to appear, and, in words addressed to herself, her devil Beelzebub was summoned to quit the place or else offer some opposition. Not caring to do the latter, he went off in disgrace.

Then Louisa, with her demon Verrine, was made to appear. But before they drove away a spirit so friendly to the Church, the monks regaled the Parliamentaries, who were new to such things, with the clever management of this devil, making him perform a curious pantomime. "How do the Seraphim, the Cherubim, the Thrones, behave before G.o.d?" "A hard matter this:" says Louisa, "they have no bodies." But on their repeating the command, she made an effort to obey, imitating the flight of the one cla.s.s, the fiery longing of the others; and ending with the adoration, when she bowed herself before the judges, falling prostrate with her head downwards. Then was the far-famed Louisa, so proud and so untamable, seen to abase herself, kissing the pavement, and with outstretched arms laying all her length thereon.

It was a strange, frivolous, unseemly exhibition, by which she was made to atone for her terrible success among the people. Once more she won the a.s.sembly by dealing a cruel dagger-stroke at Gauffridi, who stood there strongly bound. "Where," said they, "is Beelzebub now, the devil who went out of Madeline?" "I see him plainly at Gauffridi's ear."

Have you had shame and horror enough? We should like further to know what the poor wretch said, when put to the torture. Both the ordinary and the extraordinary forms were used upon him. His revelations must undoubtedly have thrown light on the curious history of the nunneries.

Those tales the Parliament stored up with greediness, as weapons that might prove serviceable to itself; but it retained them "under the seal of the Court."

The inquisitor Michaelis, who was fiercely a.s.sailed in public for an excess of animosity so closely resembling jealousy, was summoned by his order to a meeting at Paris, and never saw the execution of Gauffridi, who was burnt alive four days afterwards, 30th April, 1611, at Aix.

The name of the Dominicans, damaged by this trial, was not much exalted by another case of _possession_ got up at Beauvais in such a way as to ensure them all the honours of a war, the account of which they got printed in Paris. Louisa's devil having been reproached for not speaking Latin, the new demoniac, Denise Lacaille, mingled a few words of it in her gibberish. They made a plenty of noise about her, often displayed her in the midst of a procession, and even carried her from Beauvais to Our Lady of Liesse. But the matter kept quite cool.

This Picard pilgrimage lacked the horror, the dramatic force of the affair at Sainte-Baume. This Lacaille, for all her Latin, had neither the burning eloquence, nor the mettle, nor the fierce rage, that marked the woman of Provence. The only end of all her proceedings was to amuse the Huguenots.

What became of the two rivals, Madeline and Louisa? The former, or at least her shadow, was kept on Papal ground, for fear of her being led to speak about so mournful a business. She was never shown in public, save in the character of a penitent. She was taken out among the poor women to cut wood, which was afterwards sold for alms; the parents, whom she had brought to shame, having forsworn and forsaken her.

Louisa, for her part, had said during the trial: "I shall make no boast about it. The trial over, I shall soon be dead." But this was not to be. Instead of dying, she went on killing others. The murdering devil within her waxed stormier than ever. She set about revealing to the inquisitors the names, both Christian and surnames, of all whom she fancied to have any dealings with magic; among others a poor girl named Honoria, "blind of both eyes," who was burnt alive.

"G.o.d 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 att.i.tude 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 b.a.l.l.s, danced, and so forth. In the reign, however, of Louis XIII., it began afresh with greater earnestness. The Cardinal Rochefoucauld, or rather the Jesuits who drew him on, insisted on a great deal of outward decency. Shall we say, then, that all entrance into the convents was forbidden? One man only went in every day, not only into the house, but also, if he chose, into each of the cells; a fact made evident from several known cases, especially that of David at Louviers. By this reform, this closing system, the door was shut upon the world at large, on all inconvenient rivals, while the director enjoyed the sole command of his nuns, the special right of private interviews with them.

What would come of this? The speculative might treat it as a problem; not so practical men or physicians. The physician Wyer tells some plain stories to show what did come of it from the sixteenth century onwards. In his Fourth Book he quotes a number of nuns who went mad for love. And in Book III. he talks of an estimable Spanish priest who, going by chance into a nunnery, came out mad, declaring that the brides of Jesus were his also, brides of the priest, who was a vicar of Jesus. He had ma.s.ses said in return for the favour which G.o.d had granted him in this speedy marriage with a whole convent.

If this was the result of one pa.s.sing visit, we may understand the plight of a director of nuns when he was left alone with them, and could take advantage of the new restrictions to spend the day among them, listening hour by hour to the perilous secret of their languis.h.i.+ngs and their weaknesses.

In the plight of these girls the mere senses are not all in all.

Allowance must be made for their listlessness of mind; for the absolute need of some change in their way of life; of some dream or diversion to relieve their lifelong monotony. Strange things are happening constantly at this period. Travels, events in the Indies, the discovery of a world, the invention of printing: what romance there is everywhere! While all this goes on without, putting men's minds into a flutter, how, think you, can those within bear up against the oppressive sameness of monastic life--the irksomeness of its lengthy services, seasoned by nothing better than a sermon preached through the nose?

The laity themselves, living amidst so many distractions, desire, nay insist, that their confessors shall absolve them for their acts of inconstancy. The priests, on their side, are drawn or forced on, step by step. There grows up a vast literature, at once various and learned, of casuistry, of the art of allowing all things; a progressive literature, in which the indulgence of to-night seems to become the severity of the morrow.

This casuistry was meant for the world; that mysticism for the convent. The annihilation of the person and the death of the will form the great mystic principle. The true moral bearings of that principle are well shown by Desmarets. "The devout," he says, "having offered up and annihilated their own selves, exist no longer but in G.o.d.

_Thenceforth they can do no wrong._ The better part of them is so divine that it no longer knows what the other is doing."[91]

[91] An old doctrine which often turns up again in the Middle Ages. In the seventeenth century it prevails among the convents of France and Spain. A Norman angel, in the Louviers business, teaches a nun to despise the body and disregard the flesh, after the example of Jesus, who bared himself for a scourging before all the people. He enforces an utter surrendering of the soul and the will by the example of the Virgin, "who obeyed the angel Gabriel and conceived, without risk of evil, for impurity could not come of a spirit." At Louviers, David, an old director of some authority, taught "that sin could be killed by sin, as the better way of becoming innocent again."

It might have been thought that the zealous Joseph who had raised so loud a cry of alarm against these corrupt teachers, would have gone yet further; that a grand searching inquiry would have taken place; that the countless host whose number, in one province only, were reckoned at sixty thousand, would be found out and closely examined.

But not so: they disappear, and nothing more is known about them. A few, it is said, were imprisoned; but trial there was none: only a deep silence. To all appearance Richelieu cared but little about fathoming the business. In his tenderness for the Capuchins he was not so blind as to follow their lead in a matter which would have thrown the supervision of all confessors into their hands.

As a rule, the monks had a jealous dislike of the secular clergy.

Entire masters of the Spanish women, they were too dirty to be relished by those of France; who preferred going to their own priests or to some Jesuit confessor, an amphious creature, half monk, half worldling. If Richelieu had once let loose the pack of Capuchins, Recollects, Carmelites, Dominicans, &c., who among the clergy would have been safe? What director, what priest, however upright, but had used, and used amiss, the gentle language of the Quietists towards their penitents?

Richelieu took care not to trouble the clergy, while he was already bringing about the General a.s.sembly from which he was soon to ask a contribution towards the war. One trial alone was granted the monks, the trial of a vicar, but a vicar who dealt in magic; a trial wherein matters were allowed, as in the case of Gauffridi, to get so entangled, that no confessor, no director, saw his own likeness there, but everyone in full security could say, "This is not I."

Thanks to these strict precautions the Grandier affair is involved in some obscurity.[92] Its historian, the Capuchin Tranquille, proves convincingly that Grandier was a wizard, and, still more, a devil; and on the trial he is called, as Ashtaroth might have been called, _Grandier of the Dominations_. On the other hand, Menage is ready to rank him with great men accused of magic, with the martyrs of free thought.

[92] The _History of the Loudun Devils_, by the Protestant Aubin, is an earnest, solid book, confirmed by the _Reports_ of Laubardemont himself. That of the Capuchin Tranquille is a piece of grotesquerie. The _Proceedings_ are in the Great Library of Paris. M. Figuier has given a long and excellent account of the whole affair, in his _History of the Marvellous_.

In order to see a little more clearly, we must not set Grandier by himself; we must keep his place in the devilish trilogy of those times, in which he figured only as a second act; we must explain him by the first act, already shown to us in the dreadful business of Sainte-Baume, and the death of Gauffridi; we must explain him by the third act, by the affair at Louviers, which copied Loudun, as Loudun had copied Sainte-Baume, and which in its turn owned a Gauffridi and an Urban Grandier.

The three cases are one and selfsame. In each case there is a libertine priest, in each a jealous monk, and a frantic nun by whose mouth the Devil is made to speak; and in all three the priest gets burnt at last.