Chapter V: Part 5

Bodin, in his “Demonomania” gives the observation of Jeanne Hervillier, who was burned alive, by sentence of the Parliament of Paris. She confessed to her Judges, that she had been presented to the Devil, by her grandmother, at the age of twelve years. “A Devil in the form of a large black man, who dressed in a black suit and rode a black horse. This Devil had carnal intercourse with her, the same as men have with women, only without seed. This sin had been continued every ten, or fifteen days, even after she married and slept with her husband.”

This same author reports many instances of the same kind. Among others, that of Madelaine de la Croix, Abbess of a nunnery in Spain, who went to Pope Paul III., confessing, that from the age of twelve years, she had relations with a demon, _in the form of a Moor_, and, that for more than thirty years this commerce had been continued. Bodin firmly believes, that this nun had been presented to Satan, “_from the belly of her mother_,” and affirms that “such copulations are neither illusions, nor diseases.” In his work, he also gives extracts of the interrogatories put to the Sorcerers of Longni, in the presence of Adrien de Fer, Lieutenant General of Laon. These sorcerers were condemned to be burnt at the stake, for having commerce with incubi. He mentions Marguerite Bremond, who avowed that she had been led off one evening, by her own mother, to a reunion of Demons, and “found in this place six devils in human shape, but hideous to behold. After the demon dance was finished, the devils returned to the couches with the girls, and one cohabited with her for the space of half an hour, but she escaped conception, as he was seedless.”

One of the distinctive characters of demons, was their infectious stink, which exhaled from all portions of the body. This odor attributed to the Devil was an hallucination to the sense of smell which entered, like those of the genesic sense, into all the complex hallucinations of Demonomania.

Examples of men cohabiting with demons, are cited by many authors of the Middle Ages. Gregory of Tours has left us the record of Eparchius, Bishop of Auvergne, who cohabited with succubi.

Jerome Cardan, physician and Italian mathematician, tells of a priest who cohabited for over fifty years, with a demon disguised as a woman.

Pic de Mirandolle, relates how another priest had commerce for over forty years with a beautiful succubus, whom he called Hermione. Bodin recounts the story of Edeline, the Prior of a religious community in Sorbonne. An adversary of Demonomaniacal doctrines, Edeline was accused by the theologians of defending demons. Before the Tribunal the Prior declared that he had been visited by Satan, in the form of a black ram, and had prostituted his body to an incubus, and only obeyed his master in preaching that sorcery was a chimerical invention. “Although the proof furnished by the registers of the Tribunal of Poitiers,” remarks Calmeil, “leaves no doubt as to the alienation of the intellectual faculties at the moment of his trial, Edeline was none the less condemned to perpetual seclusion from the world.”

As another striking example of hallucination, bearing upon this question of incubism, Guibert de Nogent tells of a monk, “who was sick, and retained the services of a Jew doctor. In exchange for health, the aforesaid physician, demanded a sacrifice. ‘What sacrifice?’ asked the monk. ‘The sacrifice of that which is the most precious to men,’ answered the Jew. ‘What may that be?’ inquired the monk. And the demon, for it was the Devil disguised as a doctor, had the audacity to explain. ‘Oh curses! Oh shame! to require such a thing of a priest’—but the victim, nevertheless, did what was asked. It was the denial of Christ and the true faith.”

Like psycho-sensorial hallucinations of the other senses, that of the genesic sense may assume the erotic type of disease, and is due undoubtedly, in some men, to a repletion of the spermatic vesicules. It is this that Saint Andre, physician in ordinary to Louis XIV., gives as an explanation of incubism. “The incubus,”[71] says this writer, “a chimera that had for its foundation only a dream, an over excited imagination, too often a longing after women; artifice had no less a part in the creation of the incubus,—a woman, a girl, only a devotee in name, already long before debauched, but desiring to appear virtuous to hide her crime, passes off the offenses of some lover as the act of a demon; this is the ordinary explanation. In this artifice the woman is often aided by the _suggestions_ of the man—a man who has heard _succubi_ speaking to him in his sleep, usually sees most beautiful women in his dreams, which, under such circumstances, are often erotic.”

It is certain that an ardent imagination and exaggerated sexual appetite have played a leading _role_ in the history of _incubi_, but, meantime, there may be exceptions.

Nicholas Remy, Inquisitor of Lorraine, has given a description of _impurities_ committed between demons and sorcerers, according to the testimony given by those _possessed_.[72] Fortunately, he has only given a Latin version of what they have told him. He states: “_Hic igitur, sive vir incubet, sive succubet fœmina, liberum in utroque naturæ debet esse officium, nihilque omnino intercedere quod id vel minimum moretur atque impediat, si pudor, metus, horror, sensusque, aliquis acrior ingruit; il icet ad irritum redeunt omnia e lumbis affœaque prorsus sit natura_.”

Then comes the sentence of the four girls of Vosges, according to the confessions, who were named Nanette, Claudine, Nicola, and Didace, and of whom Nicholas Remy, fortunately for the masses of the profession, only speaks in Latin, lest modesty be shocked at the narration. “_Alexia Drigæa recensuit doémoni suo pœnem, cum surrigebat tentum semper extitisse quanti essent subices focarii, quos tum forte præsentes digito demonstrabat; scroto ac coleis nullis inde pendentibus_, etc.” (We forbear from further quotation and for fuller particulars refer the reader to the original.)

Were these girls attacked by a malady, a complex hallucination of the senses that led them to firmly believe they were possessed or owned by a supernatural being who obliged them to abdicate their free will in his favor? Were they only, after all, prostitutes suffering from nymphomania? We can only insist that prostitution, or a low standard of morality, enters largely into the history of those _possessed_ by incubi.

Aside from imaginary _vigils_ (Sabbat), supposed to be frequented by those who were really insane, it is well to remember there were numerous houses of prostitution, conducted by old bawds and unscrupulous panderers, where nightly orgies occurred and scenes of wild debauchery were common. The real sorcerers boasted of their magic and their relations with demons, but, in reality, they knew nothing except the art of compounding stupefying drugs, of which they made every possible use. Having passed their entire lives in vice, their passions, instead of becoming extinct, were exalted by age. “Before ever becoming sorcerers,” remarks Professor Thomas Erastus, “these _lamia_ (magicians) were libidinous and in close relation with the Evil One.”[73]

Pierre Dufour, the celebrated bibliomaniac, made a very lengthy and learned investigation as to the connection of sorcery with the social evil, and reaped a veritable harvest of facts, duly authenticated by the histories of trials for the crime of Demonidolatry, arriving at the conclusion that sorcery made fewer dupes than victims. Says Dufour: “Aside from a very small number of credulous magicians and sorcerers, all who were initiated in the mysteries served, or made others serve, in the abominable commerce of debauchery. The _vigil_ offered a fine opportunity as a spot for such turpitudes. Such reunions of hideous companies of libertines and prostitutes was for the profit of certain knaves, and the sorcerers’ assemblage was patronized by many misguided young women, who fell from grace through libidinous fascination.”

Meantime, sorcery persisted always, notwithstanding judgments and executions. In the year 1574, on the denunciation of an old demented hag, eighty peasants were burned alive at Valery, in Savoy. Three years later nearly four hundred inhabitants of Haut-Languedoc perished for the same offense. In 1582 an immense number of so-called sorcerers were executed at Avignon. From 1580 to 1595 nine hundred persons accused of witchcraft were put to death.

In 1609, in the country of Labourde (Basses Pyrenees), the prisons were overcrowded with men, women and children accused of sorcery. Fires for stake-burnt victims lit up all the villages in the Province, and the courts spared no one. Many of these unfortunates accused themselves of believing in the demons of sorcery and having visited diabolical gatherings (_vigils_), where they had prostituted themselves to incubi. Others, to whom the death penalty was meted out, were innocent persons who had been _informed against_, but these, too, although denying all charges, were condemned to be burnt alive.

The same year some of the inhabitants of the country of Labourde, who had sought refuge in Spain, were accused of having carried demons into Navarre. Five of these unfortunates were burnt at the stake by order of the Inquisition, one woman being strangled and burned after her death. Even bodies were exhumed to be given to the flames. Eighteen persons were permitted to make penance for their alleged sorceries.

During two years, 1615 and 1616, twenty cases of Demonidolatry were punished in Sologne and Berry; these persons were accused of being at a vigil, without having been anointed with frictions however. An old villain, aged seventy-seven years, named Nevillon, pretended to have seen a procession of six hundred people, in which Satan took the shape of a ram, or buck, and paid the sorcerers eight sous, for the murder of a man, and five sous for the murder of a woman. They accused him of having killed animals by the aid of his bewitchings. Nevillon was hung along with those he accused. Another peasant, by the name of Gentil Leclercq, avowed that he was the son of a sorcerer, that he had been baptized at the _vigil_, by a demon called _Aspic_; he was condemned to be hanged, and his body was burnt. The same it was in the case of a man called Mainguet and his wife, together with one Antoinette Brenichon, who asserted they had all three visited a witch reunion in company.

An accusation of anthropophagy was launched against the inhabitants of Germany, by Innocent VIII., in 1484, and a hundred women were also accused of having committed murders, and cohabiting with demons.

The Inquisitors inspired the story of Nider, on the Sorceries of the Vaudois. They found, according to the testimony of certain witnesses, that these Vaudois cut the throats of their infants, in order to make magical philters, which would permit them to traverse space to attend the _vigil_ of the witches, (_Sorcerers_). Other persons _accused themselves_ of cohabiting with demons; some pretended they had caused disasters, floods and tempests, by the influence they had through Satan. Many submitted to the most horrible tortures with an insensibility so complete, that the theologians concluded that the fat of the first born males procured this demonological faculty for bearing pain. This general anæsthesia permits us to affirm that these unfortunates were neuropathic.

It would be a difficult matter to establish the exact number of victims offered up to the fanaticism of the Inquisition. Already, in 1436, the inhabitants in the country of Vaud, Switzerland, had been accused of anthropophagy, of eating their own children, in order to satisfy their ferocious appetites. Some one said they had submitted to the Devil, and raised the outcry that they had eaten thirteen persons within a very short time. Immediately the Judge and the Prosecutor of Eude, investigated the story. Failing to obtain the proof of eye witnesses, they subjected, according to Calmeil, hundreds of unfortunates to the tortures of the rack, after which a certain number were burned at the stake. Entire families overpowered by terror, fled from home, and found refuge in more hospitable lands; but fanaticism and death followed them like a plague.[74]

The moral and physical torture, undergone by those who were suspected of this anthropophagical sorcery, made some of the victims confess that they had the power to kill infants, by uttering charm words, and that ointments made of baby fat gave them the power to fly through the air at pleasure; that the practice of Demonic science permitted them to cause cows and sheep to abort, and, that they could make thunder and hail storms, and destroy the crops of others; that they could create flood and pestilence, etc. This was the anthropophagical epidemic of 1436.

The same observations might be made regarding what was known as lycanthrophy, which always arose among the possessed and sorcerers; that is to say crazy people, especially those of the monomaniac type, accused themselves and others with imaginary crimes, in confessions made to judges. As an example, we can cite the case of the peasant, spoken of by Job Fincel, and also one mentioned by Pierre Burgot, of Verdun, who did not hesitate to assert themselves to be guilty of lycanthrophy. They were burned alive at Poligny, but the remains of the five women and children, whose flesh they pretended to have devoured, were never found. In order to transform themselves into wolves, they claimed to use a pomade given them by the Devil; and, while in a certain condition, they copulated with female wolves. Jean Wier has written long essays on this last case of lycomania, and thinks the malady of these two men was due to narcotics, of which they made habitual use; but Calmeil is inclined to consider, that in a general manner, lycomania is a partial delerium confined to homicidal monomaniacs. This appreciation of the case seems justified by the similar one of Gilles Gamier, who was convinced that he had killed four children, and eaten their flesh. He was condemned to be burnt at the stake at Dole, as a wehr-wolf, (_loupe garron_), and the peasants of the suburbs were authorized by the same order to kill off all men like him. But we must not conclude from this particular instance, that a general law existed on the subject.

In 1603, the Parliament of Bordeaux, thought itself liberal in admitting attenuating circumstantial evidence, in the case of a boy from Roche Chalais, named Jean Grenier, who was accused of lycanthropy, by three young peasants. In the trial, no attempt was made to find evidence, the accused confessed all that was desired, and he was sentenced to imprisonment for life, before which verdict was announced, the Court said, that having taken into consideration the age and imbecility of this patient, who was so stupid that an idiot or child of seven years would know better, it added mercy to the judgment.”

He was then one of the imbeciles of the village, such as we see in asylums for insane, whose presence we rid ourselves of by isolation in charitable institutions.

At the same epoch, in the space of two years, 1598 to 1600, we can count the number of poor wretches of the Jura, whose poverty compelled them to beg nourishment, and who were almost all condemned to death as Demonidolators and lycanthropes. Ready and only too willing to leave this world, these poor people answered all questions as to accusation in the affirmative, and went to death with the greatest indifference. The infamous prosecutor, Bouget, who was sent into the Jura as a criminal agent, boasted that he had executed alone more than six hundred of these innocents.

The Inquistorial terror then reigned supreme; and it was only with extreme difficulty, at that time, that a poor idiot, named Jacques Roulet, condemned to death as a lycanthrope by the criminal Judge of Angers, was placed in an asylum for idiots, by order of the Parliament of Paris; this, too, in the seventeenth century.

THE HYSTERO-DEMONOMANIA OF THE CLOISTER.

The demonomaniacal hysteria of the Cloister, of which we have enumerated a few examples of a most remarkable kind, was present, in the Middle Ages, in the form of an epidemic neurosis, characterized by complex disturbances of the nervous system between the life of relation and of organic life; that is to say, by functional symptoms dependent on the general sensibility of the organs of sense, the active organs of movement, and the intelligence. In our observations we shall consequently recognize:

_Hyperæsthesia and spasm of the stomach and abdominal organs_, in the hallucination of poisoning by witches.

_Hyperæsthesia of the ovary and the uterus and vagina_, from the hallucination of painful cohabitation with incubi.

_Spasms of the pharynx and laryngeal muscles_: coughs, screams and barks of the prodromic period to convulsive attacks.

_Vaso-motor disturbances_, in the cutaneous marks, which are attributed to the Devil, but are simply produced by contact with some foreign body.

_Somnambulism_, in the execution of movements (sometimes in opposition with the laws of equilibrium), in a lucid state of mind, outside the condition of wakefulness, with or without mediumistic faculties and the conservation of memory; in the perception of sensations, without the intervention of the senses; in sensorial hallucinations produced by a simple touch; in _ecstasy_, with loss of tactile sense and hallucinations of vision.[75]

_Suggestion_, unconsciously provoked in rapid modifications of sensibility, in alterations of motility, in automatic movements executed in _imitation_ (_one form of suggestion_), or by the domination of a foreign willpower, and, in general, _in the penetration of an idea or phenomenon into the brain_, by word, gesture, sight, or thought.[76]

_Catalepsy_, in the immobility of the body, the fixity of the regard, and the rigidity of the limbs in all attitudes, that we desire to place them (_a very rare_ phenomenon).

_Lethargy_, in the depression of all parts of the body, and a predisposition on the part of the muscles to contract.

_Delirium, finally_, in the impossibility of hoping to discern false from true sensations.

We find, after this, that in analyzing the principal symptoms of hystero-demonomania, we easily note the characteristics of ordinary hysterical folly; we see that _it always attacks_ by preference the impressionable woman. She who is fantastic, superstitious, hungry for notoriety, full of emotions,—one who possesses to the highest degree the gift of assimilation and imitation,—the subject of nightmare, nocturnal terrors, palpitations of the heart; a woman fickle in sentiment, one passing easily from joy to sadness, from chastity to lubricity,—a woman, in a word, who is capable of all manner of deceit and simulation, a natural-born deceiver.

The attacks of delirium among hystero-demonomaniacs have always a pronounced acute character; but, although violent and repeated, they are liable to disappear rapidly, and are often followed by relapse. These attacks of delirium are observed:

1. _Before the convulsive attacks_, under the form of melancholia or agitation, with hallucinations of sight and hearing.

2. _During convulsive attacks_, in the period of passional attitudes, under the most varied forms, by gestures in co-ordination with the hallucinations observed by the mind of the patient; we often see such persons express the most opposite sentiments—piety, erotism, and terror.

3. _After convulsive attacks_, in the form of despair, shame, rage, sadness, with an abundant shedding of tears.

4. _Without convulsive attacks_; in that case, the delirium may occur at any period; it is masked hysteria, which has a very great analogy to masked epilepsy.

The delirium of these patients, _en resume_, has for essential characteristics, exaltation of the intelligence, peculiar fixity of ideas, perversion of the sentiments, absence of will power, tendency to erotism. In a number of observations on delirium among hysterical cases in a state of hypnotism recently published, patients have been noted who believed that they cohabited with cats and monkeys, while some had hallucinations of phantoms and assassins—visions that resulted from complex hallucinations and have a certain similarity to those of hystero-demonomania observed in the Middle Ages; and, if the demons did not actually play the principle _role_ in these hallucinations, it is because the imagination had not the anterior nourishment and belief in supernaturalism and no faith in the sexual relations of demons with mankind.

It was in 1491, about the time Jeanne Pothiere was on trial, that it was noticed that young girls in religious communities were subject to an epidemic mental affection, which led its victims to declare that they had fallen into the power of evil spirits. This species of delirium betrayed itself to the eyes of its observers by a series of strange and extravagant acts. These patients at once pretended to be able to read the future and prophesy. (See Calmeil, work cited.)

Abusive religious practices, false ideas of the future life, a tendency to mysticism, the fear of Hell and the snares of the Devil, the development of hysterical neurosis, in one subject, into suggestion inherent to imitation; such was the succinct history of the epidemic of the nuns of Cambrai. Jeanne Pothiere, their companion, denounced by them, was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, for having cohabited “434 times” (so the nuns said) with a Demon, and having introduced the lustful devil into their before peaceful convent. For it could have been nothing less than a demon that chased the poor young nuns across the fields and assisted them to climb trees, where, suspended from the branches, they were inspired to divine hidden things, to foretell the future, and be the victims of convulsions.

Sixty years later, in 1550, there suddenly occurred a great number of hystero-demonomaniacal epidemics similar to that in the convent of Cambrai. The nuns of Uvertet, following a strict fast, were attacked by divers nervous disorders. During the night they heard groans, when they burst out in peals of hysterical laughter; following this manifestation, they claimed they were lifted out of their beds by a superior force; they had, at the same time, contractions in the muscles of the limbs and of the face. They attacked each other in wild frenzy, giving and taking furious blows; at other times they were found on the ground, as though “inanimate,” and to this species of lethargy succeeded a maniacal agitation of great violence. Like the nuns of Cambrai, they climbed trees and ran over the branches as agile as so many cats, descending head downwards with feet in the air. These manifestations were, of course, attributed to a compact with the Devil, and the officers of the law, acting on the accusations of these nuns, arrested a midwife residing in the neighborhood, on the charge of witchcraft (_sorcery_). It is needless to add that the midwife died soon after.

A neurosis almost similar occurred the same year among the nuns at Saint Brigette’s Convent. In their attacks these nuns imitated the cries of animals and the bleating of sheep. At chapel one after the other were taken with convulsive syncope, followed by suffocation and œsophageal spasms, which sometimes persisted for the space of several days and condemned the victims to an enforced fast. This epidemic commenced after an hysterical convulsion occurred in one of the younger nuns, who had entered the convent on account of disappointment in love. Convinced that this unfortunate creature had imported a devil into the religious community, she was banished to one of the prisons of the Church.

At about this same time another epidemic of hystero-demonomania broke out at the Convent of Kintorp, near Strasbourg. These nuns insisted that they were possessed. Convulsions and muscular contractions which followed these attacks, along with delirium, were attributed to epilepsy. Progressively, and as though by contagion, all the nuns were stricken. When the hysterical attack arrived they uttered howls, like animals, then assaulted each other violently, biting with their teeth and scratching with finger-nails. Among those having convulsions the muscles of the pharynx participated in the general spasmodic condition. The attack was announced by a fetid breath and a sensation of burning at the soles of the feet. One day some of the young sisters denounced the convent cook, Elise Kame, as a sorcerer, although she suffered like the others from convulsive hysteria. This accusation finished the poor girl, who, together with her mother, was committed alive to the flames. Their death, most naturally, did not relieve the convent of the disease; the nervous malady, on the contrary, spread around in the neighborhood of the institution, attacking married women and young girls, whose imaginations were overpowered by the recital of occurrences within the convent walls.

We must admit that at that period doctors confounded hysteria with epilepsy. Spasms of the larynx, muscular contractions that we of the present day can provoke experimentally, as well as other phenomena of hysterical convulsions in somnambulic phases of hypnotism, were considered at that period only the manifest signs of diabolical possession. As to the stinking breath, which revealed the presence of the Devil among the nuns, that is a frequent symptom in grave affections of the nervous system; it is often a prodroma of an attack or series of maniacal convulsions. We have found that this fetidity of breath coincides with the nauseating odor of sweat and urine, to which we attribute the same semeological value as that of the mouth.

Another epidemic of hysterical convulsions, complicated with nymphomania, occurred at Cologne in 1554, in the Convent of Nazareth. Jean Wier, who was sent to examine these patients, recognized that the nuns were possessed by the Demon of lubricity and debauchery, who ruled this convent to a frightful extent.

P. Bodin has himself furnished the proofs; it was this author who wrote the history of erotic nuns. He remarks: “Sometimes the bestial appetites of some women lead them to believe in a demon; this occurred in the year 1566, in the Diocese of Cologne, where a dog was found which, it was claimed, was inhabited by a demon; this animal bit the religious ladies under their skirts. It was not a demon, but a natural dog. A woman who confessed to sinning with a dog was once burned at Toulouse.

“But it may be that Satan is sometimes sent by God, as certain it is that all punishment comes from him, through his means or without his means to avenge such crimes, as happened in a convent in Hesse, in Germany, where the nuns were demonomaniacs and sinned in a horrible manner with an animal.”

Thus says Bodin, the public prosecutor of sorcerers among the laity and the religious orders. Would he not have shown much greater wisdom if he had humanely judged the actions of mankind, and had condemned as social absurdities the innumerable convents and monasteries to which the fanaticism of the Middle Ages attracted so many men and women who might have followed more useful avocations? The convulsions of nymphomaniac girls were very wild, and diversified by curious movements of the pelvis, while lying in a position of dorsal decubitus, with closed eyelids. After such attacks these poor nervous nuns were perfectly prostrated, and only breathed with the greatest difficulty. It was thus with young Gertrude, who was first attacked by a convulsive neurosis which it was claimed had been induced by nymphomaniac practices in the convent, and that evil spirits possessed these nuns.

In 1609, hystero-demonomania made victims in the Convent of Saint Ursula, at Aix. Two nuns were said to be _possessed_; these were Madeleine de Mandoul and Loyse Capel. They were exorcised without success. Led to the Convent of Saint Baume, they denounced Louis Gaufridi, priest of the Church of Acoules of Marseilles, as being a sorcerer, who had bewitched them.

The Inquisitor Michaelis has left us the history of this trial by exorcism. These patients had all the symptoms of convulsive hysteria, with nymphomania, catalepsy, and hallucinatory delirium. This Judge, however, only saw in these manifestations the work of several demons, who tormented these nuns one after, the other, at the instigation of the priest, Louis Gaufridi, who was arrested, tried, condemned by the executioner, and led to the gallows with a rope around his neck, in bare feet, a torch in hand; thus punished, the unfortunate and innocent priest fell into a state of dementia, and while in this condition confessed that he was the author of the nuns’ demonomania.

As soon as Gaufridi had been sentenced to death by the Inquisition, the nuns of Saint Brigette’s Convent, at Lille, who had assisted at the exorcism of the nuns of Saint Ursula, in turn were attacked by hystero-demonomania. The report soon spread that they, too, were possessed, and the Inquisitor Michaelis came to Avignon to exorcise the demons. One of these nuns, Marie de Sains, suspected of sorcery, was sent to jail. Three of her companions, treated by exorcism, denounced the unfortunate girl as a witch. Marie de Sains, who, up to this time, had asserted innocence, finished by declaring herself guilty towards the rest of the nuns in the cloister. The demons found under the nuns’ beds were placed there, according to Marie’s statement, by the unfortunate Gaufridi.

She testified that, “the Devil, to recompense the priest, gave him the title of ‘Prince of Magicians;’ and promised me,” added the nun, “all kinds of sovereign honors for having consented to poison the other nuns’ minds by witchcraft. Sister Joubert, Sister Bolonais, Sister Fournier, Sister Van der Motte, Sister Launoy, and Sister Peronne, who were first to have symptoms of _possession_ through diabolical power, soon fell under the action of the potent philter. The witchcraft was made with the host and consecrated blood, powdered billy goat horns, human bones, skulls of children, hair, finger-nails, flesh, and seminal fluid from the sorcerer; by adding to this mixture pieces of the human liver, spleen, and brain, Lucifer gave to the hideous melange a virtue of terrible strength. The sorcerers who gave this horrible concoction to their acquaintances not only destroyed them, but also a large number of new-born children.”

This unfortunate, besides, accused herself of having caused the death of a number of persons, including children, the mother, and often godmother; she claimed to have administered debilitating powders to many others. She confessed to casting an evil spell on the other nuns, which had given them over to lubricity; declared she had been to the witch _vigils_ and cohabited with devils, and that she had also committed sodomy, had intercourse with _dogs_, _horses_, and _serpents_; finally, she acknowledged that she had accorded her favors to the priest, Louis Gaufridi, whereas the nun was really innocent.

Marie de Sains was found guilty of being possessed by a demon. She was exorcised and condemned to perpetual imprisonment and most austere penances by the Court of Tournay.

Immediately after the trial of Marie de Sains another nun, Simone Dourlet, was tried for the crime of sorcery, and by force of torture and _suggestions_, she admitted to have been at a witch _vigil_ and was guilty. The history of this poor girl is revolting, for not only was she innocent of all crimes imputed to her, but she was not even sick. She was the victim of the hallucinations of her companions.

Another form of hystero- or hysterical demonomania was observed the same year near Dax, in the Parish of Amon, where more than 120 women were attacked by _impulsive insanity_, following the expression of Calmeil, but which has been designated by others as the _Mal de Laira_. This neurosis, which was only a variety of hysteria, was characterized by convulsions and loud barking. De L’Ancre gives an interesting description of this outbreak, but does not fail to attribute the affection to sorcerers. “It is a monstrous thing,” says he, “to see in church more than forty persons, all braying and barking like dogs, as on nights when the moon is full. This music is renewed on the entrance of every new sorcerer, who has perhaps given the disease to some other woman. These possessed creatures commence barking from the time they enter church.”

The same barking symptoms were noticed in dwellings when these witches passed along the street, and all passers by commenced to bark also when a sorcerer appeared.

The convulsions resembled those noticed in enraged insane persons. During the attack the victims would wallow on the earth, beating the ground with their bodies and limbs, turning their violence on their own persons without having will power to control their madness for evil doing. According to Calmeil their cases were rather hysterical than of an epileptic type.

A very remarkable fact in regard to this neurosis was that those women who howled were exempt from convulsions and reciprocally. These howls or barks were comparable to the cries uttered by the nuns of Kintorp and the bleatings of the sisters of Saint Brigette.

We have also the record of a German convent, where the nuns meowed like cats, and ran about the cloister imitating feline animals.

It is useless to add that the _Mal de Laira_ was a cause of several condemnations of nuns who admitted they had bewitched their companions.[77]

Among the numerous trials for Demonidolatry, that which has been most noted was certainly the case of Urbain Grandier, and the Ursulines of Loudun, from 1632 to 1639.

The Convent of Loudun was founded in 1611 by a dame of Cose—Belfiel. Only noble ladies were received therein—Claire de Sazilli, the Demoiselles Barbezier, Madmoiselle de la Mothe, the Demoiselles D’Escoubleau, etc. These titled ladies had all received brilliant educations, but had submitted to life in a nunnery by vocation. Seven of these young women were suddenly attacked by hallucinations. They all claimed to be victims of witchcraft.

During the night these girls went in and out of the convent doors, sometimes standing on their heads, as is the case with certain individuals subject to natural somnambulism. These nuns all accused a chaplain of the order recently deceased of causing their troubles, and several of the ladies claimed that the chaplain’s ghost made shameful propositions to them.

The disease grew worse from day to day, until Justice was called on to interfere, when the nuns changed their minds and declared that the real cause of their possession was in reality one Urbain Grandier, priest to the Church of Saint Pierre of Loudun, a man distinguished for his brilliant intelligence, perfect education, but rather given to gallantry, and a desire for public notoriety.

Was it Mignon, the new chaplain of the order, who _suggested_ to the nuns their pretended persecutor?

That was the story, but Urbain Grandier attached no importance to the rumor.

The attacks of the nuns increased more and more, however, and were complicated with catalepsy, ecstasy and nymphomania, the victims making obscene and shameful remarks. Then exorcisers were called in, but met with no success. These ladies on the contrary endeavored to provoke the priests by lascivious gestures and indecent postures. Some of them wriggled over the floor like serpents, while others moved their bodies backwards so that their heads touched their heels, a motion, according to eye-witnesses, made with the most extraordinary quickness. At times the nuns screamed and howled in unison like a chorus of wild beasts.

A historian of the time, De Le Menardy, witness _de visu et de auditu_, has written: “In their contortions they were as supple and easily bent as a piece of lead—in such a way that their bodies could be bent in any form—backwards, forwards and sidewise, even so the head touched the earth, and they remained in these positions up to such a time as their attitudes might be changed.” These movements were especially produced during the time of the attempted exorcisms. At the first mention of Satan “they raised up, passed their toes behind their necks, and, with legs separated, rested themselves on their perinæums and gave themselves up to indecent manual motions.” They were delirious at this time from demonomanical excitement. Madam de Belfiel claimed to be sitting on seven devils, Madam de Sazilli had ten demons under her, while Sister Elizabeth modestly asserted her number of imps to be five.

During the exorcisms these poor women _fell sound asleep_, which induces Calmeil to think “the condition of these women resembled closely that of _magnetic somnambulists_.” This supposition would permit us to explain the impossibility of the nuns telling on certain days what they had said or done during the course of a nervous attack. The days when they escaped _contortions_—when they were to the contrary violently exalted by the nature of these tactile and visceral sensations—they recalled too much, for the power of reflection disgusted these unfortunates with their own vile and uncontrollable acts and assertions.

This epidemic had continued fifteen months, and all the Ursuline nuns had been attacked by the epidemic when Laubardemont, one of the secret agents of the Cardinal Richelieu, arrived at Loudun to examine into the alleged Demonidolatry said to exist in the convent. The Cardinal had given this agent absolute and extended power. Urbain Grandier, who was the author of a libel against Richelieu, was arrested for complicity in this sorcery, and brought before a commission of Justices, whose members had been chosen by Laubardemont. He was confronted by the nuns, invited to exorcise them, and then subjected to most cruel tortures. Iron needle points were stuck in his skin, all over the body, in order to find anæsthetised points, which were the pretended marks of the Devil.

Notwithstanding his protestations of innocence, the Judges taking the acts of the accusers while in the poor priest’s presence, for his appearance was the signal for scenes of the most violent frenzy, condemned the man to be tied to a gallows alive. There he was subjected to renewed tortures, while the various muscles of his body were torn apart and his bones broken.

The punishment of Urbain Grandier did not put an end to the epidemic of hysterical demonomania among the Ursulines, for the malady extended to the people of the town, even to the monks who were charged with conducting the exorcisms; but the vengeance of his Red Eminence (Cardinal Richelieu) was satisfied.

Many commentaries have been made since then on this outbreak of Demonidolatry among the Ursulines. These we have no desire to reproduce nor to discuss, as it would only tend to show the ancient ignorance prevailing regarding diseases of the nervous system, and the want of character and weakness of the physicians of that epoch, together with the fanaticism of the monks and priesthood. One thing, however, appears to be worthy of remembrance; that is the analogy between the convulsive symptoms observed among the nuns and the phenomena of somnambulism described by Calmeil. This fact appears to us as so much the more remarkable, as the learned doctor of Charenton was a declared adversary of magnetism, and published his work almost half a century since—that is, in 1845.

The sleep into which the nuns fell during the period of exorcism, the forgetfulness of the scenes witnessed where they had played such a _role_, are, to our mind, only phenomena of hypnotism, and the resemblance is so strong that we do not believe it would be impossible to artificially reproduce another epidemic of hysterical demonomania.

Let us for an instant accept the _hypothesis_ of a convent, where twenty young nuns are confined. Of these at least ten will be subject to hypnotism. Let us now admit that these recluses, living the ordinary ascetic and virtuous life of the cloister, plunged deeply in the mysticisms of the Catholic faith, receive one day as confessor and spiritual director a man of energetic character, knowing all the practices of _hypnotism_ and of _suggestion_—a disciple let us say of Puel, Charcot, De Luys, Barety, Bernheim—a perfect neurologist. Now, if this man cared to magnetize individually each of these nuns in the silence and obscurity of the confessional, and should then suggest to them that they were _possessed_ by all the demons known to sorcery, what would occur? Let us suppose again that he should carry his physiological power further and put his _subjects_ into an ecstacy, catalepsy or lethargy—into a condition where marked hallucinations might occur and nervous excitation be provoked, how long would it be before this man could make these women similar to those who once lived in the convent of the Ursulines at Loudun?

We have not admitted this fiction for the purpose of having any one conclude that the possessed of Loudun were the mere playthings of some person who used hypnotism in an interest that we ignore; but, if this fact may be considered possible by the will of an individual, who can affirm at this day that there does not exist an unknown force, intelligent or not, capable of producing the same pathological phenomena observed long ago? What we call, in 1888, hypnotism in the amphitheatres of our universities, we reserve for another chapter, where we will give revelations much more extraordinary, and also more supernatural; our chapter on the neurology of the nineteenth century will, we promise, be _very interesting_.

Let us yet remark that the hystero-demonomaniacal manifestations were not peculiar to the Ursulines of Loudun. They have been observed in many convents in the same conditions of habits and prolonged fastings among debilitated young girls; from long vigils spent in prayer and nervous depression, caused by over-religious discipline; by mystical exhortations from a man invested in a sacred character, on whom fall all the discussions, all the entreaties, and all the thoughts of the girls in the cloister.

The history of the nuns of Loudun was identically reproduced under the same conditions among the sisters of Saint Elizabeth’s Convent at Louviers, in 1643, three years after the execution of poor Urbain Grandier for witchcraft.

In a short time eighteen nuns were attacked with hysterical demonomania; they had active hallucinations of all the senses, convulsions, and delirium. Like the Ursulines, they blasphemed, screamed, and gave themselves over to all manner of strange contortions, claiming to be _possessed_ by demons, describing in obscene terms the orgies of the witch vigil (_Sabbat_), perpetrating all varieties of debauchery, even unknown to the vilest prostitutes; after this they finally accused one or more persons of bewitching them through sorcery.

The nuns of Louviers, for instance, after being duly exorcised according to the Canons of the Church, accused as the author of their affliction, and as a bad magician, their old time confessor, the Abbot Picard, who died before their symptoms were developed; then they accused another priest, by the name of Francois Boulle, and several of their companions, notably Sister Madeleine Bavan. These innocent people were tried by the Parliament of Rouen, who ordered that the body of the priest, Picard, should be exhumed, carried to the stake, there tied to the living body of Francois Boulle, and after being burnt their ashes should be cast to the winds. This execution, in the open air, occurred in the seventeenth century, in the “Old Market Place” at Rouen, at the spot where Joan d’Arc had also been burnt alive for being _possessed_, as was claimed, by supernatural beings. What a comment on intelligence in an age of partial enlightenment!

In order to close this chapter on hysterical demonomania among religious orders, of which we have given some examples, we shall cite an interesting relation left us by the Bishops and Doctors of Sorbonne, together with the testimony of the King’s deputies, regarding the _possession_ of nuns at the Convent of Auxonne. Here there were always convulsions and screams, with blasphemy, aversion to taking the sacraments, possession, and exorcisms; and there was, undoubtedly, the phenomenon of _suggestion_ observed with much precision.

We might say that the nuns of Auxonne were accessible to suggestion; for, at the command or even the thought of the exorcists, they fell into a condition of somnambulism; in this state they became insensible to pain, as was determined by pricking Sister Denise under the finger-nail with a needle; they had also the faculty of prosternating the body, making it assume the form of a circle,—in other words, they could bend their limbs in any direction.

The Bishop of Chalons reports that “all the before mentioned girls, secular as well as regular, to the number of eighteen, _had the gift of Language_, and responded to the exorcists _in Latin_, making, at times, their entire conversation in the classical tongue.

“Almost all these nuns had a full knowledge of the secrets and inner thoughts of others;[78] this was demonstrated particularly _in the interior commandments_, which had been made by the exorcists on different occasions, which they obeyed exactly ordinarily, _without the commandments being expressed to them either by words or any external sign_.

“The Bishop himself, among others, experimented on the person of Denise Pariset, to whom, _giving a command mentally to come to him immediately and be exorcised_, whereupon the aforesaid nun immediately came to him, although her residence was in a quarter of the village far removed from the Episcopal residence. She said on these occasions that she was commanded to come; and this experiment was repeated several times.

“Again, in the person of Sister Jamin, a novice, who on hearing the exorcism, told the Bishop his interior commandment made to the Demon during the ceremony. Also, in the person of Sister Borthon, who, being _commanded mentally_ to make her agitations violent, immediately prostrated herself before the Holy Sacrament, with her belly against the earth and her arms extended, executing the command at the same instant, with a promptitude and precipitation wholly extraordinary.”[79]

Here, I believe, are facts so well authenticated of transmission of thought or of mental _suggestions_, perhaps _voluntarily unknown_ to certain modern neurologists. These neuropaths of Auxonne presented still more extraordinary phenomena; at the word of command they suspended the pulsations of the pulse in an arm, in the right arm, for example, and transfered the beatings from the right arm to the left arm, and _vice versa_. This fact was discovered by the Bishop, and many ecclesiastics verified the same, and “it was promptly done in the presence of Doctor Morel, who recognized and makes oath to the fact.”

We cannot dwell too long on the Demonomania of the Middle Ages, to which we have, perhaps, added some historical facts which are new and which we believe it to be our duty to publish, seeing a connection with modern hypnotism. We shall thus open a new field for investigation on strange affections, classed up to the present time in all varieties of monomania, but which appear to us to belong to a variety of mental pathology independent of insanity, properly speaking. If it were otherwise it would be necessary to recognize as crazy persons, not only the Demonomaniacs of the Middle Ages, but also the Jansenists, who went into trances, and the choreics and convulsionists (_convulsionnaires_) of the eighteenth century. They were certainly not crazy, those who came to the mortuary of Saint Medard, to the tomb of the Deacon Paris, to make an appeal against the Papal bull of Clement XI. And was it not another cause than auto suggestion, to which it is necessary to attribute the nervous phenomena that the _appelants_ exhibited during thirty consecutive years?

The exaltation of religious ideas, so often advanced by psychologists, cannot account for these phenomena. I have seen palpable proofs of this in the various accidents that suddenly overcame sceptics and strong-minded men of modern times, who came as amateurs to assist at the experiments on convulsive subjects. These symptoms, as is well known, are usually ushered in by violent screams, rapid beatings of the heart, contractions of muscles, and analogous nervous symptoms.

Besides, it is incontestible that many patients and infirm people obtain an unhoped for cure following convulsive cries; while others, in a state of health, are taken with hallucinations and delirium. I have seen patients who would lacerate certain portions of the body that were the seat of burns, and continue to walk, cry, gesticulate, and abuse themselves, like insane persons in a real state of dementia.

The Jansenists did not speak, had no compacts with demons, no exorcisms at which Inquisitors and their acolytes could suggest ideas of demonomania; and notwithstanding their great austerities and the most rigorous fasts, we note among the _convulsionnaires_ of Saint Medard only the ideas of possession by the Holy Spirit and divine favors obtained through the protection of the kind-hearted Deacon; and meantime, those possessed by God, as by the Devil, were subjects of somnambulism, to trances, lethargy, catalepsy, and other phenomena.[80]

The last analogy, finally, between the two nervous epidemics, was the Royal authority, a special form of _suggestion_ in the Middle Ages, which put an end to sorcery or witchcraft as well as to Jansenism.

HYSTERIA AND PSYCHIC FORCE.

Among the phenomena observed in demonomaniacal hysteria there are some, as we have remarked, that modern neurologists have wished to _pass over in silence_, because it was impossible to give a rational explanation. It arose from that mysterious force which acts upon the human personality and its faculties and produces _supernatural results_ in contradiction to well known scientific laws, known in one sense as _Psychic Force_, but which is nothing else than _modern spiritualism_.

This force, a power possessed in a high degree not only by hysterical persons, but all varieties of neuropaths, who are designated as _mediums_ by spiritual psychologists, _cannot be doubted by real scientists to day_.

The demonologists of the Middle Ages have often mentioned it in the demonomaniacs, and attributed it to possession by evil spirits; and, if not pathologists, _they did not disdain to occupy themselves with something that tends to simplify the study of the physiology of the nervous system_; but to minds of the modern type, that consider science as synonymous with truth, it seems strange and incomprehensible that our learned investigators should have been overpowered by the fear of the criticism that might overtake them because _they cannot explain purely and simply an inexplicable fact, a truth, real positive and certain_.

Not being ourselves timorous to this prudence, which is, they claim, one of the conditions, _sine qua non_, to be a candidate for the Institute of France, we shall now pursue our investigations with the historical documents regarding the medical Middle Age we possess, and thus loyally seek a scientific interpretation for facts observed in modern spiritualism or _psychic force_.

Among these documents we will choose as a type the “Trial made to deliver a girl possessed by the Evil Spirit, at Louviers.” This suit, which dates back to 1591, is in reality a series of trials written up by several magistrates, in the presence of numerous witnesses, reporting with precision all facts observed by them—facts interpreted, it is true, with ideas of the demonidolatry of the sixteenth century, but having a character whose authenticity is undisputed, and _even undiscussed_. The first trial is thus conceived:[81]

“On Saturday, the 18th day of August, 1591, in the morning at Louviers, in the aforesaid place, before us, Louis Morel, Councillor of the King, Provost General and Marshal of France for the Province of Normandy, holding Court in the service of the King in the villages and castles of Pont de l’Arche and Louviers, with one lieutenant, one recorder, and fifty archers, assisted by Monsieur Behotte, licentiate of law, Judge Advocate and Lieutenant General of Monsieur the Viscount of Rouen, in the presence of Louis Vauquet, our clerk.” * * *

This old document, in French now almost obsolete and difficult of translation,[82] goes on to state that in a house at Louviers, belonging to Mrs. Gay, two officers, belonging to the troops occupying the town, who had temporary quarters with Gay, complained to their commandant that “a spirit in the house mentioned tormented them.” Now, this house was occupied by three ladies: Madame Gay, one of her friends, a widow named Deshayes, and a servant girl called Francoise Fontaine.

Captain Diacre, who was commandant of the village, found on investigation the general disorder of the residence, the furniture turned upside down, the two ladies terrified, and the servant girl with several wounds on her body. The latter was suspected of being in league with the Devil, and was arrested and cast into the prison of the town. On her person was found a purse containing a teston (old French coin), a half teston, and a ten-sous piece. The trial proved nothing. The ladies might have had nightmare, the officers might have been drunk, the noises heard might have been the result of a thousand different causes, but it is necessary to mention this case in order to comprehend the subsequent trials.

The second trial, witnessed, tried, and authenticated by the same authorities, determined the fact that Francoise Fontaine was born at Paris, Faubourg Saint Honore, and that at the age of twenty two years she had already witnessed similar phenomena in a house “haunted,” said she, “by evil spirits that frightened her so much that she went to a neighbor’s to sleep while her mistress was absent from home.” This statement was proved correct in six subsequent trials containing the depositions of Marguerite Prevost, Suzanne Le Chevalier, Marguerite Le Chevalier, and Perrine Fayel.

The following trial states that on Saturday, the 31st of August, 1591, before Louis Morel, Councillor of the King, assisted by his clerk, Louis Vauquet, etc., etc.,