Witch Hunts Lecture 5
Wednesday, 20th September, 2006
The Devils of Loudun – Grandier and Jeanne

Three Cases from the Cloisters:
•	Elizabeth de Ranfaing
•	Dr. Poirot
–	Klaits, “Servants of Satan” p.104

•	Madeleine de Demandolx de la Palud
•	Fr. Gaufridi
–	Klaits, “Servants of Satan” p.113

•	Mother Joan of the Angels
•	Fr. Grandier
–	Klaits, “Servants of Satan” p.115

Third Case:
•	Mother Joan of the Angels
•	Ursuline nun at Loudun
•	Possessed by a demon who compelled her “to blaspheme and behave indecently” (K.115)

The Case:
•	Victims:  Mother Joan of the Angels, and other Ursuline Nuns at Loudun
•	Charged:  Fr. Urbain Grandier
•	Sentence:  Tormented, taken in public to apologize at gates of the abbey, tortured and burned at the stake in 1636.

The Man – (in Huxley)
•	“From the first, public sentiment in regard to the new parson was sharply divided.  Most of the devouter sex approved of him.  The late curé had been a doddering nonentity.  His successor was a man in the prime of youth, tall, athletic, with an air of grave authority, even (according to one contemporary) of majesty…”  (continues)

The Women – (in Huxley)
•	“To this seductive appearance Grandier added the social virtues of good manners and lively conversation.  He could turn a compliment with easy grace, and the look with which he accompanied his words was more flattering, if the lady happened to be at all presentable, than the words themselves.  The new parson, it was only too obvious, took and interest in his female parishioners.”

The Times – (in Huxley) 
•	Grandier lived in the grey dawn of what may be called the Era of Respectability.
•	“It is difficult to find any mediaeval or Renaissance writer who does not take it for granted that, from highest prelate to humblest friar, the majority of clergymen are thoroughly disreputable.  Ecclesiastical corruption begot the Reformation, and in its turn the Reformation produced the Counter-Reformation.”

Signs of the Times:
•	After the Council of Trent there were far fewer scandalous Popes.
•	By mid 1600s they are completely gone.
•	Even bishops had started to behave themselves.

Times Were Changing:
•	In a royal council in 1560, for example, Charles de Marillac, Bishop of Vienne, declared that ecclesiastical discipline was almost obsolete.
•	French and German prelates collected the “collagium” which was a tax on the concubine kept by priests.
•	Priests were reminded that they were allowed to keep concubines, and that they would be charged the tax whether they did or didn’t.

Times Were Changing:
•	The Era of Respectability was a movement towards gaining respectability as individuals of God, rather than as people who merely wore the robes.
•	The Reformation and Counter-Reformation had therefore influenced the sexual behaviour of more than just the common flock.

Grandier’s Good Points:
•	Respectable bourgeouis family
•	Educated at an Ecclesiastical Boarding School “La Fleche”
•	Clever, Learned, an Enthusiastic Humanist
•	“Could preach a thundering good sermon” (H.17)

Grandier’s Worst Point:
Eloquence.

Grandier’s Abilities:
•	“To Urbain Grandier had been brought, along with solid talents, the most dazzling of all gifts, and the most dangerous – eloquence.  Spoken by a good actor – and every great preacher, every successful advocate and politician is, among other things, a consummate actor – words can exercise an almost magical power over their hearers.” (H.20 – paraphrased)

The Dark Side:
•	Accused often of having seduced the young women sent to him for instruction and confession, and the widows who came to him for guidance.
•	He seems to have basically admitted this, and repented…only to repeat the offense.
•	He had written a manuscript arguing against celibacy in the priesthood, and had married himself to a young woman in the town.

Another View:
•	From Richard Popkin’s “The History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle”
•	“The case against Grandier aroused a lot of interest in demonology, and in the standards of evidence by which such matters can be judged.” (P.149)

Questions around the Case:
•	1)  Could he even be apprehended?
•	If NO, perhaps evidence of demonic power.
•	If YES, might just be evidence that the Devil doesn’t care about his tools.

Questions around the Case:
•	2) Could testimony of Victims be admitted in court?
–	If YES, and they were truly possessed, the court would be admitting Devil’s lies.
–	If NO, and they were truly possessed, there would be no testimony to use against him.
–	If YES, and they were not possessed, they would be admitting the witness’ lies.
–	If NO, and they were not possessed, there would technically be no case.

In Mother Joan’s Own Words:
•	“My mind was often filled with blasphemies, and sometimes I uttered them without being able to take any thought to stop them myself.  I felt for God a continual aversion…The demon gave me moreover a strong aversion for my religious calling, so that sometimes when he was in my head I used to tear all my veils and such of my sisters’ as I might lay hands on; I trampled them underfoot, I chewed them, cursing the hour when I took the vows.  All this was done with great violence; I think that I was not free.” (K.116)

The Exorcists:
•	Jean-Joseph Surin was the second of the exorcists (the first was was Barré) who was assigned to Jeanne’s case.
•	He witnessed all of her frenzies and blasphemies and genuinely thought her possessed.
•	He believed that her devils passed from her into him, and that he was then possessed by them.

In Mother Joan’s Own Words:
•	“The demons gave me very evil desires and feelings of quite licentious affection for the persons who might have helped my soul, so as to lead me to further withdrawal from communication with them.” (K.116)

In Fr. Surin’s Own Words, After Possessed by Joan’s Demons:
•	“I would not know how to explain to you what occurs inside of me during this time, and how this Spirit unites with mine, without depriving me either of the knowledge or the liberty of my soul, while nevertheless making himself like another me, and how it is as if I had two souls, one of which is deprived of its body, of the use of its organs; and stands apart watching the actions of the one which has entered” (CP p.126R)

Shared Symptoms:
•	“At the same time, I feel a great peace, under the absolute will of God; and without my knowing how, there comes an extreme rage, and aversion to Him, which becomes almost violent trying to separate itself from the other feeling, which astounds those who see it; on the one hand a great joy and douceur, and on the other, a sadness which reveals itself by lamentations and cries similar to those of the Demons.”

Aversion to Sacrament:
•	“The tremblings which overcome me when the Holy Sacrament is bestowed upon me come equally, it seems to me, from horror at its presence, which is unbearable to me, and from a sweet and gently reverence, without my being able to attribute them more to one than to the other, and without its being in my power to restrain them.  

Two Agents:
•	“When one of these two souls moves me to want to make the sign of the cross on my mouth, the other turns my hand away with great speed, and seizes my finger with my teeth, in order to gnaw on it in a rage.  I almost never find prayer easier and more tranquil than during these agitations; while my body rolls on the ground…”

Seems to Like it:
•	“…and the Ministers of the Church speak to me as if to a Devil, and accuse me of maledictions, I could not tell you the joy that I feel, having become a Devil not out of rebellion to God, but by virtue of the distress which depicts ingenuously for me the state to which sin has reduced me…” (CP p.125L)

Likes to be Watched:
•	“When the other possessed persons see me in this state, it is a pleasure to see their triumph, and how the Devils make fun of me, saying, Doctor, heal thyself, and go preach now from the pulpit; how nice it will be to see him preach, after he has rolled on the ground…”

Likes being the Devil’s Plaything:
•	“What cause of benediction to see oneself made the Devil’s plaything, and how the Justice of God in this world makes sense of my sins! What a blessing to experience the state from which Jesus Christ has drawn me, no longer by hearsay, but by the sensation of that very state…”
•	(CP p.127L) 

Popping In and Out:
•	“…and how good it is to have at one and the same time the ability to enter into that misery and to give thanks to the goodness which has delivered us from it with so many efforts!  That is how things stand with me at this time, almost every day.”
•	(CP p.127L)

Surin’s Demons
•	There were two – one of them was Leviathan, the Unholy Spirit of Hell.
•	There was usually one hanging around him in the mornings when he woke up to pray.
•	Occasionally they were inside him acting through his body without his will being able to intercede.
•	In such times he felt very much at peace.

END.