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sine qua non, to be a candidate for the Institute of France, we shall now pursue our investigations with the historical documents regarding the medical Middle Age we possess, and thus loyally seek a scientific interpretation for facts observed in modern spiritualism or psychic force.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.,