“Came Pierre Alix, first jailer and guard of the prison, who threw himself on his two knees before us, holding the prison keys in his hand, pale and overcome by emotion; for which action we remonstrated, when he stated to our great astonishment that he did not wish to longer act as prison guard, for the reason that the evil spirit that tormented the aforesaid Francoise Fontaine likewise tormented him, and also the prisoners, who desired to break jail and fly in order to save themselves, having a presentement that the aforesaid Francoise Fontaine, was in a dungeon or pit, and that she had removed a great iron door that had fallen upon her afterwards; and several persons having ran to her along with the jailer found the aforesaid Fontaine acting as though possessed by an evil spirit, with her throat swollen,” etc.
Let us pass over an interminable recital made by Francoise Fontaine to the priests and counsellors of the King, relative to diabolic possession, to which she had been subject all her life. Also, as to the testimony of many witnesses as to her performance while in jail; as, for instance, “the body of Francoise rose in the air about four feet, without being in contact with anything, and she floated towards us in the air,” etc., etc.
Francois Fontaine claimed that she had consented to belong to the Demon, who was “a black man with whom she had cohabited.” Considered from a medical standpoint the girl was a victim to hysterical demonomania.
Let us make a few more extracts from the records of this trial:
“As the aforesaid Fontaine told us these things, being meantime on her two knees before us, who were seated on a raised platform, the aforesaid Fontaine fell forward on her face as though she had been struck from above, and the candles in the chandeliers of the room were extinguished, except those on the clerk’s table, the which were roughly blown upon several times without being put out, when no visible person present was near them to blow, and these candles were raised out of their candlesticks, lighted as they were, and rubbed against the ground in an attempt to extinguish them, and the which were finally extinguished with a great noise, without any human hand appearing near them; the which so astonished the priest, the advocate, the first jailer, the archers guard, who were present, that they retired, leaving us alone, the hour being then nine o’clock at night.
“Finding myself alone, I recommended my soul to God, and exclaimed in a loud voice the words, ‘My God, give me grace not to lose my soul to the Devil, and I command thee O, Demon, by the power I have invoked, to leave the body of Francoise Fontaine! Again I repeat the command!’”
At the same instant the exorcist felt himself seized by the legs, arms and body, and tightly held in the arms of an unknown force, which felt hot and blew a warm breath, while blows were rained on the Judge’s body as though he were beaten by a heavy piece of wood. He was struck on the jaw and under the ear hard enough to draw blood, etc.
At the eleventh trial it was found that Francoise Fontaine was bodily raised out of bed during the night by an unseen force, and this fact is duly authenticated by witnesses.
In the following trial the same phenomena were produced in the church at Louviers, during the mass of exorcism, where:
“Francoise Fontaine floated from the earth into the air, higher than the altar, as though lifted up by the hair by an unseen hand, which quickly alarmed the assistants, who had never before witnessed such an occurrence,” etc.