"Yes, and Saint Lydwine, when so ill, diffused a fragrance which also imparted a flavour. Her wounds exhaled a cheerful savour of spice and the very essence of Flemish home cooking—a refined extract of cinnamon."
"On the other hand," the Abbé went on, "the stench of wizards and witches was notorious in the Middle Ages. On this point all exorcists and writers on Demonology are agreed; and it is almost invariably recorded that after an apparition of the devil a foul odour of sulphur was left in the cells, even when the Saints had succeeded in dislodging him.
"But the essential odour of the devil is amply recorded in the life of Christina of Stumbela. You are not ignorant, I suppose, of the exploits in which Satan indulged against that saint?"
"Indeed, I am, Monsieur l'Abbé."
"Then I may tell you that the narrative of these assaults has been preserved by the Bollandists, who have included the life of this pious woman in their biographies. It was written by Peter of Dacia, a Dominican, and her confessor.
"Christina was born early in the thirteenth century—1242, I believe—at Stumbela, near Cologne.
"She was persecuted by the devil from her infancy. He exhausted the armoury of his arts against her, appeared to her under the form of a cock, a bull, an apostle; covered her with lice, filled her bed with vermin, poisoned her blood, and as he could not make her deny God, he invented fresh torments.
"He turned the food she put into her mouth into a toad, a snake, a spider, and disgusted her so effectually with all food, that she was dying for want of it. She spent her days in vomiting, and prayer to God to rescue her, but He was silent.
"Still, to sustain her in such trials, the Sacrament was left to her. Satan, knowing this, determined to deprive her of this sustenance, and appeared in the form of these creatures even in the host when she received it. Finally, to conquer her, he took the form of a huge toad, and established himself in her bosom. At first Christina fainted with fright, but then God intervened; by His order she wrapped her hand in her sleeve, slipped it between her body and the belly of the reptile, tore away the toad, and flung it on the stones.
"It was dashed to pieces, with a noise, said the saint, like an old shoe.