Had Richelieu allowed the inquiry demanded by Father Joseph into the doings of the Illuminate Confessors, some strange light would have been thrown into the depth of the cloisters, on the daily life of the nuns. Failing that, we may still learn from the Louviers story, which is far more instructive than those of Aix and Loudun, that, notwithstanding the new means of corruption furnished by Illuminism, the director still resorted to the old trickeries of witchcraft, of apparitions, heavenly or infernal, and so forth.[103]
Of the three directors successively appointed to the Convent of Louviers in the space of thirty years, David, the first, was an Illuminate, who forestalled Molinos; the second, Picart, was a wizard dealing with the Devil; and Boullé, the third, was a wizard working in the guise of an angel.
There is an excellent book about this business; it is called The History of Magdalen Bavent, a nun of Louviers; with her Examination, &c., 1652: Rouen.[104] The date of this book accounts for the thorough freedom with which it was written. During the wars of the Fronde, a bold Oratorian priest, who discovered the nun in one of the Rouen prisons, took courage from her dictation to write down the story of her life.
Born at Rouen in 1607, Madeline was left an orphan at nine years old. At twelve she was apprenticed to a milliner. The confessor, a Franciscan, held absolute sway in the house of this milliner, who as maker of clothes for the nuns, was dependent on the Church. The monk caused the apprentices, whom he doubtless made drunk with belladonna and other magical drinks, to believe that they had been taken to the Sabbath and there married to the devil Dagon. Three were already possessed by him, and Madeline at fourteen became the fourth.
She was a devout worshipper, especially of St. Francis. A Franciscan monastery had just been founded at Louviers, by a lady of Rouen, widow of lawyer Hennequin, who was hanged for cheating. She hoped by this good deed of hers to help in saving her husband’s soul. To that end she sought counsel of a holy man, the old priest David, who became director to the new foundation. Standing at the entrance of the town, with a wood surrounding it, this convent, born of so tragical a source, seemed quite gloomy and poor enough for a place of stern devotion. David was known as author of a Scourge for Rakes, an odd and violent book against the abuses that defiled the Cloister.[105] All of a sudden this austere person took up some very strange ideas concerning purity. He became an Adamite, preached up the nakedness of Adam in his days of innocence. The docile nuns of Louviers sought to subdue and abase the novices, to break them into obedience, by insisting—of course in summer-time—that these young Eves should return to the plight of their common mother. In this state they were sent out for exercise in some secluded gardens, and were taken into the chapel itself. Madeline, who at sixteen had come to be received as a novice, was too proud, perhaps in those days too pure also, to submit to so strange a way of life. She got an angry scolding for having tried at communion to hide her bosom with the altar-cloth.
Not less unwilling was she to uncover her soul, to confess to the Lady Superior, after the usual monastic custom of which the abbesses were particularly fond. She would rather trust herself with old David, who kept her apart from the rest. He himself confided his own ailments into her ear. Nor did he hide from her his inner teaching, the Illuminism, which governed the convent: “You must kill sin by being made humble and lost to all sense of pride through sin.” Madeline was frightened at the depths of depravity reached by the nuns, who quietly carried out the teaching with which they had been imbued. She avoided their company, kept to herself, and succeeded in getting made one of the doorkeepers.
David died when she was eighteen. Old age prevented his going far with the girl. But the vicar Picart, who succeeded him, was furious in his pursuit of her; at the confessional spoke to her only of his love. He made her his sextoness, that he might meet her alone in chapel. She liked him not; but the nuns forbade her to have another confessor, lest she might divulge their little secrets. And thus she was given over to Picart. He beset her when she was sick almost to death; seeking to frighten her by insisting that from David he had received some infernal prescriptions. He sought to win her compassion by feigning illness and begging her to come and see him. Thenceforth he became her master, upset her mind with magic potions, and worked her into believing that she had gone with him to the Sabbath, there to officiate as altar and victim. At length, exceeding even the Sabbath usages and daring the scandal that would follow, he made her to be with child.
The nuns were afraid of one who knew the state of their morals; and their interest also bound them to him. The convent was enriched by his energy, his good repute, the alms and gifts he attracted towards it from every quarter. He was building them a large church. We saw in the Loudun business by what rivalries and ambitions these houses were led away, how jealously they strove each to outdo the others. Through the trust reposed in him by the wealthy, Picart saw himself raised into the lofty part of benefactor and second founder of the convent. “Sweetheart,” he said to Madeline, “that noble church is all my building! After my death you will see wonders wrought there. Do you not agree to that?”