This fine gentleman did not put himself out at all regarding Madeline. He paid a dowry for her, and made a nun of her who was already a lay-sister. Thus, being no longer a doorkeeper, she could live in one of the inner rooms, and there be brought to bed at her convenience. By means of certain drugs, and practices of their own, the convents could do without the help of doctors. Madeline said that she was delivered several times. She never said what became of the newly-born.
Picart being now an old man, feared lest Madeline might in her fickleness fly off some day, and utter words of remorse to another confessor. So he took a detestable way of binding her to himself beyond recall, by forcing her to make a will in which she promised “to die when he died, and to be wherever he was.” This was a dreadful thought for the poor soul. Must she be drawn along with him into the bottomless pit? Must she go down with him, even into hell? She deemed herself for ever lost. Become his property, his mere tool, she was used and misused by him for all kinds of purposes. He made her do the most shameful things. He employed her as a magical charm to gain over the rest of the nuns. A holy wafer steeped in Madeline’s blood, and buried in the garden, would be sure to disturb their senses and their minds.
This was the very year in which Urban Grandier was burnt. Throughout France, men spoke of nothing but the devils of Loudun. The Penitentiary of Evreux, who had been one of the actors on that stage, carried the dreadful tale back with him to Normandy. Madeline fancied herself bewitched and knocked about by devils; followed about by a lewd cat with eyes of fire. By degrees, other nuns caught the disorder, which showed itself in odd supernatural jerks and writhings. Madeline had besought aid of a Capuchin, afterwards of the Bishop of Evreux. The prioress was not sorry for a step of which she must have been aware, for she saw what wealth and fame a like business had brought to the Convent of Loudun. But for six years the bishop turned a deaf ear to the prayer, doubtless through fear of Richelieu, who was then at work on a reform of the cloisters.
Richelieu wanted to bring these scandals to an end. It was not till his own death, and that of Louis XIII., during the break-up which followed on the rule of the Queen and Mazarin, that the priests again betook themselves to working wonders, and waging war with the Devil. Picart being dead, they were less shy of a matter in which so dangerous a man might have accused others in his turn. They met the visions of Madeline, by looking out a visionary for themselves. They got admission into the convent for a certain Sister Anne of the Nativity, a girl of sanguine, hysteric temperament, frantic at need and half-mad, so far at least as to believe in her own lies. A kind of dogfight was got up between the two. They besmeared each other with false charges. Anne saw the Devil quite naked, by Madeline’s side. Madeline swore to seeing Anne at the Sabbath, along with the Lady Superior, the Mother-Assistant, and the Mother of the Novices. Besides this, there was nothing new; merely a hashing up of the two great trials at Aix and Loudun. They read and followed the printed narratives only. No wit, no invention, was shown by either.
Anne, the accuser, and her devil Leviathan, were backed by the Penitentiary of Evreux, one of the chief actors in the Loudun affair. By his advice, the Bishop of Evreux gave orders to disinter the body of Picart, so that the devils might leave the convent when Picart himself was taken away from the neighbourhood. Madeline was condemned, without a hearing, to be disgraced, to have her body examined for the marks of the Devil. They tore off her veil and gown, and made her the wretched sport of a vile curiosity, that would have pierced her till she bled again, in order to win the right of sending her to the stake. Leaving to no one else the care of a scrutiny which was in itself a torture, these virgins acting as matrons, ascertained if she was with child or no, shaved all her body, and dug their needles into her quivering flesh, to find out the insensible spots that betrayed the mark of the Devil. At every dig they discovered signs of pain: if they had not the luck to prove her a Witch, at any rate, they could revel in her tears and cries.
But Sister Anne was not satisfied, until, on the mere word of her own devil, Madeline, though acquitted by the results of this examination, was condemned for the rest of her life to an In pace. It was said that the convent would be quieted by her departure; but such was not the case. The Devil was more violent than ever; some twenty nuns began to cry out, to prophesy, to beat themselves.
Such a sight drew thither a curious crowd from Rouen, and even from Paris. Yvelin, a young Parisian surgeon, who had already seen the farce at Loudun, came to see that of Louviers. He brought with him a very clear-headed magistrate, the Commissioner of Taxes at Rouen. They devoted unwearying attention to the matter, settled themselves at Louviers, and carried on their researches for seventeen days.
From the first day they saw into the plot. A conversation they had had with the Penitentiary of Evreux on their entrance into the town, was repeated back to them by Sister Anne’s demon, as if it had been a revelation. The scenic arrangements were very bewitching. The shades of night, the torches, the flickering and smoking lights, produced effects which had not been seen at Loudun. The rest of the process was simple enough. One of the bewitched said that in a certain part of the garden they would find a charm. They dug for it, and it was found. Unluckily, Yvelin’s friend, the sceptical magistrate, never budged from the side of the leading actress, Sister Anne. At the very edge of a hole they had just opened he grasped her hand, and on opening it, found the charm, a bit of black thread, which she was about to throw into the ground.
The exorcisers, the penitentiary, priests, and Capuchins, about the spot, were overwhelmed with confusion. The dauntless Yvelin, on his own authority, began a scrutiny, and saw to the uttermost depth of the affair.