Louisa, for her part, had said during the trial: “I shall make no boast about it. The trial over, I shall soon be dead.” But this was not to be. Instead of dying, she went on killing others. The murdering devil within her waxed stormier than ever. She set about revealing to the inquisitors the names, both Christian and surnames, of all whom she fancied to have any dealings with magic; among others a poor girl named Honoria, “blind of both eyes,” who was burnt alive.
“God grant,” says Father Michaëlis, in conclusion, “that all this may redound to His own glory and to that of His Church!”
FOOTNOTES:
[87] St. Francis of Sales, famous for his successful missions among the Protestants, and Bishop of Geneva in his later years, died in 1622.—Trans.
[88] The Brethren of the Oratory, founded at Rome in 1564.—Trans.
[89] Lestoile, edit. Michaud, p. 561.
CHAPTER VII.
THE DEMONIACS OF LOUDUN—URBAN GRANDIER: 1632-1634.
In the State Memoirs, written by the famous Father Joseph, and known to us by extracts only—the work itself having, no doubt, been wisely suppressed as too instructive—the good Father explained how, in 1633, he had the luck to discover a heresy, a huge heresy, in which ever so many confessors and directors were concerned. That excellent army of Church-constables, those dogs of the Holy Troop, the Capuchins, had, not only in the wildernesses, but even in the populous parts of France—at Chartres, in Picardy, everywhere—got scent of some dreadful game; the Alumbrados namely, or Illuminate, of Spain, who being sorely persecuted there, had fled for shelter into France, where, in the world of women, especially among the convents, they dropped the gentle poison which was afterwards called by the name of Molinos.[90]
The wonder was, that the matter had not been sooner known. Having spread so far, it could not have been wholly hidden. The Capuchins swore that in Picardy alone, where the girls are weak and warmer-blooded than in the South, this amorously mystic folly owned some sixty thousand professors. Did all the clergy share in it—all the confessors and directors? We must remember, that attached to the official directors were a good many laymen, who glowed with the same zeal for the souls of women. One of them, who afterwards made some noise by his talent and boldness, is the author of Spiritual Delights, Desmarets of Saint Sorlin.