Part 12

Let us yet remark that the hystero-demonomaniacal manifestations were not peculiar to the Ursulines of Loudun. They have been observed in many convents in the same conditions of habits and prolonged fastings among debilitated young girls; from long vigils spent in prayer and nervous depression, caused by over-religious discipline; by mystical exhortations from a man invested in a sacred character, on whom fall all the discussions, all the entreaties, and all the thoughts of the girls in the cloister.

The history of the nuns of Loudun was identically reproduced under the same conditions among the sisters of Saint Elizabeth’s Convent at Louviers, in 1643, three years after the execution of poor Urbain Grandier for witchcraft.

In a short time eighteen nuns were attacked with hysterical demonomania; they had active hallucinations of all the senses, convulsions, and delirium. Like the Ursulines, they blasphemed, screamed, and gave themselves over to all manner of strange contortions, claiming to be _possessed_ by demons, describing in obscene terms the orgies of the witch vigil (_Sabbat_), perpetrating all varieties of debauchery, even unknown to the vilest prostitutes; after this they finally accused one or more persons of bewitching them through sorcery.

The nuns of Louviers, for instance, after being duly exorcised according to the Canons of the Church, accused as the author of their affliction, and as a bad magician, their old time confessor, the Abbot Picard, who died before their symptoms were developed; then they accused another priest, by the name of Francois Boulle, and several of their companions, notably Sister Madeleine Bavan. These innocent people were tried by the Parliament of Rouen, who ordered that the body of the priest, Picard, should be exhumed, carried to the stake, there tied to the living body of Francois Boulle, and after being burnt their ashes should be cast to the winds. This execution, in the open air, occurred in the seventeenth century, in the “Old Market Place” at Rouen, at the spot where Joan d’Arc had also been burnt alive for being _possessed_, as was claimed, by supernatural beings. What a comment on intelligence in an age of partial enlightenment!

In order to close this chapter on hysterical demonomania among religious orders, of which we have given some examples, we shall cite an interesting relation left us by the Bishops and Doctors of Sorbonne, together with the testimony of the King’s deputies, regarding the _possession_ of nuns at the Convent of Auxonne. Here there were always convulsions and screams, with blasphemy, aversion to taking the sacraments, possession, and exorcisms; and there was, undoubtedly, the phenomenon of _suggestion_ observed with much precision.

We might say that the nuns of Auxonne were accessible to suggestion; for, at the command or even the thought of the exorcists, they fell into a condition of somnambulism; in this state they became insensible to pain, as was determined by pricking Sister Denise under the finger-nail with a needle; they had also the faculty of prosternating the body, making it assume the form of a circle,—in other words, they could bend their limbs in any direction.

The Bishop of Chalons reports that “all the before mentioned girls, secular as well as regular, to the number of eighteen, _had the gift of Language_, and responded to the exorcists _in Latin_, making, at times, their entire conversation in the classical tongue.

“Almost all these nuns had a full knowledge of the secrets and inner thoughts of others;[78] this was demonstrated particularly _in the interior commandments_, which had been made by the exorcists on different occasions, which they obeyed exactly ordinarily, _without the commandments being expressed to them either by words or any external sign_.

“The Bishop himself, among others, experimented on the person of Denise Pariset, to whom, _giving a command mentally to come to him immediately and be exorcised_, whereupon the aforesaid nun immediately came to him, although her residence was in a quarter of the village far removed from the Episcopal residence. She said on these occasions that she was commanded to come; and this experiment was repeated several times.

“Again, in the person of Sister Jamin, a novice, who on hearing the exorcism, told the Bishop his interior commandment made to the Demon during the ceremony. Also, in the person of Sister Borthon, who, being _commanded mentally_ to make her agitations violent, immediately prostrated herself before the Holy Sacrament, with her belly against the earth and her arms extended, executing the command at the same instant, with a promptitude and precipitation wholly extraordinary.”[79]

Here, I believe, are facts so well authenticated of transmission of thought or of mental _suggestions_, perhaps _voluntarily unknown_ to certain modern neurologists. These neuropaths of Auxonne presented still more extraordinary phenomena; at the word of command they suspended the pulsations of the pulse in an arm, in the right arm, for example, and transfered the beatings from the right arm to the left arm, and _vice versa_. This fact was discovered by the Bishop, and many ecclesiastics verified the same, and “it was promptly done in the presence of Doctor Morel, who recognized and makes oath to the fact.”

We cannot dwell too long on the Demonomania of the Middle Ages, to which we have, perhaps, added some historical facts which are new and which we believe it to be our duty to publish, seeing a connection with modern hypnotism. We shall thus open a new field for investigation on strange affections, classed up to the present time in all varieties of monomania, but which appear to us to belong to a variety of mental pathology independent of insanity, properly speaking. If it were otherwise it would be necessary to recognize as crazy persons, not only the Demonomaniacs of the Middle Ages, but also the Jansenists, who went into trances, and the choreics and convulsionists (_convulsionnaires_) of the eighteenth century. They were certainly not crazy, those who came to the mortuary of Saint Medard, to the tomb of the Deacon Paris, to make an appeal against the Papal bull of Clement XI. And was it not another cause than auto suggestion, to which it is necessary to attribute the nervous phenomena that the _appelants_ exhibited during thirty consecutive years?

The exaltation of religious ideas, so often advanced by psychologists, cannot account for these phenomena. I have seen palpable proofs of this in the various accidents that suddenly overcame sceptics and strong-minded men of modern times, who came as amateurs to assist at the experiments on convulsive subjects. These symptoms, as is well known, are usually ushered in by violent screams, rapid beatings of the heart, contractions of muscles, and analogous nervous symptoms.

Besides, it is incontestible that many patients and infirm people obtain an unhoped for cure following convulsive cries; while others, in a state of health, are taken with hallucinations and delirium. I have seen patients who would lacerate certain portions of the body that were the seat of burns, and continue to walk, cry, gesticulate, and abuse themselves, like insane persons in a real state of dementia.

The Jansenists did not speak, had no compacts with demons, no exorcisms at which Inquisitors and their acolytes could suggest ideas of demonomania; and notwithstanding their great austerities and the most rigorous fasts, we note among the _convulsionnaires_ of Saint Medard only the ideas of possession by the Holy Spirit and divine favors obtained through the protection of the kind-hearted Deacon; and meantime, those possessed by God, as by the Devil, were subjects of somnambulism, to trances, lethargy, catalepsy, and other phenomena.[80]

The last analogy, finally, between the two nervous epidemics, was the Royal authority, a special form of _suggestion_ in the Middle Ages, which put an end to sorcery or witchcraft as well as to Jansenism.

HYSTERIA AND PSYCHIC FORCE.

Among the phenomena observed in demonomaniacal hysteria there are some, as we have remarked, that modern neurologists have wished to _pass over in silence_, because it was impossible to give a rational explanation. It arose from that mysterious force which acts upon the human personality and its faculties and produces _supernatural results_ in contradiction to well known scientific laws, known in one sense as _Psychic Force_, but which is nothing else than _modern spiritualism_.

This force, a power possessed in a high degree not only by hysterical persons, but all varieties of neuropaths, who are designated as _mediums_ by spiritual psychologists, _cannot be doubted by real scientists to day_.

The demonologists of the Middle Ages have often mentioned it in the demonomaniacs, and attributed it to possession by evil spirits; and, if not pathologists, _they did not disdain to occupy themselves with something that tends to simplify the study of the physiology of the nervous system_; but to minds of the modern type, that consider science as synonymous with truth, it seems strange and incomprehensible that our learned investigators should have been overpowered by the fear of the criticism that might overtake them because _they cannot explain purely and simply an inexplicable fact, a truth, real positive and certain_.

Not being ourselves timorous to this prudence, which is, they claim, one of the conditions, _sine qua non_, to be a candidate for the Institute of France, we shall now pursue our investigations with the historical documents regarding the medical Middle Age we possess, and thus loyally seek a scientific interpretation for facts observed in modern spiritualism or _psychic force_.

Among these documents we will choose as a type the “Trial made to deliver a girl possessed by the Evil Spirit, at Louviers.” This suit, which dates back to 1591, is in reality a series of trials written up by several magistrates, in the presence of numerous witnesses, reporting with precision all facts observed by them—facts interpreted, it is true, with ideas of the demonidolatry of the sixteenth century, but having a character whose authenticity is undisputed, and _even undiscussed_. The first trial is thus conceived:[81]

“On Saturday, the 18th day of August, 1591, in the morning at Louviers, in the aforesaid place, before us, Louis Morel, Councillor of the King, Provost General and Marshal of France for the Province of Normandy, holding Court in the service of the King in the villages and castles of Pont de l’Arche and Louviers, with one lieutenant, one recorder, and fifty archers, assisted by Monsieur Behotte, licentiate of law, Judge Advocate and Lieutenant General of Monsieur the Viscount of Rouen, in the presence of Louis Vauquet, our clerk.” * * *

This old document, in French now almost obsolete and difficult of translation,[82] goes on to state that in a house at Louviers, belonging to Mrs. Gay, two officers, belonging to the troops occupying the town, who had temporary quarters with Gay, complained to their commandant that “a spirit in the house mentioned tormented them.” Now, this house was occupied by three ladies: Madame Gay, one of her friends, a widow named Deshayes, and a servant girl called Francoise Fontaine.

Captain Diacre, who was commandant of the village, found on investigation the general disorder of the residence, the furniture turned upside down, the two ladies terrified, and the servant girl with several wounds on her body. The latter was suspected of being in league with the Devil, and was arrested and cast into the prison of the town. On her person was found a purse containing a teston (old French coin), a half teston, and a ten-sous piece. The trial proved nothing. The ladies might have had nightmare, the officers might have been drunk, the noises heard might have been the result of a thousand different causes, but it is necessary to mention this case in order to comprehend the subsequent trials.

The second trial, witnessed, tried, and authenticated by the same authorities, determined the fact that Francoise Fontaine was born at Paris, Faubourg Saint Honore, and that at the age of twenty two years she had already witnessed similar phenomena in a house “haunted,” said she, “by evil spirits that frightened her so much that she went to a neighbor’s to sleep while her mistress was absent from home.” This statement was proved correct in six subsequent trials containing the depositions of Marguerite Prevost, Suzanne Le Chevalier, Marguerite Le Chevalier, and Perrine Fayel.

The following trial states that on Saturday, the 31st of August, 1591, before Louis Morel, Councillor of the King, assisted by his clerk, Louis Vauquet, etc., etc.,

“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.

In presence of these facts Francoise was led back to prison, and it was decided by the clerical council, assisted by two eminent physicians, Roussel and Gautier, to cut off the girl’s hair, as was the custom when witches were arrested.

During this operation, which was performed publically by Dr. Gautier, the same phenomenon was reproduced. For says the veracious old French chronicle: “Francoise est de rechef enleuee en l’air fort hault, la tete en bas, les pieds en hault sans que ses accoustrementz se soient renuersez, au trauers desquelz il sortoit par deuant et par derriere grande quantite d’eaue et fumee puante.”

Like the many preceding trials, with experiments, which are duly attested by magistrates, physicians and the clerk, seven person in all, who witnessed the phenomena, as to material facts, we cannot suspect people whose honesty was never doubted; for it was through their influence that Francoise Fontaine was set at liberty, after all her inexplicable symptoms had disappeared and her nervous malady abated.

In order to render an account of the _supernatural_ phenomena observed by early demonographers and attributed to evil spirits, let us briefly glance at the experiments made regarding _Spiritualism_ by a few brave physiologists of our own epoch, who have dared to investigate the analogy existing between these two orders of phenomena.

Among the modern experimenters who have made a scientific study of this subject—let us call it _Psychic Force_, if you will—we will mention Mr. Crookes, member of the Royal Society of London, the (English Academy of Sciences), the master mind, the most illustrious in modern science; the discoverer of thallium, radiant matter, photometer of polarization, spectral microscope—a chemist and physicist of the first order, accustomed to the most minute experimental investigations.

The experiments of this _savant_ have been arranged by him in three classes, as follows:

CLASS I.—_Movement of weighty bodies with contact, but without mechanical effort._

This movement is one of the most simple forms of the phenomenon observed; it presents degrees that vary from trembling or vibration of the chamber and its contents up to the complete elevation in the air, when the hand is placed above, of a weighty body. We commonly object that when they touch an object put in motion, they push, draw or raise it. I have experimentally proved that this is impossible in a great number of cases; but, as a matter of evidence, I attach little importance to that class of phenomena considered in themselves, and have only mentioned them as a preliminary to other movements of the same kind, but without contact.

“These movements (and I may truly add all other similar phenomena) are generally preceded by a particular breeziness of the air, amounting sometimes almost to a true wind. This air disperses leaves of paper and lowers the thermometer several degrees.

“Under some circumstances, to the subject of which I shall, at some future day, give more details, I have not found any of this air; but the cold was so intense that I can only compare it to that experienced by placing the hand at a short distance from mercury in a state of congelation.” (_Crookes_).

I have obtained, like the eminent “member of the Royal Society of London,” the movement of weighty bodies by contact very easily, not only lifting massive tables of a weight altogether out of proportion and far superior to the force of a very robust man, but have also seen this furniture move in a given direction; I have even noted a small square table keep time in beating with a determined cadence. This phenomenon, well known to all experimenters, may be reproduced without the assistance of a powerful medium; it was well known in times of antiquity, but is not mentioned in the writings on sorcery during the Middle Ages.

As extraordinary as these facts seem, they are no more singular than those observed by W. Crookes, and very recently by Zoellner,[83] Professor in the University of Leipsic and correspondent of the French Institute, in presence of Professors Fechner, Braune, Weber, Scheibner, and the celebrated surgeon, Thiersch. It was with Slade, an American medium as extraordinary as Home, that Zoellner experimented. These experiments may be thus briefly mentioned:

1. Movements made by psychic force, through the medium of Slade, of a magnet enclosed in a compass box.

2. Blows struck on a table, a knife raised in air, without contact, to the height of a foot.

3. Movement of heavy bodies. Zoellner’s bed was drawn two feet from the wall, Slade remaining seated with his back to the bed, his legs covered and in full view of the experimenters.

4. A fire-screen broken with noise, without contact with the medium, and the fragments thrown five feet.

5. Writing produced on several experimental occasions between two slates belonging to Zoellner, and held well in view.

6. Magnetization of a steel needle.

7. Acid reaction given to neutral substances.

8. Imprints of hands and naked feet on smoked surfaces or surfaces powdered with flour, which did not correspond with the hands and feet of the medium, who remained meantime in full view of the experimenters, while Slade’s feet were covered with shoes.

9. Knots tied in bands of copper sealed at both ends and held in the hands of Slade and Zoellner, etc.

We find the same tests and facts observed by Mr. Crookes and the French experimenters, who, following his example, have sought to account for _Psychic Force_.

CLASS II.—_Phenomenon of percussion and other analogous noises._

The popular name of _spiritual rapping_ gives a very poor idea of this class of phenomena. On different occasions during his experiments, Mr. Crookes heard blows of a delicate variety, such as might be produced by the point of a needle; a cascade of sounds, as acute as those coming from an induction coil in full activity; sharp blows or detonations in the air; acute notes of a metallic variety; rasping sounds similar to that heard from a machine with rubbing action; noises like scratching; twittering chirps like a bird, etc.

“I have observed these noises,” says Crookes, “with the majority of mediums, each of whom has a special peculiarity. They were more varied with Mr. Home; but, for force and certainty of result, I have never met a medium who approached Kate Fox. For several months I experimented, it may be said, in an unlimited manner, and verified the different manifestations induced by the presence of this lady, and I especially examined the phenomenon relative to these noises.

“With mediums, it is necessary in general that they be methodically seated for the _seance_ before noises are heard, but with Miss Kate Fox it was sufficient to merely place her hand on any object, no matter what, and violent blows were heard, like a triple sound of beating, and sometimes so loud as to be heard at different pieces of furniture in the room.

“In this manner, I have heard these noises on a living tree, on a fragment of glass, on a membrane extended in a frame—for instance, a tambourine—on the top of a cab, and on the edge of the parquet railing in the theatre.

“However, effective contact is not always necessary. I have heard the noise sound inside walls, when the hands and feet of the medium were tightly held; when Miss Fox was seated in a chair; when she was suspended above the platform; finally, when she had fallen on a sofa in a dead faint.