Mariani shows how closely this history corresponds with
the histories of the saints, and that all the acts and emotions of this
woman can be exactly paralleled in the lives of famous saints.[403]
The justice of these comparisons becomes manifest when we turn to the
records that have been left by holy persons. A most instructive record
from this point of view is the autobiography of Soeur Jeanne des Anges,
superior of the Ursulines of Loudun in the seventeenth century.[404] She
was clever, beautiful, ambitious, fond of pleasure, still more of power.
With this, as sometimes happens, she was highly hysterical, and in the
early years of her religious life was possessed by various demons of
unchastity and blasphemy with whom for many years she was in constant
struggle. She fell in love with a priest of Loudun, Grandier, a man whom
she had never even seen, only knowing of him as a powerful and fascinating
personality at whose feet all women fell, and she imagined that she and
the other nuns of her convent were possessed through his influence. She
was thus the cause of the trial and execution of Grandier, a famous case
in the annals of witchcraft. In her autobiography Soeur Jeanne describes
in detail how the demons assailed her at night, appearing in lascivious
attitudes, making indecent proposals, raising the bed-clothes, touching
all parts of her body, imploring her to yield to them, and she tells how
strong her temptation was to yield.
Pages:
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568