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. On one night, for instance, she
writes: "I seemed to feel someone's breath, and I heard a voice saying:
'The time for resistance has gone by, you must no longer rebel; by putting
off your consent to what has been proposed you will be injured; you cannot
persist in this resistance; God has subjected you to the demands of a
nature which you must satisfy on occasions so urgent.' Then I felt impure
impressions in my imagination and disordered movements in my body. I
persisted in saying at the bottom of my heart that I would do nothing. I
turned to God and asked Him for strength in this extraordinary struggle.
Then there was a loud noise in my room, and I felt as if someone had
approached me and put his hand into my bed and touched me; and having
perceived this I rose, in a state of restlessness, which lasted for a long
time afterward. Some days later, at midnight, I began to tremble all over
my body as I lay in bed, and to experience much mental anxiety without
knowing the cause. After this had lasted for some time I heard noises in
various parts of my room; the sheet was twice pulled without entirely
uncovering me; the oratory close to my bed was upset. I heard a voice on
the left side, toward which I was lying. I was asked if I had thought over
the advantageous offer that had been made to me. It was added: 'I have
come to know your reply; I will keep my promise if you will g