ected with that of an entire convent. The
facts of this celebrated sorcerer's history are instructive. He
was educated in a college of the Jesuits at Bordeaux, and
presented by the fathers, with whom his abilities and address had
gained much applause, to a benefice in Loudun. He provoked by his
haughtiness the jealousy of his brother clergy, who regarded him
as an intruder, and his pride and resentment increased in direct
proportion to the activity of his enemies, who had conspired to
effect his ruin. Mounier and Mignon, two priests whom he had
mortally offended, were most active. Urbain Grandier was rash
enough to oppose himself alone to the united counsels of
unscrupulous and determined foes. Defeated singly in previous
attempts to drive him from Loudun, the two priests combined with
the leading authorities of the place. Their haughty and careless
adversary had the advantage or disadvantage of a fine person and
handsome face, which, with his other recommendations, gained him
universal popularity with the women; and his success and
familiarities with the fair sex were not likely to escape the
vigilance of spies anxious to collect damaging proofs. What
inflamed to the utmost the animosities of the two parties was the
success of Canon Mignon in obtaining the coveted position of
confessor to the convent of Ursulines in Loudun, to the exclusion
of Grandier, himself an applicant. This convent was destined to
assume a prominent part in the fate of the cure of the town. The
younger nuns, it seems, to enliven the dull monotony of monastic
life, adopted a plan of amusing their leisure by frightening the
older ones in making the most of their knowledge of secret
passages in the building, playing off ghost-tricks, and raising
unearthly noises. When the newly appointed confessor was informed
of the state of matters he at once perceived the possibility,
and formed the design, of turning it to account. The offending
nuns were promised forgiveness if they would continue their
ghostly amusement, and also affect demoniacal possession; a fraud
in which they were more readily induced to participate by an
assurance that it might be the humble means of converting the
heretics--Protestants being unusually numerous in that part of
the country.

As soon as they were sufficiently prepared to assume their parts,
the magistrates were summoned to witness the phenomena of
possession and exorcism. On the first occasion the Superior of
the conve