n having authority over demons throughout Europe, had
bewitched them. The questions and answers were taken down, by
order of the judges, by reporters, who, while the priests were
exorcising, committed the results to writing, published afterwards
by one of them, Michaelis, in 1613. Among the interesting facts
acquired through these spirit-media, the inquisitors learned that
Antichrist was already come; that printing, and the invention of
it, were alike accursed, and similar information. Madeleine,
tortured and imprisoned in the most loathsome dungeon, was reduced
to such a condition of extreme horror and dread, that from this
time she was the mere instrument of her atrocious judges. Having
been intimate with the wizard, she could inform them of the
position of the 'secret marks' on his person: these were
ascertained in the usual way by pricking with needles. Gauffridi,
by various torture, was induced to make the required confession,
and was burned alive at Aix, April 30, 1611.

[124] M. Maury, in a philosophical and learned work (_La
Magie et l'Astrologie dans l'Antiquite et au Moyen Age_),
has scientifically explored and exposed the mysteries of
these and the like ecstatic phenomena, of such frequent
occurrence in Protestant as well as in Catholic countries;
in the orphan-houses of Amsterdam and Horn, as well as in
the convents of France and Italy in the 17th century. And
the Protestant revivalists of the present age have in great
measure reproduced these curious results of religious
excitement.

Demoniacal possession was a mania in France in the seventeenth
century. The story of Madeleine Bavent, as reported, reveals the
utmost licentiousness and fiendish cruelty.[125] Gibbon justly
observes that ancient Rome supported with the greatest difficulty
the institution of _six_ vestals, notwithstanding the certain fate
of a living grave for those who could not preserve their
chastity; and Christian Rome was filled with many thousands of
both sexes bound by vows to perpetual virginity. Madeleine was
seduced by her Franciscan confessor when only fourteen; and she
entered a convent lately founded at Louviers. In this building,
surrounded by a wood, and situated in a suitable spot, some
strange practices were carried on. At the instigation of their
director, a priest called David, the nuns, it is reported, were
seized with an irresistible desire of imitating the primitive
Adamite simplicity: the novices