the violence of the Calvinistic party, ought not to be
buried in silence. King Charles IX., on making his entry into Laon
some time after, desired to be informed about it by the dean of the
cathedral, who had been an ocular witness of the affair. His majesty
commanded him to give publicity to the story, and it was then printed,
first in French, then in Latin, Spanish, Italian, and German, with the
approbation of the Sorbonne, supported by the rescripts of Pope Pius
V. and Gregory XIII. his successor. And they made after that a pretty
exact abridgment of it, by order of the Bishop of Laon, printed under
the title of _Le Triomphe du S. Sacrament sur le Diable_.

These are facts which have all the authenticity that can be desired,
and such as a man of honor cannot with any good-breeding affect to
doubt, since he could not after that consider any facts as certain
without being in shameful contradiction with himself.[259]

Footnotes:

[255] Jean de Lorres, sur l'an 1599. Thuan. Hist. l. xii.

[256] Charles IX. died in 1574.

[257] This story is taken from a book entitled "Examen et Discussion
Critique de l'Histoire des Diables de Loudun, &c., par M. de la
Menardaye." A Paris, chez de Bure l'Aine, 1749.

[258] Tresor et entiere Histoire de la Victime du Corps de Dieu,
presentee au Pape, au Roi, au Chancelier de France, au Premier
President. A Paris, 4to. chez Chesnau. 1578.

[259] This account is one of the many in which the theory of
possession was made use of to impugn the Protestant faith. The
simplicity and credulity of Calmet are very remarkable.--EDITOR.

CHAPTER XXVI.

CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT.

There was in Lorraine, about the year 1620, a woman, possessed (by the
devil), who made a great noise in the country, but whose case is much
less known among foreigners. I mean Mademoiselle Elizabeth de
Ranfaing, the story of whose possession was written and printed at
Nancy, in 1622, by M. Pichard, a doctor of medicine, and physician in
ordinary to their highnesses of Lorraine. Mademoiselle de Ranfaing was
a very virtuous person, through whose agency God established a kind of
order of nuns _of the Refuge_, the principal object of which is to
withdraw from profligacy the girls or women who have fallen into
libertinism. M. Pichard's work was approved by doctors of theology,
and authorized by M. de Porcelets, Bishop of Toul, and in an assembly
of learned men whom he sent for to examine the case, and