r impartiality been
shown by calling in other than Carmelite monks to be present at the
exorcism, that order having a private quarrel with Grandier? It must
be admitted that this way of looking at the case was not wanting in
shrewdness.

On the following day, October 12th, the bailiff and the civil
lieutenant, having heard that exorcisms had been again tried without
their having been informed beforehand, requested a certain Canon
Rousseau to accompany them, and set out with him and their clerk for the
convent. On arriving, they asked for Mignon, and on his appearance they
told him that this matter of exorcism was of such importance that no
further steps were to be taken in it without the authorities being
present, and that in future they were to be given timely notice of every
attempt to get rid of the evil spirits. They added that this was all the
more necessary as Mignon's position as director of the sisterhood and
his well-known hate for Grandier would draw suspicions on him unworthy
of his cloth, suspicions which he ought to be the first to wish to see
dissipated, and that quickly; and that, therefore, the work which he had
so piously begun would be completed by exorcists appointed by the court.

Mignon replied that, though he had not the slightest objection to the
magistrates being present at all the exorcisms, yet he could not promise
that the spirits would reply to anyone except himself and Barre. Just
at that moment Barre came on the scene, paler and more gloomy than
ever, and speaking with the air of a man whose word no one could
help believing, he announced that before their arrival some most
extraordinary things had taken place. The magistrates asked what things,
and Barre replied that he had learned from the mother superior that she
was possessed, not by one, but by seven devils, of whom Ashtaroth was
the chief; that Grandier had entrusted his pact with the devil, under
the symbol of a bunch of roses, to a certain Jean Pivart, to give to a
girl who had introduced it into the convent garden by throwing it over
the wall; that this took place in the night between Saturday and Sunday
"hora secunda nocturna" (two hours after midnight); that those were
the very words the superior had used, but that while she readily named
Pivart, she absolutely refused to give the name of the girl; that
on asking what Pivart was; she had replied, "Pauper magus" (a poor
magician); that he then had pressed her as to the word magus,