June 2

The Devils of Loudun & the Trial of Urbain Grandier

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It was unmistakable. Amid a series of mysterious sigils, the pact was written in backwards Latin, signed in blood, and countersigned by Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Leviathan, Elimi, and Astaroth—each in their own infernal hand.

On June 2, 1630, the trial of Urbain Grandier—priest, reputed womanizer, and (apparently) the most dangerous man in the small French town of Loudun—began on charges of adultery and moral degeneracy. Unbelievably, he survived it, and was acquitted by the Archbishop of Bordeaux himself. That out of the way, Grandier returned to his parish in characteristically high spirits—but the elation wasn’t destined last; within four short years, the charges—now upgraded significantly—were brought against him again. Seventeen Ursuline nuns had become sick, displaying convulsions believed to be demonic in origin; it didn’t help matters that six of the nuns testified against Grandier while claimed to have been possessed at that very moment, the demons themselves fingering the priest as the culprit. And Cardinal Richelieu—the most powerful man in France, whom Grandier had once insulted at a dinner party—watched with considerable interest…

A Priest With Powerful Enemies

Urbain Grandier arrived in Loudun around 1617 as a young Jesuit-educated priest of intellectual gifts and clandestine vices in equal measure. He was handsome, highly educated, eloquent at the pulpit—and, unfortunately for him, incapable of the discretion that seventeenth-century French ecclesiastical life required. He unabashedly became lovers with numerous women within his parish—including, by most accounts, the daughter of the king’s local attorney (whom he may have secretly married—historians have never discovered the truth). With such a track record, where else to go than in politics? And yet, the young and dashing priest, who may have considered himself immune to scandal, then made one of the most fatal of mistakes: insulting the future Cardinal Richelieu.

As is the case with almost any cog in the rumor mill, history doesn’t quite remember what the nature of the offence was. Some reported a satirical pamphlet, others recalled a verbal insult during a public gathering; most logically, however, is the possibility of Grandier calling Richelieu to task regarding his strategy to demolish the walls of provincial towns like (and including) Loudun—a move which would have centralized the ambitious cardinal’s political power. But whatever the nature of the insult, Richelieu wasn’t a man known for his forgiving nature—despite what Jesus said about turning the other cheek. When, in 1630, word reached Richelieu about the handsome Loudun priest who behaved more like a cad—and was shockingly acquitted—the Cardinal sat back and waited…

The Possessions

The Ursuline convent of Loudun was a strict home to its community of young nuns. In September 1632, several of them reported seeing the ghost of their recently deceased confessor, Father Moussaut, walking the corridors, and the rumors quickly flew. Soon, the very behavior among the nuns became disturbing; some displayed convulsions, others contorted into bizarre bodily poses (the nuns bent backwards, walked on their hands, thrust out blackened tongues, and screamed in voices they claimed were not their own); while others began using obscene language—so extreme that one contemporary observer noted it “would have astonished the inmates of the lowest brothel in the country.”

An exorcist was dispatched by the Church to investigate the bizarre events. During one exorcism, the possessing demons gave their names—Asmodeus, the demon of lust; Zabulon; and Isacaaron among them. Then they named the man responsible for their presence: Urbain Grandier. According to the demons, Grandier had made a pact with Satan, who, in turn, sent his demonic minions into the convent to deliberately corrupt the brides of Christ.

Summoned to answer to the charges, Grandier was characteristically unintimidated. Almost like a defendant representing himself, the young priest argued with his accusers, pointing out the procedural irregularities in the exorcisms. He noted that the demons’ testimony was inherently unreliable, being, of course, demonic and couldn’t be sworn in. After all, were they expected to put their right claws on the Bible? Grandier was acquitted again. His accusers were furious, to say the least and, at this point, the political machinery that had always been waiting in the background began to grind into motion. Waiting in the wings was Cardinal Richelieu’s representative, Baron de Laubardemont. Initially, he had been sent to Loudun by Richelieu to oversee the demolition of the town walls (which Grandier had vocally opposed). He found instead a convent full of possessed nuns and a town divided between Grandier’s supporters and his enemies.

De Laubardemont sent a full report to Richelieu back in Paris and, in turn, the Cardinal reported those findings to the king. Despite two acquittals, Grandier was arrested again, his books and personal papers seized. And the exorcisms—which had previously been relatively private affairs—became public theater, attended by crowds of hundreds and eventually thousands, who came from across France to watch the demons testify.

The Trial

The evidence produced against Grandier at his formal trial—building on the preliminary proceedings begun on June 2, 1630—was of a kind that would have been recognized by any student of occult philosophy. The centerpiece was the diabolical pact: a document allegedly found among Grandier’s papers, written backwards in Latin, bearing what were presented as the authentic signatures of the demons party to the agreement—Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Leviathan, Elimi, Astaroth—each name accompanied by a sigil in a hand that experts testified was not Grandier’s. To cap it off, the document was signed in blood, its words articulating an agreement between the priest and his hellish cohorts, sending the demons into the Ursuline convent in exchange for undisclosed diabolical favors. (The pact still exists, and is safely held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.)

The public exorcisms became a media circus: as priests commanded the demons in the nuns’ bodies to answer questions, the demons—speaking through the contorted, shrieking women—provided testimony against Grandier, all while the crowd applauded and purchased souvenirs (yes, you read that correctly). Cardinal Richelieu did not attend but, rather, sent his niece, the Duchess d’Aiguillon to report back the proceedings. Grandier was tortured to extract a confession and the names of accomplices, yet he withstood the brutality and refused to provide either.

On August 18, 1634, Grandierwas condemned to be burned alive in the public square, along with all the magical manuscripts found in his possession. He was led to the pyre in a chemise soaked in sulfur and set aflame. He died maintaining his innocence with a composure that several witnesses found more disturbing than a confession would have been.

The Loudun Legacy

Aldous Huxley, whose 1952 historical novel The Devils of Loudun remains the preeminent literary treatment of the horrific scandal, noted a detail that, perhaps, sheds some light on a possible conspiracy against Grandier. Of all the witchcraft trials in seventeenth-century France—and there were many—the Loudun case was the only one in which Cardinal Richelieu was known to have taken a personal interest. He had appointed Laubardemont as his personal commissioner with extraordinary powers, and had ensured that Grandier’s second acquittal was overturned.

Huxley’s conclusion—which the historical evidence supports—was that the Loudun possessions were partly genuine mass psychogenic illness (the nuns’ symptoms bear all the hallmarks of what we would today call “conversion disorder,” spreading through a cloistered community under intense psychological and sexual repression) and partly a politically-motivated conspiracy: Grandier had opposed Richelieu’s centralization policies and, in doing so, had made an enemy of the most powerful man in France. The demonic apparatus—the pacts, the possessions, the exorcisms, the trial—was merely Richelieu’s weapon of choice.

(Strangely, the possessions didn’t end with Grandier’s death, and the exorcisms continued for three more years. Mother Jeanne des Anges—convinced of her own sanctity by the Jesuit Father Jean-Joseph Surin, who had himself been consumed by the case to the point of his own psychological collapse—exhibited the stigmata and received visions of the Virgin Mary, and toured all of France to the delight of welcoming fanfare. The Duchess d’Aiguillon eventually reported the this to her uncle and, having achieved his purpose with Grandier’s demise, Richelieu cut off the performers’ salaries and the convent returned to peace.)

Ken Russell’s 1971 film The Devils—starring Oliver Reed as Grandier and Vanessa Redgrave as Jeanne des Anges—remains one of the most viscerally disturbing adaptations of the story. Following centuries of historic reinterpretation, director Russell understood that the Loudun case was not primarily a story about demonic possession, but about the uses religion as an instrument of political violence: the way that a system of genuine theological belief could be weaponized by those with no belief whatsoever. The film was banned in several countries and remains partially censored in the UK to this day—yet it is essential viewing for anyone interested in the political history of the occult.

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