Loudun Possessions - Burning at Loudun

Burning At Loudun

Father Grandier was promised that he could have the chance to speak before he was executed, making a last statement, and that he would be hanged before the burning, an act of mercy. Instead, the friars who carried Grandier's crippled body to the stake had drenched him with large quantities of holy water so that his last words could not be heard, and the garotte used for hanging had no slip knot; it couldn't tighten. Grandier was left to burn alive.

Witnesses to the execution reported that a large fly buzzed around Grandier's head, symbolizing that Beelzebub, lord of the flies, had come to take Grandier's soul to hell.

Before Grandier perished, he did have the last word. Struggling, Grandier declared that Father Lactance, present, would die in 30 days. To the day, Lactance did die, reportedly crying out, "Grandier, I was not responsible for your death." Within the next five years, both Father Tranquille and Dr. Mannouri, the inquisitor, died in delirium. Father Surin became haunted by the exorcisms, eventually unable to eat, dress himself, walk, read, or write. He could not pray, instead seeing visions of demons and black wings. He tried to kill himself in 1645 and only recovered after the new head of the Jesuit College, Father Bastide, cared for Surin in 1648. Surin would not walk again until 1657, 8 years before he died.

The possessions failed to stop after Father Grandier's execution. Public exorcisms would follow. These displays continued until 1637, when the Duchess d'Aiguillon, niece to Cardinal Richelieu, reported the fraud to her uncle. Having achieved his original goal, Richelieu terminated the investigations into the events at Loudun.

Some claim that it was actually Jeanne des Anges who had the public exorcisms stopped. Jeanne allegedly had a vision that she would be freed from the Devil if she made a pilgrimage to the tomb of St François of Assise. She went to Annecy, then visited Richelieu and King Louis XIII in 1638. The demons were gone.

Jeanne des Anges remained convinced of her saintliness until she died in 1665.