HYSTERIA AND DEMON ISM. 161 



fit is over. The attack is marked by a complete absence of mind. 

 The intellectual life is entirely suspended, but is resumed at the end of 

 the fit, just as if nothing had taken place. If a remark has been be- 

 gun and is interrupted, it is resumed on recovery at the point where it 

 was interrupted. 



We call these attacks indifferently demoniac fits or fits of hystero- 

 epilepsy, because it was believed for a long time that demons were 

 the real living agents that provoked the terrible morbid phenomena. 

 The symptoms are the same, and it is only necessary to read the de- 

 scription of the demoniac attacks of the past to recognize their iden- 

 tity in all points with the hystero-epileptic fits of the present. Esprit 

 de Bosrager, a Capuchin father, who was charged with the exorcising 

 of the nuns of Louviers,* tells pertinently to this point : " On the day 

 of Pentecost (1644), the same Dagon (this was the name of the devil 

 that possessed Sister Marie du Saint Esprit) kept up for four good 

 hours the greatest rebellion that could be imagined to prevent the 

 girl from communicating, and during all this time he made her suffer 

 extraordinary convulsions, threw her to the ground several times, 

 forced her to make a hundred leaps, a hundred courses round the 

 church, made her push at people, strike them, and throw them down 

 .... Oh, what astonishing motions ! what wonderful contortions ! 

 what furious rolling, sometimes into a ball, sometimes into horrible 

 shapes ! What numerous and rude convulsions in such delicate crea- 

 tures, and with so frequent repetition and reenforcement ! I should 

 have to be persuaded very much, I assure you, before I would believe 

 that sensible and judicious men would make all those convulsions 

 pass for disease and all those wonderful movements and rollings for 

 juggler's tricks. But what ought to convince every human mind as 

 by a demonstration, what admits of no reply, and what all the famous 

 doctors have acknowledged, is this : that it is quite impossible that con- 

 vulsions, and such terrible ones, should come naturally by disease, 

 should last so long, should return so frequently, should not leave lassi- 

 tude after they had passed, and, finally, that they should not destroy 

 the subject." 



With all respect to the brave Capuchin, these spells of deraonoma- 

 nia are a veritable disease. We are able to class the symptoms, dis- 

 tinguish the phases, the beginning, the middle, and the end, and we 

 can affirm that the "wonderful rollings" of Sister Marie de Louviers 

 belong to the second period of the hystero-epileptic fit. 



The strange acrobatic attitudes which characterized the preceding 

 phase are not observed in the third period. The limbs are no longer 



* " La Piete Affligee " ; or, "An Historical and Theological Discourse on the Possession 

 of the Nuns called of St. Elizabeth at Louviers, by Esprit de Bosrager, Capuchin, Rouen, 

 1752," pp. 257. This is the work, otherwise very curious, which Michelet calls an immortal 

 book in the annals of human folly. The author's style may be judged from the quotation. . 



TOL. XVII. 11 



