NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 9 



Through their efforts Cardinal Kichelieu, who appears to have 

 had an old grudge against Grandier, sent a representative, Lau- 

 bardemont, to make another investigation. Most frightful scenes 

 were now enacted ; the whole convent resounded more loudly 

 than ever with shrieks, groans, howling, and cursing, until finally 

 Grandier, though even in the agony of torture he refused to con- 

 fess the crimes that his enemies suggested, was hanged and 

 burned. 



From this center the epidemic spread ; multitudes of women 

 and men were affected by it in various convents. Several of the 

 great cities of the south and west of France came under the same 

 influence ; the " possession " went on for several years longer, and 

 then gradually died out, though scattered cases have occurred 

 from that day to this.* 



A few years later we have an even more striking example 

 among the French Protestants. The Huguenots, who had taken 

 refuge in the mountains of the Cevennes to escape persecution, 

 being pressed more and more by the cruelties of Louis XIV, 

 began to show signs of a high degree of religious exaltation. 

 Assembled for worship in wild and desert places, an epidemic 

 broke out, ascribed by them to the Almighty, but by their oppo- 

 nents to Satan. Men, women, and children preached and prophe- 

 sied. Large assemblies were seized with trembling. Some under- 

 went the most terrible tortures without showing any signs of 

 suffering. Marshal de Villiers, who was sent against them, de- 

 clared that he saw a town in which all the women and girls, with- 

 out exception, were possessed of the devil, and ran leaping and 

 screaming through the streets. 



Cases like this, inexplicable to the science of the time, gave 

 renewed strength to the theological view.f 



Toward the end of the same century similar manifestations 

 began to appear on a large scale in America. 



The life of the early colonists in New England was such as to 

 give rapid growth to the germs of the doctrine of possession 

 brought from the mother-country. Surrounded by the dark pine 

 forests ; having as their neighbors Indians, who were more than 

 suspected of being children of Satan; harassed by wild beasts 

 apparently sent by the powers of evil to torment the elect ; with 

 no varied literature to while away the long winter evenings ; 

 with few amusements save neighborhood quarrels ; dwelling 

 intently on every text of Scripture which supported their gloomy 



* Among the many statements of Grandier's case, one of the best in English may be 

 found inTrollope's "Sketches from French History" (London, 1878). See also Bazin, 

 " Louis XIII." 



f See Bersot, " Mesmer et le Magn&isme animal " (third edition, Paris, 1864, pp. 95 

 et seq.). 



