Urbain Grandier
Urbain Grandier was the priest of the Church of Sainte Croix, in Loudun, Western France. A brilliant speaker, he was popular with his congregation. However, his words were not much admired by more powerful people. For Grandier managed to alienate the King of France, Louis XIII and his Chief Minister, Cardinal Richelieu.
He made an enemy of the King by supporting the regional governor’s authority in Louden. Louis, however, wanted all regional power centralized in Paris. By helping the governor, Grandier was setting himself against the King. However, his antagonism of Richelieu was blatant, as he attacked the cardinal publicly. It was an insult Richelieu never forgot.
Grandier had one major weakness that was open to exploitation: his love of the ladies. He treated his vow of celibacy lightly, indulged in various sexual liaisons. He even wrote a book attacking the imposition of clerical celibacy. His lascivious reputation was to prove his undoing.
In 1632, Grandier was asked to become the spiritual director of the local Ursuline convent. He refused. Shortly afterward, the nuns began to go into hysterical convulsions. They accused Grandier of bewitching them and sending a demon to commit indecent acts with them. Various explanations for the so-called possession of the nuns of Loudun have been suggested. Some believe it was mass hysteria, provoked by the Mother Superior who lusted after Grandier. Others, however, think the whole affair was set up by Richelieu to discredit the priest. If so, it worked.
Grandier was arrested, tried and acquitted by an ecclesiastical court. However, Richelieu, still smarting from Grandier’s attacks ordered a retrial. He sent his envoy, Jean de Laubardemont to see matters to a satisfactory conclusion. Although the nuns did not reappear to repeat their initial accusations, Grandier was tortured to extract a confession. When this was not forthcoming, a document appeared, a supposed ‘pact’ between Grandier and several demons:
“We, the influential Lucifer, the young Satan, Beelzebub, Leviathan, Elimi, and Astaroth, together with others, have today accepted the covenant pact of Urbain Grandier, who is ours,” began the document, ” And him do we promise the love of women, the flower of virgins, the respect of monarchs, honors, lusts, and powers.”
This ‘pact’ was enough to convict. However, the court still needed to break Grandier and obtain a confession. So the doomed priest was put to ‘The Extraordinary Question”, a form of torture only used on the condemned. The bones in his lower legs were crushed and shattered, so he was unable to walk, but still, he did not break. On August 18, 1634, Grandier was burnt alive publicly in Loudun.