Welcome to part two of The Possession Diaries. You can find part one here
The Aix-en-Provence possessions were a series of alleged demonic possessions amongst the Ursuline (the Order or Company of Saint Ursula) nuns of Aix-en-Provence, in South France in the year 1611.
Father Louis Gaufridi was blamed and accused of causing the possessions by making a deal with the devil.
His execution was on April 30th, 1611.
Bareheaded and barefoot, a rope around his neck, Gaufridi officially asked God to pardon him and was given over to torturers. He survived torture with the strappado and with squassation, then was escorted by archers while dragged through the streets of Aix for five hours. The priest was granted the mercy of strangulation before his body was burned to ashes.
The strappado (or corda, reverse hanging, or Palestinian hanging) was a form of torture where the hands were tied behind the back and the victim was dangled by a rope fastened to the wrists, usually causing dislocated shoulders. Weights were sometimes added to the body to intensify the effect and this kind of torture wouldn’t last longer than an hour without rest, otherwise it could cause death.
Squassation was a kind of strappado where the arms were bound behind and the feet had heavy weights attached to them, then the victim was jerked up and down on the end of a rope passed under the arms.
After the nuns’ possessions, further possessions spread to other convents and there was a witch burning in 1611.
The early 17th century had a rise in accusations of witchcraft during the years of the witch-hunts. Before the 1600s, the testimony of a person thought to be possessed wasn’t believed, as anything they said could be something the “Father of Lies” (i.e. The Devil) had told them to say.
The possessions started with an alleged relationship between Madeleine de Demandolx de la Palud, a 17 year old French aristocrat, and Father Louis Gaufridi, the parish priest. In 1607, Demandolx had to go to the Ursuline convent at Marseille, where she confessed to the mother superior that she’d “been intimate” with Father Gaufridi.
The mother superior sent her to Aix, so that Demandolx would be at a distance from Gaufridi.
In the summer of 1609, Demandolx began to have fits, shaking, and other signs of what was thought to be demonic possession. The condition was contagious, as other nuns began to show symptoms.
The exorcisms they went through were unsuccessful.
Demandolx and an older “possessed” nun named Louise Capeau were sent to Sébastien Michaëlis, the prior of the Dominican community of Saint-Maxim and a French inquisitor. Father Doncieux, another Dominican priest, helped him.
In late 1610, the two women underwent another exorcism at Sainte-Baume in a holy cave where it was rumoured that Mary Magdalen once dwelt. During the exorcism, Capeau spoke in a deep, bass voice and Demandolx screamed obscenities. During one of the sessions, Gaufridi was claimed to have seduced Demandolx, caused her to be possessed, and taken her to witches’ sabbats.
At one point, when a friar placed a holy relic on her, Capeau said, “Gaufridi is no magician at all, and therefore cannot be arrested.” She then recovered and stated that the Capuchins had failed to make the Devil swear to tell the truth.
Capeau claimed to be in the control of a demon called “Verrine”. When found to be producing contradictory statements, Capeau said, “The Devil is the Father of Lies”.
The interrogation attracted many onlookers, and Capeau soon outlasted Michaëlis’s preaching. Michaëlis would have put an end to it if it was only Capeau. Because of Capeau’s lack of credibility, Gaufridi wouldn’t have been convicted on just her testimony, but Demandolx was afraid of Capeau and confirmed everything the older woman said.
During his trial, Father Gaufridi vehemently denied the confession that the inquisitors extracted from him using torture. However, according to the court, the signed confession and alleged bargain with the Devil were enough evidence to sentence the priest to death. After the sentence was passed, the inquisitors continued demanding the names of Gaufridi’s accomplices.
Immediately after Gaufridi’s execution, Demandolx was apparently free of possession. Sister Louise Capeau, on the other hand, remained possessed until she died and accused a blind girl, who was then executed in July 1611.
Both the nuns were banished from the convent, but Madeleine remained under the Inquisition’s watchful gaze. She was charged with witchcraft in 1642, then again in 1652.
During her second trial, Madeleine was once more found to have “the Devil’s mark” and was fined then imprisoned for ten years, during which her family abandoned her.
At a great age, she was released into the custody of a relative in Chateauvieux and died in 1670, aged eighty.
A lot of the children and teenagers cursed with the ability to unwillingly summon Ghosts – in the next volume of The Nighthunter series – are abandoned by their families in a similar way to how Madeleine’s relatives abandoned her, sent into exile or even sold to use as bait…
Nightwalks 