The Signs of Being Possessed, Magdelaine Bavent, and the Louviers Convent (The Possession Diaries Part V)

Magdelaine (or Madeleine) Bavent, born in 1607 in Rouen, was an orphan.

Aged 12, she became apprenticed to a linenworker, who depended on the custom of the Church.

According to a historian (Jules Michelet), the confessor of the establishment likely drugged his apprentices with a herb akin to atropa belladonna and made them believe he had taken them to a witches’ Sabbat, while he was in fact raping four of them, including Madeleine, who was then only fourteen.

At sixteen, Madeleine went to live in a Hospitaller convent in the woods outside Louviers. Its elderly supervisor, Father David, was an “Adamite” or nudist.

Madeleine declined to take part in such a way of living, thereby incurring her superiors’ displeasure. She lived secluded from the rest of that community, fulfilling the role of tourière (the nun who attends the ‘turning-box’ of a convent, which is used to communicate with the outside world).

Father David died and was succeeded as curé by Mathurin Picard, who promoted Madeleine to sacristan, stalked her with amorous intention, gave her magic potions, and made her pregnant.

Madeleine Bavent was 18 years old in 1625 and was the first possession victim in the Louviers convent.

She claimed the then-deceased Picard and Father Thomas Boulle (the vicar of Louviers) had bewitched her and confessed to the authorities that the two men had hoodwinked her and taken her to a witches’ sabbat. During that ordeal, she said she was forced to marry the Devil, (whom she named “Dagon”), and that she had committed sexual acts with him on top of an altar while two men were crucified and disembowelled.

Her confession prompted an investigation, which discovered that other nuns had reported being brought to secret sabbats by Picard and Boulle, where intercourse with demons, specifically Dagon, occurred. Their confessions were accompanied by what investigators believed to be classic signs of demonic possession at the time: contortions, unnatural bodily movements, speaking in tongues (glossolalia), obscene language, and blasphemy^.

The body of Sister Barbara of St. Michael was also said to be possessed by a demon named Ancitif.

The Exorcisms

Like with the Loudun possessions ten years before, the exorcisms at Louviers were a spectacle.

Almost everyone at the exorcisms was interrogated by inquisitors, and the whole town started showing signs of mass hysteria as the cries of the nuns being exorcised echoed with the screaming of Father Boulle, who was undergoing torture simultaneously.

Father Bosroger recorded the whole thing, and published those writings in 1652. In his account, the nuns confessed further evidence against Picard and Boulle. As well as tempting them into indecent behaviour, Satan (perhaps in the form of Picard and Father Boulle) also tried making the nuns heretics.

Appearing to the nuns in the guise of “a beautiful angel,” the Devil engaged them in theological discussions so clever that they started to doubt the teachings of the Bible. When told that what he was saying contradicted scripture, Satan claimed he was a messenger from heaven sent to reveal heinous mistakes in what was otherwise accepted dogma.

Signs of demonic possession continued throughout the exorcisms. One bystander wrote that a nun:

“ran with movements so abrupt that it was difficult to stop her. One of the clerics present, having caught her by the arm, was surprised to find that it did not prevent the rest of her body from turning over and over as if the arm were fixed to the shoulder merely by a spring.”

Authorities catalogued the symptoms of demonic possession after the things that happened in Louviers. The treatise they wrote included 14 signs of true demonic possession:

1. To think oneself possessed.
2. To lead a wicked life.
3. To live outside the rules of society.
4. To be persistently ill, falling into heavy sleep and vomiting unusual objects (either such natural objects as toads, serpents, maggots, iron, stones, and so forth; or such artificial objects as nails, pins, etc.).
5. To utter obscenities and blasphemies.
6. To be troubled with spirits (“an absolute and inner possession and residence in the body of the person”).
7. To show a frightening and horrible countenance.
8. To be tired of living.
9. To be uncontrollable and violent.
10. To make sounds and movements like an animal.
11. To deny knowledge of fits after the paroxysm has ended.
12. To show fear of sacred relics and sacraments.
13. To curse violently at any prayer.
14. To exhibit acts of lewd exposure or abnormal strength.

Aftermath

As the panic spread, it was inevitable that a trial would take place and Father Boulle would be sentenced to death.

However, during the exorcisms, the parliament at Rouen also decided that Madeleine Bavent should go to prison for life in the church’s dungeon, as well as deciding that Father Thomas Boulle would be burned to death, and Mathurin Picard’s body would be exhumed and burned.