Further Reading For The Devils of Loudun
The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley
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The Devils of Loudun is the title of a book by Aldous Huxley which details a particularly salacious period in France where the city of Loudun was taken by religious hysteria. The nuns of the local convent, led by a total pain in the ass hell-child, Sister Jeanne, began exhibiting symptoms of mass hysteria, alleging that they were being visited and seduced by demons and at the center of the accusations was the local celebrity priest, Father Urbain Grandier, a sexy dude that had his way with all the local ladies.
The nuns, having descended into a frenzy of blasphemous ecstasy, were subjected to extremely theatrical and extremely public scenes of exorcism as local church executives fell on the town and used the hysteria to cover a political coup to unseat the extremely popular Grandier. Grandier, had made the mistake of “dipping into” the family of local nobility and impregnated the daughter of a local nobleman.
Grandier, unable to sway the assembly’s opinion that he was, in fact and demonic wizard that enslaved the good and righteous women of the convent, was put to a trial and then tortured for a confession before being tied to a pyre in the middle of town and set fire to. He never confessed. Though, never officially compiled as part of the European Witch Hunt hysteria, this case bears most of the common symptoms.
Episodes : 360 & 361
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