Word: loudun
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...DEVILS OF LOUDUN (340 pp.)-Aldous Huxley-Harper...
...course of the year 1631, in the little French town of Loudun, an entire convent of Ursuline nuns went insane, or rather, to use the analytical term of that day, they were possessed by devils. And since the chiefest of these was a demon of desire for the parish priest-a dashing esthete adored by the women of the town and detested by their husbands-it was indisputably evident to the man's enemies that he was a wizard, and that something had to be done about...
...Devils of Loudun, Aldous Huxley with skill and scholarship resurrects one of the forgotten scandals of Christendom. The result is a brilliantly quarrelsome tract that is also one of the most fascinating historical narratives of the year...
...devil is active in Châtellerault, in Chinon and in Domfront, but above all he is active in Loudun...
Evidence in the Graveyard. Last May, while widowed Marie leaned and sobbed on the arm of a nun at the graveside, and all of Loudun watched, Léon Besnard's body was disinterred, turned over to a laboratory in Marseille. Within a few days Loudun heard the shocking news. Léon had died of a massive dose of arsenic. In the Palais de Justice in Poitiers, a grim little juge d'instruction asked Marie Besnard how the poison got into her husband. She had no idea; but at least one neighbor seemed to remember that Marie...