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method of the time, been made nuns. It is not difficult to understand that such an imprisonment of a multitude of women of different ages would produce some woeful effects. Any reader of Manzoni's Promessi Sposi, with its wonderful portrayal of the feelings and doings of a noble lady kept in a convent against her will, may have some idea of the rage and despair which must have inspired such assemblages in which pride, pauperism, and the attempted suppression of the instincts of humanity wrought a fearful work. What this work was may be seen throughout the Middle Ages; but it is especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that we find it frequently taking shape in outbursts of diabolic possession.(393) (393) On monasteries as centres of "possession" and hysterical epidemics, see Figuier, Le Merveilleux, p. 40 and following; also Calmeil, Langin, Kirchhoff, Maudsley, and others. On similar results from excitement at Protestant meetings in Scotland and camp meetings in England and America, see Hecker's Essay, concluding chapters. In this case at Loudun, the usual evidences of Satanic influence appeared. One after another of the inmates fell into convulsions: some showed physical strength apparently supernatural; some a keenness of perception quite as surprising; many howled forth blasphemies and obscenities. Near the convent dwelt a priest--Urbain Grandier--noted for his brilliancy as a writer and preacher, but careless in his way of living. Several of the nuns had evidently conceived a passion for him, and in their wild rage and despair dwelt upon his name. In the same city, too, were sundry ecclesiastics and laymen with whom Grandier had fallen into petty neighbourhood quarrels, and some of these men held the main