them in his own misfortunes. This was Urbain Grandier.

Suddenly the procession stopped, at a sign from the man who walked apart,
and who seemed to command its progress. He was tall, thin, sallow; he
wore a long black robe, with a cap of the same material and color; he had
the face of a Don Basilio, with the eye of Nero. He motioned the guards
to surround him more closely, when he saw with affright the dark group we
have mentioned, and the strong-limbed and resolute peasants who seemed in
attendance upon them. Then, advancing somewhat before the Canons and
Capuchins who were with him, he pronounced, in a shrill voice, this
singular decree:

"We, Sieur de Laubardemont, referendary, being delegated and
invested with discretionary power in the matter of the trial of the
magician Urbain Grandier, upon the various articles of accusation
brought against him, assisted by the reverend Fathers Mignon, canon,
Barre, cure of St. Jacques at Chinon, Father Lactantius, and all the
other judges appointed to try the said magician, have decreed as
follows:

"Primo: the factitious assembly of proprietors, noble citizens of
this town and its environs, is dissolved, as tending to popular
sedition; its proceedings are declared null, and its letter to the
King, against us, the judges, which has been intercepted, shall be
publicly burned in the marketplace as calumniating the good
Ursulines and the reverend fathers and judges.

"Secundo: it is forbidden to say, publicly or in private, that the
said nuns are not possessed by the Evil Spirit, or to doubt of the
power of the exorcists, under pain of a fine of twenty thousand