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Aldous Huxley?s The Devils of Loudun was an account of a 17th-century case of demonic possession in an Ursuline Convent in Loudun, France. Ken Russell?s film The Devils was a rather more salacious re-telling.
In 1617 Urbain Grandier became priest of the church of St Pierre du Marche and canon of la Collégiale de Sainte-Croix in Loudun. Seventeen years later he was found guilty of sorcery for having made a pact with the devil, and responsible for the demonic possession of the nuns in the town?s Ursuline Convent. He was tortured then burnt at the stake in the market place. Witnesses claimed to have seen demons escaping from the flames. How could a man of God find himself accused of maleficium? Wayne Perkins relates one of the strangest and most infamous cases of witchcraft in 17th-century France and early modern Europe.

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