Download or read book An Historical and Critical Dictionary Volume 3 written by Pierre Bayle and published by Theclassics.Us. This book was released on 2013-09 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1826 edition. Excerpt: ... and which owned, that it was he himself, and that he was returned to impart very extraordinary things. The spectre said, it would appear to her the same hour the night following; it failed not to appear, and received the same answer as at first, that she could not treat with it without the privity of her superior. Hereupon this spectre took Grandier's perfect shape. " He talked to this nun of love affairs, solicited her with addresses equally insolent and lascivious--she struggles, no body assists her; she torments herself, no body comforts her; she calls, nobody answers; she cries out, no body comes; she trembles, she perspires, she faints, she invokes the holy name of Jesus; and at last the spectre disappeared." I own, with M. Menage, that this is proper enough to clear Urban Grandier as to magic; but not to justify him in other respects. Could not he, without being obliged to the devil Cedon for opening the door gain the door keeper, and get into this nun's chamber, pretending to be a ghost, and disguising himself with a mask resembling their late ghostly father? M. Menage says, that no man of sense will believe, that Grandier had the power of disposing of devils at his pleasure, to send them to torment innocent virgins consecrated to God. In fine, he praises the prudence and justice of Lewis XIV, "who has stopped the course of the proceedings against those, who are accused of magic and witchcraft, having commuted the penalty of death into banishment, with respect to many persons condemned by a decree of the parliament of Rouen, to be burnt, as guilty of this crime; and having afterwards, by a decree of his council of state, the twenty-sixth of April, 1672, ordained, that, through all the province of Normandy, the prisons should be...