1647: Thomas Boulle and the remains of Mathurin Picard, for the Louviers possession

In the Louviers case, a horrid record of diabolism, demoniac masses, lust and blasphemy, on 21 August, 1647, Thomas Boullé, a notorious Satanist, was burnt alive in the market-square at Rouen, and what is very notable the body of Mathurin Picard who had died five years before, and who had been buried near the choir grille in the chapel of the Franciscan nuns which was so fearfully haunted, was disinterred, being found (so it is said) intact. In any case it was burned to ashes in the same fire as consumed the wretched Boullé and it seems probable that this corpse was incinerated to put an end to the vampirish attacks upon the cloister.

From The Vampire: His Kith and Kin, by Montague Summers

On this date in 1647, Thomas Boulle, vicar of Louviers, France, was executed as a witch.

Reminiscent of the recent Loudun Possessions — and perhaps directly inspired by the lucrative pilgrimage trade earned by that recent witchcraft scam — the Louviers Possessions featured a similar cast of characters: possessed, fornicating nuns; performative public exorcisms; and a village priest as the demoniacal mastermind whose bonfire climaxed the whole show. (Said priest had, as Summers notes in the pull quote above, the substantial aid of a deceased confederate, the former director of the nunnery who did his supernatural mischief from the grave.)

As with Loudun and several other high-profile witch panics in 17th century France the tableau was thoroughly pornographic with a parade of nuns reporting being taken to Black Mass orgies and copulating with a demon named Dagon.

Magdelaine Bavent, the first accuser who started the fireball rolling, was interviewed for print a few years later. The resulting Histoire de Magdelaine Bavent, Religieuse de Louviers, avec son interrogatoir is one of the key primary documents on the affair.

On this day..