The Exorcism of Elisabeth de Ranfaing

Marie Elisabeth de Ranfaing (also eventually known as Marie Elisabeth de la Croix de Jesus) was born on October 30, 1592 in the town of Remiremont, Lorraine. Her parents were lesser nobles, and they eventually forced her into wedlock with a much older nobleman by the name of Francois Dubois. After briefly fleeing from this undesirable situation and being forced back into it, she would eventually be widowed by this man - who perhaps unsurprisingly turned out to be abusive and an alcoholic. She had borne six children to him.

## A Demon in the Duchy

By all accounts, Elisabeth de Ranfaing was a virtuous woman. She lived in the Duchy of Lorraine, France (which would eventually be annexed and turned into a province). At a social event in 1618, a doctor by the name of Charles Povoit proposed to her. She refused, and this would ultimately lead to Povoit seemingly using occult means to force her to fall in love with him. The concoctions didn't quite work how they were supposed to though, seeing as de Ranfaing soon fell ill with a condition that was identified by medieval French experts as being demonic possession.

Povoit had been using herbal philters to work his dark magic - the ingredients of which apparently severely damaged the health of his target. Desperate to win Elisabeth's heart through any means necessary, he switched to using different mixtures of herbs, but these simply worsened her condition and apparently had serious psychological effects on her, seeing as symptoms aligning with the common perception of demonic possession started to manifest in de Ranfaing. Povoit was eventually convicted of sorcery and burnt at the stake.

Having been placed in this situation by a doctor, de Ranfaing perhaps-reluctantly consulted some other physicians, but they were stumped by her symptoms and could do nothing to cure them. As a last resort, they recommended that she try exorcism. The first of the many exorcisms that would follow this decision took place on September 2nd of 1619 in Remiremont. The person tasked with performing this exorcism was French professor and Minimite monk Claude Pithoys, who was skeptical of the claims of demonic possession made by his peers. Instead, he suggested that the drugs used by Povoit must've caused the convulsions which were being mistakenly identified as demonic possession. Absolutely sure of his conclusion, Pithoys declared that he should become possessed himself if the case turned out to be genuine - but as perhaps something of a demonstration of the eagerness to believe in the supernatural of the public at the time, Pithoys was quickly dismissed and replaced with a less skeptical doctor.

De Ranfaing was sent to Nancy - which was the capital of the Duchy of Lorraine - so that she could be interviewed and examined by a respected physician, Remy Pichard, and a group of his cohorts. Prichard documented the case well. These men all agreed that her symptoms were most likely caused by demonic possession.

A small crowd of exorcists descended upon Elisabeth at this point, consisting of various church officials, phsyicians, monks, theologians and even representatives of the royal court. These men viewed the demoniac at a local Jesuit noviciate chapel on the 31st of May, 1621. During this spectacle, the woman's neck was observed to swell to the point that it seemed as if her head was directly affixed to her body, and all present - including Prichard - concluded that the demon had somehow stretched its host's body so that it was at least one-and-a-half feet taller. Her face darkened and her eyes rolled back in her head, and she began to foam at the mouth. She fell to the ground and writhed around there for a moment before being hoisted up by an invisible force, almost appearing as if there was an imperceptible string tied to her waist - with her waist held up in the air and her limp limbs dangling down onto the floor beneath her. This posture then inverted, so that her waist was the only thing touching the ground. Terrifyingly, she was then made to climb up a nearby column and briefly dangle from a great height by her left leg, before falling a distance of 7ft down onto the floor - landing deftly and without injury. Her clothes stayed fixed to her body this entire time, however, seeing as she had apparently vowed never to denude herself after the trauma she had endured at the hands of her abusive husband. This is only one of the intriguing occasions in which the 'demon' seems to respect the wishes of its host more than any other parasite might be expected to.

They interrogated the demon in numerous languages - including Hebrew, Greek, Italian and Latin - and the demon responded easily to all of these. Sometimes, the demon's answers even consisted of multiple languages, with a sentence being partially in French and partially in Latin, for example. The team made an attempt to trip up the demon using incorrect Greek (quite what they were expecting to prove by this I can't guess), but the demon quickly pointed out the grammatical mistake.

The exorcists gave the demon instructions in various languages, which were understood and carried out by the entity. It made signs of the cross, carried holy water, and even kissed the feet of the Bishop of Toul. The demon demonstrated the ability to give correct answers to questions about Catholic theology, and then alarmingly revealed the secret sins of those present. It also pointed out Calvinist and Puritan witnesses, apparently without any prior indication of this aspect of their Christian faith. Sometimes, the exorcists didn't even need to speak out loud, and the demon instead simply understood movements of their lips and hand gestures. It would perform bizarre body movements and postures.

It was 1625 when the possession finally ebbed and disappeared after a lengthy period of exorcism. The exorcists all signed statements attesting to the validity of the possession, and de Ranfaing eventually founded an order of nuns called the Order of Refuge, and it was meant to help women recovering from a life of prostitution. It was approved by Pope Urban VIII in 1634, before de Ranfaing died on on January the 14th, 1649 while living in Nancy.

## Different Versions

Okay so that was a long and confusing story. I actually found at least three slightly different versions of this tale (all three of the sources listed below differ on certain details), and I have managed to combine the details of the three versions into the narrative that I presented above. Obviously this event took place many hundreds of years ago, and so of course there are going to be different versions. The second source, for example, actually presents a much more detailed version of the events (and is from where I found the description of Elisabeth's phsyical contortions in her state of possession), and so I have actually had to exclude some of the details provided in that account due to the risk of this article becoming unfeasibly lengthy and convoluted. I urge you to read the sources and make up your own mind about how - and if - these events really happened.

## Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth\_de\_Ranfaing

https://marilynkaydennis.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/the-possessed-saint-elisabeth-de-ranfaing/

'Encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology' by Rosemary Ellen Guiley