2024 NaPM 11 April

[TranquillityBase]

The martyrdom of Urbain Grandier 
(executed as a sorcerer who caused the possession of an Ursuline convent at Loudun in 1634)


bound
              stretched out on the floor
his legs
from knees to feet
enclosed between four oaken boards…..

the outer pair being fixed
the inner ones moveable

wedges are driven in
crushing the knees, legs, ankles
ordinary/extraordinary torture
determined by wedges 
numbered one to eight 

Urbain Grandier survived
what equated to a tenth wedge
administered by Father Lactance and Father Tranquille
without confessing

                          his legs crushed
splinters projected through the mangled flesh
                     along with the blood
                     an ooze of marrow

survived to be burned 
there at Loudun
with great ceremony
                     a few hours later
for reasons of hysteria, mendacity, 
a priest’s surrender to lust,
(overlooking the pyre
                             M. Trincant
                        sipping wite wine
                   toasted the father 
                     of his bastard grandchild )


                          his intelligence
angering too many of the powerful
who lacked both his good looks
                                           and his brain.


The possessed nuns continued their show
for three more years
twice daily, Sundays excepted

All italicized lines are from Aldous Huxley's The Devils of Loudun