Assembled as they were for worship in wild and desert places, an epidemic broke out among them, ascribed by them to the Almighty, but by their opponents to Satan.

Men, women, and children preached and prophesied.

Large assemblies were seized with trembling.
Some underwent the most terrible tortures without showing any signs of suffering.

Marshal de Villiers, who was sent against them, declared that he saw a town in which all the women and girls, without exception, were possessed of the devil, and ran leaping and screaming through the streets.

Cases like this, inexplicable to the science of the time, gave renewed strength to the theological view.( 395) (395) See Bersot, Mesmer et la Magnetisme animal, third edition, Paris, 1864, pp.