WITCHCRAFT - URBAIN GRANDIER The French priest, Urbain Grandier, being burned alive at Loudun, in 1634. Usually, the victim was garrotted before being burned, but those who officiated arranged for the garrotte to be knotted, so that it could not be drawn tight. The unfortunate Grandier had been so badly tortured prior to the firing, that he probably welcomed death, with the marrow of his bones oozing from his crushed limbs. To the left, through the doorway, one of the Loudun is being exorcised: the exercise became a money-making scam, to attract and milk tourists. To the right, the nuns are publicly displaying themselves naked, to show their demoniac state: this lasted for a considerable time after the death of Grandier - indeed, until Richelieu discontinued his pension to persuade them to testify against the priest. In the Charles Walker Collection is a copy of the forged Pact between the devils (such as Lucifer) and Urbain Grandier.