Nicole Aubrey or Obry (circa 1550 – ''fl.'' 1565) was a young married French woman, 15 or 16 years of age, who was publicly

exorcised Exorcism () is the religious or spiritual practice of evicting demons, jinns, or other malevolent spiritual entities from a person, or an area, that is believed to be possessed. Depending on the spiritual beliefs of the exorcist, this may be ...

in 1566 in the French city of

Laon Laon () is a city in the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. History Early history The holy district of Laon, which rises a hundred metres above the otherwise flat Picardy plain, has always held strategic importance. ...

. Occurring during the

French Wars of Religion The French Wars of Religion is the term which is used in reference to a period of civil war between French Catholics and Protestants, commonly called Huguenots, which lasted from 1562 to 1598. According to estimates, between two and four mi ...

, the so-called Miracle of Laon was almost immediately seized upon for polemic by proponents of the Counter-Reformation, and it is from those polemics that the account survives.

Events leading up to the exorcism

In the aftermath of the

Edict of Amboise The Edict of Amboise, also known as the Edict of Pacification, was signed at the Château of Amboise on 19 March 1563 by Catherine de' Medici, acting as regent for her son Charles IX of France. The Edict ended the first stage of the French War ...

, tensions between Catholics and

Huguenots The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

remained high in France, including in the city of Laon, which lay in the domain of the Prince of Conde, a

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

. In November 1565, Nicole Obry, a resident of

Vervins Vervins (; nl, Wervin) is a commune in the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. It is a subprefecture of the department. It lies between the small streams Vilpion and Chertemps, which drain towards the Serre. It is surroun ...

, became so sick she was unable to eat, and claimed to be possessed by an evil spirit that she thought was the ghost of her deceased grandfather. Her family obtained the services of a Dominican priest, Pierre de la Motte, who attempted to exorcise the young woman. He rid her of a number of demons, who promptly "fled to

Geneva , neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier , website = https://www.geneve.ch/ Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...

", the center of the

Calvinist Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...

movement. The chief demon, however, who identified himself as "

Beelzebub Beelzebub ( ; he, ''Baʿal-zəḇūḇ'') or Beelzebul is a name derived from a Philistine god, formerly worshipped in Ekron, and later adopted by some Abrahamic religions as a major demon. The name ''Beelzebub'' is associated with the Can ...

, the Prince of the Huguenots", refused to leave for any personage less than the

Bishop of Laon The diocese of Laon in the present-day département of Aisne, was a Catholic diocese for around 1300 years, up to the French Revolution. Its seat was in Laon, France, with the Laon Cathedral. From early in the 13th century, the bishop of Laon ...

. On 4 January 1566 Bishop Jean de Bours arrived in Vervins but was unable to exorcise the demon. On 29 January the Bishop led a procession to the

cathedral of Laon Laon Cathedral (french: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Laon) is a Roman Catholic church located in Laon, Aisne, Hauts-de-France, France. Built in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it is one of the most important and stylistically unified exampl ...

, where the demon engaged in a theological discourse with the Bishop, alleging that the Huguenots were cruel and infidel, that they stole the communion wafer, cut it up, boiled it, and burned the pieces. According to "Beelzebub", the Huguenots would do more evil to

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

than the Jews had done. After daily processions to the cathedral, on 8 February, the "miracle of Laon" occurred when the bishop held up the

Holy Eucharist The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was instit ...

, and drove the remaining demons from Obry's body.

Effect on the Wars of Religion

Within months of the event, multiple eyewitness accounts had been published and spread throughout Europe. For Catholics, the exorcism was a miracle and proof of the

real presence The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is the Christian doctrine that Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist, not merely symbolically or metaphorically, but in a true, real and substantial way. There are a number of Christian denomin ...

of Christ in the Eucharist: a refutation of Protestant

heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...

. For Protestants, the event was believed to be a hoax, and Louis, the Prince of Conde imprisoned Obry until he was ordered to free her by Charles IX. Louis, believing that persecution of Protestants was imminent, attempted to overthrow Charles, and war broke out again.

Sources

* Backus, Irena Dorota, ''Guillaume Postel et Jean Boulaese: De Summopere (1566) et Le Miracle De Laon (1566)'' (Droz 1995). * Kuntz, Marion, ''Guillaume Postel: Prophet of the Restitution of All Things, His Life and Thought'' (Martinus Nijhoff 1981). * Pearl, Jonathan L., ''The Crime of Crimes. Demonology and politics in France 1560-1620'' (Waterloo 1999) 43-45. {{DEFAULTSORT:Aubrey, Nicole Exorcised people Year of death unknown People from Laon 16th-century French women Year of birth uncertain