Barbara Wade Rose

The Priest, the Witch & the Poltergeist Barbara Wade Rose

The story of the 1851 Cideville witch trial lies buried in history. A witch named Thorel Felix, in revenge for the jailing of his coven leader, pronounced a hex upon two adolescent boys who lived with Father Jean Lariat in Cideville, France. Soon strange noises began in Lariat's parsonage. First he forced Felix to apologize to the boys. A local seigneur, Robert de Saint Martin, devised experiments to determine the poltergeist's source. Then Lariat and another priest tried an exorcism without success and a well-known occultist, the Marquis de Foursin, performed séances. Finally Father Lariat, half-crazed by the relentless noise, went to the farm where Felix was a shepherd and beat the witch to the ground. He thought he had won. But Felix struggled to his feet and pronounced upon Lariat the most modern of hexes: "I sue you. I sue you for slander and assault." What followed may be history's only trial where a witch was the plaintiff, not the defendant. The Priest, the Witch and the Poltergeist is a novel based on this incredible story. It brings to life the battle between Felix and Lariat and tells of the witch's meeting maid Eve Thérigny of the seigneur's estate, who fell in love with his subversive courage. And it just may be that the causes of the poltergeist are stranger than anyone living during the Industrial Revolution could foresee.