April 2, 1520. Bordeaux, France.
Andiette de Bisson was eight years old. She was the last female heir of the Colin family line. Andiette lived with her parents and brother Henri in a small cottage in the outskirts of Bordeaux. They were quite poor. Their ramshackle stone house was freezing in the winter and stifling in the summer, but Andiette was not one to complain. She loved her hard-working father and mother, and relished time with her mother performing household chores. Her parents were very simple people, and very devout Catholics. The family spent much of their time when they were not working praying in the town chapel. The plague, which Andiette’s family attributed to the Devil, had taken many in the village. Andiette’s family felt that the best way to ward off the Devil was to pray.
Andiette loved the chapel. She loved how the soft wooden pews smelled after they had been cleaned. She loved the beauty of the candles, strung on metal chains above the pews. She loved the solace and peace with God that she felt when she was in the chapel alone. She felt that the church was the one place she could go and feel totally safe. Some Sundays, after the mass, Andiette would stay behind in the chapel and ask the pastor if she could do anything to help. Today was one of those days. She knelt before the statue of Mary and put some flowers at the Virgin’s feet. She began praying to Mary, asking Her for help, asking that She divinely inspire her to do good works. She prayed for a good hour, and the longer she prayed, the more intense the experience became. She began to feel very close to the Virgin Mother, as if she could speak to Her.
Just then, she gasped and couldn’t breathe. It was as if someone had cut off all oxygen to her throat. No one was in the chapel, so she could not ask anyone for help. She looked around wildly, holding her hands to her throat and trying to breathe. She had a floating sensation, and then fell onto the floor between the pews. She saw the boy’s face under the water. He was about ten years old, close to her age. His head was thrashing back and forth under the water, his eyes bug-eyed and desperate. His hair floated silently like a ghost in the water. It was Petit Paul.
Suddenly, she woke up and could breathe again. She dashed out of the chapel as fast as she could back to her house, where she saw her father Charles de Bisson relaxing in front of the fire.
“Papa! You must come quick! Little Paulie is drowning! His own father is killing him! You must come quick!”
“Little Paulie? What are you talking about? I just saw him this morning in church.”
“Papa, I am telling you! I saw it! Paulie will be killed today if we do not help! You must help me!”
Andiette’s mother frowned. “Now, Andiette, shame on you. You stop saying things like that. That’s the Devil talking. Why, Paulie’s father Anton is a Christian. I saw him in church today. How dare you make up such things! Now go back to the chapel and pray for God’s forgiveness.”
“I am telling you, Mama! I know I am right! The Virgin gave me a vision this morning. If my vision came from the Virgin, how can it be the Devil’s work? It must be right!”
Her mother rebuked her. “Now I am not going to hear another word of this! You get yourself to church right this instant!”
Andiette was frustrated but left the cottage. She started to go back to the chapel, but then stopped. No, she was sure she was right. There was no time. She went out into the shed behind her house and stole her father’s hunting knife and ran into the woods.
The villagers called him “Petit Paul.” Paulie was short for his age, but was a nice boy, although incredibly shy and quiet. He did not play very much with the other children, as he spent most of his time working for his father in their field. Paul liked to build things out of metal. He hoped to be a blacksmith someday and spent much of his free time watching the local blacksmith hone his craft. This afternoon, it had thunderstormed much of the day, so there was no plowing work to be done. Paul went out behind the cottage, underneath a piece of wood that he had strung up on a post to give himself shelter, and, took out the crude metal plow that his father used for the fields. His father’s plow composed of three parts; the long metal piece which attached to the yoke for the horses, the chassis of the plow, which slid along the ground, and the sharp metal blade which cut the earth. Paul had gotten the idea to attach large metal wheels to the plow. It should not be too difficult to weld on the axle and then attach the wheels. If he could successfully add wheels, he figured he could reduce his time in the fields substantially and make his father happy.
Paul’s father, Anton, was never happy. He was an insecure man who took out his feelings of low self-esteem on his son, frequently beating him mercilessly. Anton was not a very good farmer, and when he finally got out of bed to plow the fields, he usually quit after a short time and went into town to drink. Paul lived in constant fear, but he hoped that with one of his inventions, he could someday win over his father’s love and respect.
He took out a long metal pipe which he planned to use for the axel. He slid the center of a wooden wheel down the length of the metal axel and fastened it in place with a metal washer, which he welded onto the axle with a hot poker that he had taken from the fire. Then he took the cutting tool and punched holes in the metal chassis of the plow. Unfortunately, however, when he punched the second hole, his hand, slick from the rain, slipped and he sliced the open palm of his hand with the cutting tool. The pain was pretty bad. He ran inside the cottage to ask his mother for something to cover the wound. He was binding his wound with his mother when his father came through the door. He clearly had been drinking wine all day with some of the other men in town. He was drenched with rain and smelled badly.
“This cursed rain! It’s been raining for five days now. How can we plow the fields with all this rain?” He looked over to his wife and his young son, who was now looking up with a frightened look on his face. The father gave a suspicious look, clearly sensing that something bad had happened.
“What is this?” he demanded, pointing to his son’s hand. “How did this happen?”
“I was fixing your plow,” Petit Paul stammered, “And I cut myself.”
“My plow? What was wrong with it? It was working last week.”
“I was trying to improve it,” said Paul.
“You what?!” yelled his father. He grabbed his son angrily by the back of the neck, forcing him outside the cottage into the rain. “Where is it?!”
“It is behind the house. But you have to understand, I have not gotten it fixed yet. Once I do, your plowing is going to take half as long.”
The angry father dragged his son out behind the house, and looked at the plow under the lean-to. He saw the two holes in the plow’s body and exploded.
“You destroyed my plow! That is the one thing I need to put food on our table and you intentionally destroyed it! You filthy piece of garbage!” The father smashed the head of his son with his fist until he fell into the mud. But his anger was not quenched.
“You think you can destroy me, you little worm! You are the one who is going to be destroyed!” He picked his son up by the collar and dragged him, crying and protesting, down the hill from their house to the Bonnes Creek. “Father, I am sorry, but I promise I can fix it!” Paul pleaded. But his father was not hearing any of it.
He took him down to the creek, intent on teaching him a lesson he would never forget. When he reached the water’s edge, he pushed aside a leafy branch, grabbed his muddy son by the shirt color and thrust his head under the icy water. After submerging him for about ten seconds, he pulled his head out of the water. Petit Paul gasped for air, spitting out water from his lungs, pleading with his father to stop.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please stop!”
He dunked him again, this time for fifteen seconds.
When Paul came up the second time, he was frantic, and became convinced his father was trying to kill him. In a vain effort to free himself, he lunged out at his father with his right hand, scratching his face with his fingernails. It was a very weak blow, and hardly hurt at all, but Paul’s father became enraged that his own son would try to strike him.
“You want to hit me, you little worm! I will kill you!”
With that, the father dunked his boy under the cold water a third time. As he forced his son’s head under the water, the father heard a rustling behind him. He wheeled around, just in time to see a hunting knife impale him in the eye. The father fell back in agony, blood spurting from his eye socket, and fell into the creek. Andiette quickly pulled Paulie’s head out of the water and threw him back on the bank. Anton grabbed his eye as the current swirled around him, pulling him down the creek. Blinded, Anton was oblivious to the large log sticking across the creek. His head hit the log in the water and his head went under. As his legs passed, his belt got caught on the log, and he stayed there, in the middle of the rush of water, his bloody head pinned under the water. It did not take long for him to drown.
Andiette and Paulie watched the scene in horror. Neither moved. Paul was drenched and shivering. Andiette was stunned.
“Is he dead?” asked Paulie.
“I think so,” said Andiette, horrified. “Mon Dieu, what have I done?” she asked.
“You had to do it,” said Paulie. “You saved my life. If you had not come along, he would have killed me.”
“I think I am going to be sick. I have killed a person. My God, that is a mortal sin. My soul is lost! What will I do?” Andiette began rocking back and forth, crying, and shaking her head in disbelief at what she had done. “My Mother was right! The Devil has made me kill! Oh Mon Dieu!”
Petit Paul suddenly seemed to be less afraid now that he knew his father was finally gone. He knew he should feel bad that his father had died, but for some reason, he felt nothing. In fact, he almost felt happy. He felt courage coming back to him for the first time he could remember. He must take care of this girl who had saved his life.
“We won’t tell anybody what happened. I’ll just tell people he fell into the creek, cut himself on the log, hit his head and went under. There was nothing I could do. No one will even know you were here. Come on.”
He picked up Andiette and walked her back to the village. When Andiette got back to her house, she was shaking. She walked quickly past her mother into the back of the cottage where she slept. Her mother could see that something was wrong.
“Andiette, what has happened to you? And what is all this blood all over your dress?”
Andiette could not lie to her mother. It was not in her nature. She told her the whole story, and her mother became very worried. She was worried her daughter might get accused of murder. She was worried the people in the town would exile them. But mostly she was worried about how her daughter knew in advance that Paulie’s father would try to kill him in the creek. She must surely be possessed. If that were true, then the Devil Himself was in her own house!
“Andiette, tell me again how you knew Paulie would be drowned in the creek?”
“The Virgin told me.”
“The Virgin Mary?”
“Yes!”
Andiette stroked her daughter’s wet hair.
“Andiette, what have you done to welcome the Beast into your soul?” she asked gently.
“I don’t know! I was praying to the Virgin, and I saw a vision of Little Paulie being drowned by his father in the creek, and all I could think about was saving him.”
“But why did you have a knife?”
“He is a big man. I am just a girl. How would I stop him?”
“But don’t you see, Andiette? You had a vision, then you grabbed a knife, and you committed murder! Surely it was the Devil who possessed you to do this! You have never hurt a person in your entire life, and now you are cutting up strangers with knives! You are possessed, child! Don’t you see you are a danger to our entire family now? I cannot have the Devil Himself living under my own roof! I must send you away!”
Andiette began sobbing, begging her mother not to send her away.
“Please, Mama! Don’t send me away! I promise I will be good. I will pray every day. I know the Virgin will forgive my sins if I pray hard enough!”
“I am sorry, child. This is for your own good. If you stay here, our neighbors may conspire against you and you will be hanged for sure. I know a friend who works for the Archbishop of Agen. Agen is not that far away, only several days journey. I will send you to the Agen Cathedral, and the Archbishop will give you sanctuary. In a few years, you can find a nice husband in Agen and settle down and raise a family, and no one here will know where you went.”
“Shall I go alone… by myself into the wilderness… with no one to protect me from bandits and thieves?” Andiette whimpered, wiping her nose and eyes. .
“We shall send Henri with you. He is fifteen. He is strong and a good rider. He will protect you.”
“Mama, please do not send me! I am afraid!”
“Enough! It is decided.”
Henri was told that evening. He was obviously upset. His whole life was about to change, but he loved his sister dearly, and knew she was not equipped to ride the countryside on horseback all by herself. He would ride with her to the Agen Cathedral tonight, and then ride onward to Nice to make his fortune.
Three days later, Henri and Andiette arrived in Agen. The Archbishop took the girl into the Church and gave her temporary quarters, while Henri continued onward to Nice. The next week, the Archbishop requested a wealthy Agen merchant, Pascal de Roques Lobejac, and his wife Marie d’Encausse de Rocques Lobejac, to adopt the young girl. They had no children of their own and were happy to take the child in. Andiette lived with her adopted family for the next five years. Andiette tried to put the incident with Petit Paul and the man she killed behind her forever. However, she secretly never forgave her mother for abandoning her and forcing her to leave her family and everything in the world she loved. If she ever had children, she would never treat them that way.
What she did not know was that shortly after she left her village near Bordeaux, a High Inquisitor from the Grand Inquisition named Pere Guillame de Jobert had heard the rumors of a girl who had visions from God. The Inquisitor priest visited the town of Bordeaux and questioned Andiette’s parents about her visions. Andiette’s parents refused to answer. The Inquisitor responded by taking red hot branding irons from the fireplace and burning them into the parents’ flesh.
“Talk!” he screamed. “Where is the witch?”
When the parents refused to yield, they were accused of supporting witchcraft and hanged in the public square. Their house was burned and all their possessions seized by the Church. As Petit Paul stood in his doorway, watching the black smoke rise into the night sky from Andiette’s former house down the street, he felt a sudden pang of guilt, and hoped his friend Andiette had made it to safety.