author
Des Niau
Best known for a vivid firsthand account of the Loudun possessions, this elusive 17th-century writer remains intriguing precisely because so little is known for certain. The surviving work places readers close to one of France’s most notorious witchcraft-era scandals.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Des Niau is generally identified as the author of La Veritable Histoire des Diables de Loudun (1634), a contemporary account of the Loudun possessions and the trial and execution of Urbain Grandier. Modern editions in English often present the book as The History of the Devils of Loudun, describing it as testimony from an eyewitness or contemporary witness.
Very little reliable biographical information appears to survive about the person behind the name. Because of that, the work itself is the clearest reason Des Niau is remembered: it preserves a near-contemporary narrative of a sensational episode that has continued to interest readers of religious history, witchcraft trials, and early modern France.
For an audiobook audience, Des Niau is less a fully known literary figure than a rare historical voice—someone whose name is attached to a document that helps bring a dramatic and unsettling moment of 17th-century Europe back into view.