Page:Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds Vol 2.djvu/235

 la Tour, the superior, sent six of the brethren, and the king gave them a handsome house to live in in the village of Chantilly. It so happened that from their windows they had a very fine view of the ancient palace of Vauvert, which had been built for a royal residence by King Robert, but deserted for many years. The worthy monks thought the palace would just suit them; but their modesty was so excessive that they were ashamed to ask the king for a grant of it in due form. This difficulty was not to be overcome, and the monks set their ingenuity to work to discover another plan. The palace of Vauvert had never laboured under any imputation upon its character until they became its neighbours; but, somehow or other, it almost immediately afterwards began to acquire a bad name. Frightful shrieks were heard to proceed from it at night; blue, red, and green lights were suddenly seen to glimmer from the windows, and as suddenly to disappear; the clanking of chains was heard, and the howling as of persons in great pain. These disturbances continued for several months, to the great terror of all the country round, and even of the pious King Louis, to whom, at Paris, all the rumours were regularly carried with whole heaps of additions that accumulated on the way. At last a great spectre, clothed all in pea-green, with a long white beard and a serpent's tail, took his station regularly at midnight in the principal window of the palace, and howled fearfully, and shook his fists at the passengers.

The six monks at Chantilly, to whom all these things were duly narrated, were exceedingly wrath that the devil should play such antics right opposite their dwelling, and hinted to the commissioners sent down by Saint Louis to investigate the matter, that if they were allowed to inhabit the palace, they would very soon make a clearance of the evil spirits. The king was quite charmed with their piety, and expressed to them how grateful he felt for their disinterestedness. A deed was forthwith drawn up, the royal sign-manual was affixed to it, and the palace of Vauvert became the property of the monks of St. Bruno. The deed is dated 1259. The disturbances ceased im-