Belleforest démonologue
Belleforest as a Demonologist

Summary/Abstract: The third volume of Histoires prodigieuses marks a turning point in the series; unlike his predecessors, Boaistuau and Tesserant, Belleforest is a supporter of the witch hunt and an opponent of Satan’s agents, the Huguenots. Thus he put prodigies at the service of the catholic fight against heresy by giving a major place to the affairs of demonic possession, which has become a propaganda weapon of the Counter-Reformation. This controversial dimension is accompanied by a reflection on the demons’ powers: unlike Le Loyer, author in 1586 of IIII livres des spectres, which will feed the 6th volume of Histoires prodigieuses (1598), and whom he was close, Belleforest offers in his stories a demonology entirely at the service of Catholic orthodoxy. He thus favors the rapprochement of Histoires prodigieuses and Histoires tragiques, the prodigy, like the monstrous crime, becoming the “fantastic” signs of the power of the devil, and he invents the new and dynamic form of the “militant story”.

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