Innocent’s Attempt to Exorcise Sherzad

Pope Innocent’s attempt to exorcise Sherzad brings the authority of the Church directly against Marie-Josèphe de la Croix’s responsibility to the captive sea woman. The rite does not calm Sherzad or secure her submission; it ends with her wounded in Marie-Josèphe’s arms, while Pope Innocent continues to threaten her with spiritual judgment.

The Rite at the Cage

Pope Innocent performs the exorcism beside Sherzad’s cage, sprinkling holy water through its bars and chanting in Latin. His words make the rite a demand for conversion as well as a declaration of spiritual power: “Cast off your pagan ways,” he tells Sherzad. “Accept the teachings of the Church, and you will receive everlasting life.” Sherzad answers with a snarl, not acquiescence. The physical barrier remains between the pontiff and his captive, but the ritual makes the cage a site of direct contest: Pope Innocent claims authority over Sherzad’s soul, while her resistance refuses the terms he sets.

When Pope Innocent warns that Sherzad’s soul will never rest if she defies him, Marie-Josèphe runs to the cage and demands entry. Her intervention cuts across both religious authority and courtly decorum. Louis XIV pushes himself up from his wheeled chair as a Musketeer unlocks the cage, but Marie-Josèphe dashes inside ahead of the King, disregarding etiquette and even simple manners. She approaches Sherzad with an appeal for calm, calling her dear and asking her to be at ease. Pope Innocent orders her not to interfere and warns that ignoring his counsel will put her at peril; Marie-Josèphe nevertheless runs down to the platform, while Louis remains at the top of the stairs.

The Lunge and Its Cost

Sherzad sees Louis XIV at the top of the stairs and shrieks. She propels herself toward Marie-Josèphe, then launches herself snarling at the King, claws extended. Marie-Josèphe cries, “Sherzad, no!” and throws herself at the sea woman. They collide and fall together; the edge of the stairs knocks the wind out of Marie-Josèphe, while Sherzad lies in her arms with a splintery gouge across her forehead. Marie-Josèphe tries to stop the bleeding, but blood turns her hands and dress scarlet. Her intervention physically breaks the charge, yet leaves Sherzad wounded and does not end the confrontation over what her resistance means.

Pope Innocent interprets the scene through the spiritual terms of his attempted exorcism. He calls suicide a mortal sin and insists that Sherzad must vow obedience and repent before she dies; otherwise, he will know her for a demon. The threat makes obedience a condition of being recognized as human rather than demonic, even as Sherzad’s injury and Marie-Josèphe’s attempt to tend it place their immediate vulnerability before the Pope’s judgment.

The Test of Obedience

The encounter leaves the exorcism’s central claim unresolved. Sherzad’s snarl and attack do not demonstrate whether she is a demon; Pope Innocent instead makes her response to Church authority the test, demanding a vow of obedience and repentance before death. His declaration that refusal will identify her as demonic turns submission into the condition for being judged otherwise, so the rite offers no neutral ground on which Sherzad might be understood apart from the terms imposed on her.

Marie-Josèphe answers that coercive test not with a counter-theology but with immediate care for Sherzad’s injured body. The contrast sharpens the scene’s conflict: the Pope speaks of the captive’s soul and eternal fate, while Marie-Josèphe’s attention is fixed on the bleeding wound. The attempted exorcism therefore ends without conversion or agreement; its final demand hangs over Sherzad even as Marie-Josèphe’s intervention insists on attending to her as someone who can be hurt.

Promise and Threat

The rite’s language shifts from an offer of everlasting life to a threat of unrest and, finally, to a verdict that Sherzad’s refusal will make her a demon. This progression gives Pope Innocent’s words power to define the terms of judgment, but it supplies no independent evidence about Sherzad’s nature: her snarl and lunge remain acts of resistance, while the Pope makes obedience and repentance the conditions for recognizing her otherwise. The exorcism thus closes not with a demonstrated spiritual change but with a threatened classification, leaving Marie-Josèphe’s care for the wounded Sherzad in stark contrast to the judgment still being imposed on her.