THE TWO STUDENTS.
The Abbé de Saint Pierre, says Collin de Plancy, has given a long account, in his works, of a singular occurrence which took place in 1697, and which we are inclined to relate here:
In 1695, a student named Bezuel, then about fifteen years old, contracted a friendship with two other youths, students like himself, and sons of an attorney of Caen, named D'Abaquène. The elder was, like Bezuel, fifteen; his brother, eighteen months younger. The latter was named Desfontaines. The paternal name was then given only to the eldest; the names of those who came after were formed by means of some vague properties….
As the young Desfontaines' character was more in unison with Bezuel's than that of his elder brother, these two students became strongly attached to each other.
One day during the following year, 1696, they were reading together a certain history of two friends like themselves, who had promised each other, with some solemnity, that he of the two who died first would come back to give the survivor some account of his state. The historian added that the dead one really did come back, and that he told his friend many wonderful things. Young Desfontaines, struck by this narrative, which he did not doubt, proposed to Bezuel that they should make such a promise one to the other. Bezuel was at first afraid of such an engagement. But several months after, in the first days of June, 1697, as his friend was going to set out for Caen, he agreed to his proposal.
Desfontaines then drew from his pocket two papers in which he had written the double agreement. Each of these papers expressed the formal promise on the part of him who should die first to come and make his fate known to the surviving friend. He had signed with his blood the one that Bezuel was to keep. Bezuel, hesitating no longer, pricked his hand, and likewise signed with his blood the other document, which he gave to Desfontaines.
The latter, delighted to have the promise, set out with his brother. Bezuel received some days after a letter, in which his friend informed him that he had reached his home in safety, and was very well. The correspondence between them was to continue. But it stopped very soon, and Bezuel was uneasy.
It happened that on the 31st of July, 1697, being about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, in a meadow where his companions were amusing themselves with various games, he felt himself suddenly stunned and taken with a sort of faintness, which lasted for some minutes. Next day, at the same hour, he felt the same symptoms, and again on the day after. But then— it was Friday, the 2d of August—he saw advancing towards him his friend Desfontaines, who made a sign for him to come to him. Being in a sitting posture and under the influence of his swoon, he made another sign to the apparition, moving on his seat to make place for him.
The comrades of Bezuel moving around saw this motion, and were surprised.
As Desfontaines did not advance, Bezuel arose to go to him. The apparition then took him by the left arm, drew him aside some thirty paces, and said:
"I promised you that, if I died before you, I would come to tell you. I was drowned yesterday in the river at Caen, about this hour. I was out walking; it was so warm that we took a notion to bathe. A weakness came over me in the river, and I sank to the bottom. The Abbé de Menil-Jean, my companion, plunged in to draw me out; I seized his foot; but whether he thought it was a salmon that had caught hold of him, or that he felt it actually necessary to go up to the surface of the water to breathe, he shook me off so roughly that his foot gave me a great blow in the chest, and threw me to the bottom of the river, which is there very deep."
Desfontaines then told his friend many other things, which he would not divulge, whether the dead boy had prayed him not to do so, or for other reasons.
Bezuel wanted to embrace the apparition, but he found only a shadow. Nevertheless, the shadow had squeezed his arm so tightly, that it pained him after.
He saw the spirit several times, yet always a little taller than when they parted, and always in the half-clothing of a bather. He wore in his fair hair a scroll on which Bezuel could only read the word In. His voice had the same sound as when he was living, he appeared neither gay nor sad, but perfectly tranquil. He charged his friend with several commissions for his parents, and begged him to say for him the Seven Penitential Psalms, which had been given him as a penance by his confessor, three days before his death, and which he had not yet recited.
The apparition always ended by a farewell expressed in words which signified: "Till we meet again! (Au revoir!)" At last, it ceased at the end of some weeks; and the surviving friend, who had constantly prayed for the dead, concluded from this that his Purgatory was over.
This Monsieur Bezuel finished his studies, embraced the ecclesiastical state, became curé of Valogne, and lived long, esteemed by his parishioners and the whole city, for his good sense, his virtuous life, and his love of truth.