"I come," he added, "from him who has sent me, and he who has sent me is above me."
He may have wished to conceal his name; but at least he did not conceal his views; the vexation he displayed on the escape of La Valette[1168] proved that in politics he was an ultra Royalist of the most violent type.
Meanwhile the Comte de Bréteuil, Prefect of Eure-et-Loir, had been told of the visionary at the same time as the Bishop. He also questioned Martin. He expected to find him a nervous, agitated person; but when he found him tranquil, speaking simply, but with logical sequence and precision, he was very astonished.
Like M. l'Abbé La Perruque he deemed the matter sufficiently important to bring before the higher authorities. Accordingly he sent Martin, under the escort of a lieutenant of gendarmerie, to the Ministre de la Police Générale.
Having reached Paris on March 8, Martin lodged with the gendarme at the Hôtel de Calais, in the Rue Montmartre. They occupied a double-bedded room. One morning, when Martin was in bed, he beheld an apparition and told Lieutenant André, who could see nothing, although it was broad daylight. Indeed, Martin's visitations became so frequent that they ceased to cause him either surprise or concern. It was only to the abrupt disappearance of the unknown that he could never grow accustomed. The voice continued to give the same command. One day it told him that if it were not obeyed France would not know peace until 1840.
In 1816 the Ministre de la Police Générale was the Comte Decazes who was afterwards created a duke. He was in the King's confidence. But he knew that the extreme Royalists were hatching plots against his royal master. Decazes wished to see the good man from Gallardon, suspecting doubtless, that he was but a tool in the hands of the Extremists. Martin was brought to the Minister, who questioned him and at once perceived that the poor creature was in no way dangerous. He spoke to him as he would to a madman, endeavouring to regard the subject of his mania as if it were real, and so he said:
"Don't be agitated; the man who has been troubling you is arrested; you will have nothing more to fear from him."
But these words did not produce the desired effect. Three or four hours after this interview, Martin again beheld the unknown, who, after speaking to him in his usual manner, said: "When you were told that I had been arrested, you were told a lie; he who said so has no power over me."
On Sunday, March 10, the unknown returned; and on that day he disclosed the matter concerning which the Bishop of Versailles had inquired, and which he had said at first he would never reveal.
"I am," he declared, "the Archangel Raphaël, an angel of great renown in the presence of God, and I have received power to afflict France with all manner of suffering."