"It was his same tone of voice. He appeared to me neither gay nor sad, but in a calm and tranquil state. He begged of me when his brother returned, to tell him certain things to say to his father and mother. He begged me to say the Seven Psalms which had been given him as a penance the preceding Sunday, which he had not yet recited; again he recommended me to speak to his brother, and then he bade me adieu, saying, as he left me, Jusques, jusques, (till, till,) which was the usual term he made use of when at the end of our walk we bade each other good-bye, to go home.
"He told me that at the time he was drowned, his brother, who was writing a translation, regretted having let him go without accompanying him, fearing some accident. He described to me so well where he was drowned, and the tree in the avenue of Louvigni on which he had written a few words, that two years afterwards, being there with the late Chevalier de Gotol, one of those who were with him at the time he was drowned, I pointed out to him the very spot; and by counting the trees in a particular direction which Desfontaines had specified to me, I went straight up to the tree, and I found his writing. He (the Chevalier) told me also that the article of the Seven Psalms was true, and that on coming from confession they had told each other their penance; and since then his brother has told me that it was quite true that at that hour he was writing his exercise, and he reproached himself for not having accompanied his brother. As nearly a month passed by without my being able to do what Desfontaines had told me in regard to his brother, he appeared to me again twice before dinner at a country house whither I had gone to dine a league from hence. I was very faint. I told them not to mind me, that it was nothing, and that I should soon recover myself; and I went to a corner of the garden. Desfontaines having appeared to me, reproached me for not having yet spoken to his brother, and again conversed with me for a quarter of an hour without answering any of my questions.
"As I was going in the morning to Notre-Dame de la Victoire, he appeared to me again, but for a shorter time, and pressed me always to speak to his brother, and left me, saying still, Jusques, Jusques, and without choosing to reply to my questions.
"It is a remarkable thing that I always felt a pain in that part of my arm which he had held me by the first time, until I had spoken to his brother. I was three days without being able to sleep, from the astonishment and agitation I felt. At the end of the first conversation, I told M. de Varonville, my neighbor and schoolfellow, that Desfontaines had been drowned; that he himself had just appeared to me and told me so. He went away and ran to the parents' house to know if it was true; they had just received the news, but by a mistake he understood that it was the eldest. He assured me that he had read the letter of Desfontaines, and he believed it; but I maintained always that it could not be, and that Desfontaines himself had appeared to me. He returned, came back, and told me in tears that it was but too true.
"Nothing has occurred to me since, and there is my adventure just as it happened. It has been related in various ways; but I have recounted it only as I have just told it to you. The Chevalier de Gotol told me that Desfontaines had appeared also to M. de Menil-Jean; but I am not acquainted with him; he lives twenty leagues from hence near Argentan, and I can say no more about it."
This is a very singular and circumstantial narrative, related by M. l'Abbé de St. Pierre, who is by no means credulous, and sets his whole mind and all his philosophy to explain the most extraordinary events by physical reasonings, by the concurrence of atoms, corpuscles, insensible evaporation of spirit, and perspiration. But all that is so far-fetched, and does such palpable violence to the subjects and the attending circumstances, that the most credulous would not yield to such arguments. It is surprising that these gentlemen, who pique themselves on strength of mind, and so haughtily reject everything that appears supernatural, can so easily admit philosophical systems much more incredible than even the facts they oppose. They raise doubts which are often very ill-founded, and attack them upon principles still more uncertain. That may be called refuting one difficulty by another, and resolving a doubt by principles still more doubtful.
But, it will be said, whence comes it that so many other persons who had engaged themselves to come and bring news of the immortality of the soul, after their death, have not come back. Seneca speaks of a Stoic philosopher named Julius Canus, who, having been condemned to death by Julius Cæsar, said aloud that he was about to learn the truth of that question on which they were divided; to wit, whether the soul was immortal or not. And we do not read that he revisited this world. La Motte de Vayer had agreed with his friend Baranzan Barnabite that the first of the two who died should warn the other of the state in which he found himself. Baranzan died, and returned not.
Because the dead sometimes return to earth, it would be imprudent to conclude that they always do so. And it would be equally wrong reasoning to say that they never do return, because having promised to revisit this world they have not done so. For that, we should imagine that it is in the power of spirits to return and make their appearance when they will, and if they will; but it seems indubitable, that on the contrary, it is not in their power, and that it is only by the express permission of God that disembodied spirits sometimes appear to the living.
We see, in the history of the bad rich man, that God would not grant him the favor which he asked, to send to earth some of those who were with him in hell. Similar reasons, derived from the hardness of heart or the incredulity of mortals, may have prevented, in the same manner, the return of Julius Canus or of Baranzan. The return of spirits and their apparition is neither a natural thing nor dependent on the choice of those who are dead. It is a supernatural effect, and allied to the miraculous.
St. Augustine says on this subject[[557]] that if the dead interest themselves in what concerns the living, St. Monica, his mother, who loved him so tenderly, and went with him by sea and land everywhere during her life, would not have failed to visit him every night, and come to console him in his troubles; for we must not suppose that she was become less compassionate since she became one of the blest: absit ut facta sit vitâ feliciore crudelis.