What, for example, is better accredited than the extraordinary convulsions at the grave of Paris the deacon, or at the meetings of Saint-Médard ecstatics? What is the explanation of the strange buffetings demanded by the convulsionaries? Blows rained by thousands on the head, compressions which would have crushed a hippopotamus, torsions of breasts with iron pincers, even crucifixion with nails driven into hands and feet? And then the superhuman contortions and levitations? The followers of Voltaire refused to see anything but sport and frolic therein; the Jansenists cried miracle; the true Catholics sighed; science which should have intervened, and that only, to explain the fantastic disease, held aloof. It is to her nevertheless that there now belong the Ursulines of Loudun, the nuns of Louviers, the convulsionaries and the American mediums. The phenomena of magnetism have placed science on the path of new discoveries, and the coming chemical synthesis will lead our physicians to a knowledge of the Astral Light. When this universal force is once known, what will prevent them from determining the strength, number and direction of its magnets? A revolution will follow in science and there will be a return to the Transcendental Magic of Chaldea.
Much has been talked about the presbytery of Cideville; De Mirville, Gougenot Desmousseaux and other uncritical believers have seen in the strange occurrences which took place therein a contemporary revelation of the devil; but the same things happened at Saint-Maur in 1706, and thither all Paris flocked. There were great rappings on walls, beds rocked without being touched, other furniture was displaced. The manifestations finished in a climax during which the master of the house, a young man of twenty-four or twenty-five years old, and a person of weak constitution, fell into a deep swoon and believed that he heard spirits speaking to him at great length, though he could never repeat subsequently a single word that they said.
One history of an apparition at the beginning of the eighteenth century may here follow; the simplicity of the account proves its authenticity; there are certain characteristics of truth which cannot be simulated by inventors.
A pious priest of Valognes, named Bézuel, was invited to dinner on January 7, 1708 by a lady related to the Abbé de Saint-Pierre, the Abbé being also of the company, and the priest recounted, at their request, the appearance of one of his deceased comrades in open day, some twelve years previously. In 1695, he told them that he was a young scholar, about fifteen years old and that he was acquainted with two lads, sons of Abaquène, a solicitor, who were scholars like himself. “The elder was my own age and the other, who was some eighteen months younger, was named Desfontaines; we walked together and shared our amusements; and whether or not Desfontaines had greater friendship for me, or was more lively, more affable, more intelligent than his brother, I know that I cared for him more. We were wandering in the cloister of the Capucins, in 1696, when he told me that he had been reading a story of two friends who had promised one another that whichever of them died first should bring news of his condition to him who survived; that one of them who did pass away redeemed his pledge and told the survivor astonishing things. Desfontaines then said that he had a favour to ask me, which was to make a similar promise, he doing likewise on his own part. I was, however, unwilling and indeed declined the proposal; several months passed away, during which he recurred frequently to the idea, I always resisting. About August, 1696, when he was on the point of leaving to continue his studies at Caen, he pressed me so much, and with tears in his eyes, that at length I consented. He produced thereupon two little slips of paper on which he had written beforehand, one signed with his blood and in which he promised me, in the event of his death, to give me news of his state, the other in which I entered into a similar bond. I pricked my finger, and with the blood which issued therefrom I signed my own name. He was delighted to receive the promise and embraced me with a thousand thanks. Some time after he left, accompanied by his brother; the separation was grievous to both of us; we wrote from time to time, and then there was a silence for the space of six weeks, after which the event happened that I am about to relate. On July 31, 1697, being a Thursday and a day which I shall always remember, the late M. de Sortoville, with whom I lodged and who was always exceedingly good to me, begged me to go into a meadow adjoining the Franciscan monastery and help his people in haymaking. I had not been there for more than a quarter of an hour when, about half past two, I suddenly felt giddy and overcome with weakness. It was to no purpose that I tried to lean on my hay-fork; I felt obliged to lie down on the hay and so remained for about half an hour, trying to recover my strength. The feeling passed away but, having never had such an experience previously, it caused me some surprise, and I feared that it was the beginning of an illness. I have no special recollection regarding the remainder of the day, but on the following night I slept less than usual.
“At the same hour next day, as I was walking in the meadow with M. de Saint-Simon, grandson of M. de Sortoville, then about ten years old, I was overcome in exactly the same way and sat down in the shade on a stone. It passed again and we continued our walk; nothing further occurred on that day and the next night I slept scarcely at all. Finally, on the morrow, being the second day of August, I was in the loft where they stacked the hay at precisely the same hour, when I was again seized with a similar giddiness and weakness, but more serious than before. I swooned and lost all consciousness. One of the servants saw me and asked what was the matter, to which it is said that I replied, stating that I had seen what I should have never believed. I do not however recollect either the question or answer. The memory which does remain with me is that I had seen someone in a state of nakedness to the waist, but it was not anyone whom I recognised. I was helped down the ladder; I held tight to the rungs; but when I saw Desfontaines, my comrade, at the foot of the ladder, the weakness returned, my head fell between two of the rungs and again I lost consciousness. I was laid upon a wide beam which served for a bench on the Grande Place des Capucins; I saw nothing of M. de Sortoville nor of his servants, though they were present, but I observed Desfontaines, still by the foot of the ladder, signalling for me to come to him, and I drew back on my seat as if to make room for him. Those who were by me and whom I did not see, though my eyes were open, observed this movement. He did not respond and I rose to go towards him; he then came forward and taking my left arm in his own right arm, he led me some paces forward into a quiet street, with arms still interlocked. The servants thinking that my giddiness had passed and that I was going about some business of my own, went back to their work, with the exception of one youth, who told M. de Sortoville that I was talking to myself. He came up to me and heard me questioning and answering, as he has since told me. I was there for nearly three quarters of an hour, talking to Desfontaines, who said: I promised that if I died before you I would come and tell you. I was drowned the day before yesterday in the river at Caen. It was just about this time, and I was walking with some friends; it was exceedingly warm, we decided to bathe, a weakness came over me and I sank to the bottom. My companion, the Abbé de Menil-Jean, dived to bring me up. I caught hold of his leg and as I clung very tight he may have thought that it was a salmon or he may have had to come up quickly, but he struck out so roughly with his leg that I received a blow upon the chest, throwing me again to the bottom, where the depth is considerable at that point!
“Desfontaines subsequently told me all that had happened in their walk and the subjects discussed between them. I was anxious to learn whether he was saved, whether he was damned, whether he was in purgatory, whether I was myself in a state of grace and whether I should follow him speedily; but he continued speaking as if he had not heard, or refused to listen. I tried to embrace him several times, but I seemed to embrace nothing; yet I felt him still holding me tight by the arm, and when I attempted to turn away my head, so as not to see him because of the grief which it caused me, he tightened his grasp as if to compel me to look as well as to listen. He seemed taller than when I had last seen him and taller even than he was at the time of death, though he had grown a good deal during the eighteen months since we met. I saw him as far as his waist only and he was naked, his head bare and a white paper twisted in his beautiful fair hair over the forehead; the paper had writing on it, but I could read only the word: IN, &c. His voice was the same voice; he seemed neither gay nor sad, but in a calm and tranquil state. He begged me on his brother’s return to give him certain messages for his father and mother; he begged me also to say the seven penitential psalms, which had been imposed on him as a penance the previous Sunday and which he had not yet recited. Finally, he again advised me to speak to his brother and then bade me farewell, saying as he went: ‘Till I see you again,’ which was our usual formula when we parted at the end of a walk. He told me also that at the time he was drowned his brother, who was making a translation, regretted having let him go apart from him, in case of an accident. He described so well where he was drowned and the tree in the Avenue de Louvigny on which he had cut some words that two years afterwards, when in the company of the late Chevalier de Gotot, one who was with him at the time, I pointed out the very spot and counting the trees on one side, as Desfontaines had specified, I went straight to the tree, there to find the inscription. I learned also that it was true about the seven psalms which had been given him as a penance at confession. His brother also told me that he was writing his translation and reproached himself for not being with him.
“As a month went by before I was able to do as Desfontaines asked me in regard to his brother, he appeared to me on two other occasions before dinner in a country house a few miles away, to which I had been invited. Feeling unwell, I made an excuse of being tired, saying that it was nothing and that I should return. I went into a corner of the garden and Desfontaines reproached me for not having spoken to his brother; he talked to me for a quarter of an hour, but would not answer questions on my own part. The second appearance was in the morning, as I was going to Notre Dame de la Victoire, but the apparition was for a shorter time; he impressed on me about speaking to his brother and left me repeating: ‘Till I see you again’—still without answering my questions. One remarkable fact is that I always had a pain in the arm where he had taken a hold of me the first time, and it remained till I had spoken to his brother. For three days I had no sleep owing to the astonishment in which I was. After the first conversation I told M. de Varonville, my schoolfellow and neighbour, that Desfontaines had been drowned, that he had appeared to me and told me so. He hurried to his relations, asking whether this was true; they had just had news on the subject but, owing to a misunderstanding, believed that it was the elder boy. He assured me that he had seen the letter of Desfontaines and he thought that this was correct; I maintained that it must be wrong, for Desfontaines himself had appeared to me. He went again to his relatives and returned in tears saying: ‘It is only too true.’
“Nothing has happened to me since, and such was my experience simply. It has been told in many ways, but I have never related it otherwise than as I do now. The late Chevalier de Gotot stated that Desfontaines also appeared to M. de Menil-Jean, but I do not know him. He is fifty miles from here, near Argentan, and I can tell you no more.”
We should notice the characteristics of dream which prevail throughout in this vision of a man who is awake, but in a state of semi-asphyxiation produced by the emanations of the hay. The astral intoxication following congestion of the brain will be recognised. The somnambulistic condition which followed showed M. Bézuel the last living reflection left by his friend in the Astral Light. He was naked and was visible down to the waist only, because the rest of his body was immersed in the water of the river. The supposed paper in his hair was probably a handkerchief used to confine his hair when bathing. Bézuel had further a somnambulistic intuition of all that took place, and it seemed to him that he was learning it from the lips of his friend. The friend appeared neither sad nor gay, an indication of the impression made upon him by an image which was lifeless and consisting only of reminiscence and reflection. On the occasion of the first vision, M. Bézuel, intoxicated by the scent of the hay, fell off the ladder and injured his arm; it seemed, with the logic of dreams that his friend was grasping the arm, and when he came to himself, he still felt the pain, which is explained quite naturally by the hurt that he had received. For the rest, the conversation of the deceased person was simply retrospective; there was nothing about death or the other life, proving once more how impossible is the barrier which separates this world from the next.
In the prophecy of Ezekiel life is represented by wheels which turn within one another; the elementary forms are symbolised by four beasts, which ascend and descend with the wheel and pursue one another without ever overtaking, like the signs of the Zodiac. The wheels of perpetual movement never return on themselves; forms never go back to the stations which they have quitted; to return whence one has come, the entire circle must have been traversed in a progress always the same and yet always new. The conclusion is that whatsoever manifests to us in this life is a phenomenon which belongs to this life and it is not given here below to our thought, to our imagination, or even to our hallucinations and our dreams, to overstep even for an instant the formidable barriers of death.