It was published in the Journal de Trevoux, in 1726, and its outline is as follows.
Mr. Bezuel, when a school-boy of 15, in 1695, contracted an intimacy with a younger boy, named Desfontaines. After talking together of the compacts which have been often made between friends, that in case of death, the spirit of the deceased should revisit the survivor, they agreed to form such a compact together, and they signed it, respectively, with their blood, in 1696. Soon after this transaction, they were separated, by Desfontaines’ removal to Caen.
In July, 1697, Bezuel, while amusing himself in hay-making, near a friend’s house, was seized with a fainting fit, after which he had a bad night. Notwithstanding this attack, he returned to the meadow next day, where he again underwent a deliquium. He again slept ill. On the succeeding day, while he was observing the man laying up the hay, he had a still more severe attack. “I fell into a swoon: I lost my senses: one of the footmen perceived it, and called out for help. They recovered me a little, but my mind was more disordered than it had been before, I was told that they asked me then what ailed me, and that I answered; I have seen what I thought I should never see. But I neither remember the question, nor the answer. However, it agrees with what I remember I saw then, a naked man in half-length; but I knew him not.
“They helped me to go down the ladder; I held the steps fast; but because I saw Desfontaines my school-fellow at the bottom of the ladder, I had again a fainting fit: my head got between two steps, and I again lost my senses. They let me down, and set me upon a large beam, which served for a seat in the great Place de Capucins. I sat upon it, and then I no longer saw Mr. de Sortoville, nor his servants, though they were present. And perceiving Desfontaines near the foot of the ladder, who made me a sign to come to him, I went back upon my seat, as it were to make room for him; and those who saw me, and whom I did not see, though my eyes were open, observed that motion.
“Because he did not come, I got up to go to him: he came up to me, took hold of my left arm with his right hand, and carried me thirty paces farther into a by-lane, holding me fast.
“The servants believing that I was well again, went to their business, except a little foot-boy, who told Mr. de Sortoville, that I was talking to myself. Mr. de Sortoville thought I was drunk. He came near me, and heard me ask some questions, and return some answers, as he told me since.
“I talked with Desfontaines nearly three quarters of an hour. I promised you, said he, that if I died before you, I would come and tell you so. I am dead: I was drowned in the river of Caen, yesterday, about this hour. I was walking with such and such persons. It was very hot weather; the fancy took us to go into the water; I grew faint, and sunk to the bottom of the river. The Abbé Meniljean, my school-fellow, dived to take me up. I took hold of his foot; but whether he was afraid, or had a mind to rise to the top of the water, he struck out his leg so violently, that he gave me a blow on the breast, and threw me again to the bottom of the river, which is there very deep.
“He always appeared to me taller than I had seen him, and even taller than he was when he died. I always saw him in half-length, and naked, bare-headed, with his fine light hair, and a white paper upon his forehead twisted in his hair, on which there was a writing, but I could only read In &c.”[24]
These spectral impressions were repeated more than once, with conversations. The accidental death of the young man was ascertained very quickly.