By far the most remarkable and, strange enough, at the same time the best authenticated of all accounts of disturbances caused by recently departed friends is found in a memoir written by the sufferer herself, and addressed to the famous Baron Grimm under the pseudonym of Mr. Meis. Through the latter the story reached Goethe, who at once appropriated it in all its details, and merely changing the name of the principal to Antonelli, inserted it in his "Conversations of German Emigrants." The same event is fully related in the "Memoirs of the Margravine of Anspach" as "a story which at that time created a great sensation in Paris, and excited universal curiosity." But even greater authority yet is given to this account by the fact that it was officially recorded in the police reports of Paris, from which it has been frequently extracted for publication. Mdlle. Hippolyte Clairon makes substantially the following statements: "In the year 1743 my youth and my success on the stage procured for me much attention from young fops and elderly profligates, among whom, however, I found frequently a few better men. One of these, who made a deep impression upon me, was a Mr. S., the son of a merchant from Brittany, about thirty years old, fair of features, well made, and gifted with some talent for poetry. His conversation and his manners showed that he had received a superior education, and that he was accustomed to good society, while his reserve and bashfulness, which prevented him from allowing his attachment to be seen, made him all the dearer to me. When I had ascertained his discretion, I permitted him to visit me, and gave him to understand that he might call himself my friend. He took this patiently, seeing that I was still free and not without tender feelings, and hoping that time might inspire me with a warmer affection. Who knows what might have happened! But I used to question him closely, both from curiosity and from prudence, and his candid answers destroyed his prospects; for he confessed that, dissatisfied with his modest station in life, he had sold his property in order to live in Paris in better society, and I did not like this. Men who are ashamed of themselves are not, it seems to me, calculated to inspire others with respect. Besides, he was of a melancholy and dissatisfied temper, knowing men too well, as he said, not to despise and avoid them. He intended to visit no one but myself, and to induce me also to see no one but him. You may imagine how I disliked such ideas. I might have been held by garlands, but did not wish to be bound with chains. From that moment I saw that I must disappoint his hopes, and gradually withdrew from his society. This caused him a severe illness, during which I showed him all possible attention. But my steady refusal to do more for him only deepened the wound, and at the same time the poor young man had the misfortune of being stripped of nearly all his property by his faithless brother, to whom he had intrusted the sale of all he owned, so that he saw himself compelled to accept small sums from me for the payment of his daily food and the necessary medicines.
"At last he recovered part of his property, but his health was ruined; and as I thought I was rendering him a real service by widening the distance between us, I refused henceforth to receive his letters and his visits.
"Thus matters went on for two years and a half, when he died. He had sent for me, wishing to enjoy the happiness of seeing me once more in his last moments, but my friends would not allow me to go. He had no one near him except his servants and an old lady, who had of late been his only companion. Our lodgings were far apart: his near the Chaussée-d'Antin, where only a few houses had as yet been built, and mine near the Abbey of St. Martin. My daily guests were an agent, who attended to all my professional duties, Mr. Pipelet, well known and beloved by all who knew him, and Rosely, one of my fellow-comedians, a kind young man full of wit and talent. We had modest little suppers, but we were merry and enjoyed ourselves heartily. One evening I had just been singing several pretty airs which seemed to delight my friends, when the clock struck eleven, and at the same moment an extremely sharp cry was heard. Its plaintive sound and long duration amazed everybody; I fainted away and remained for nearly a quarter of an hour unconscious.
"My agent was in love with me and so mad with jealousy that when I recovered, he overwhelmed me with reproaches, and said the signals for my interview were rather loud. I told him that as I had the right to receive when and whom I chose, no signals were needed, and this cry had surely been heart-rending enough to convince him that it announced no sweet moments. My paleness, my tremor, which lasted for some time, my tears flowing silently and almost unconsciously, and my urgent request that somebody would stay up with me during the night, all these signs convinced him of my innocence. My friends remained with me, discussing the fearful cry, and determining finally to station guards around the house.
"Nevertheless the dread sound was repeated night after night; my friends, all the neighbors, and even the policemen who were stationed near us, heard it distinctly; it seemed to be uttered immediately under my window, where nothing could ever be seen. There was no doubt entertained as to the person for whom it was intended, for whenever I supped out, no cry was heard; but frequently after my return, when I entered my room and inquired about it of my mother and my servants, it suddenly pierced the air anew. Once the president of the court, at whose house I had been entertained, proposed to see me home in safety; at the moment when he wished me good-night at the door, the cry was heard right between us, and the poor man had to be lifted into his carriage more dead than alive.
"Another time my young companion, Rosely, a clever, witty man, who believed in nothing in heaven or on earth, was riding with me in my carriage on our way to a friend who lived in a distant part of the city. We were discussing the fearful torment to which I was exposed, and he, laughing at me, at last declared he would never believe it unless he heard it with his own ears, and defied me to summon my lover. I do not know how I came to yield, but instantly the cry was repeated three times, and with overwhelming fierceness. When our carriage reached the house, the servants found us both lying unconscious on the cushions, and had to summon assistance before we recovered. After this I heard nothing for several months, and began to hope that all was over. But I was sadly mistaken.
"The members of the king's troop of comedians had all been ordered to appear at Versailles, in honor of the dauphin's marriage, and as we were to spend three days there, lodgings had been provided. It so happened, however, that a friend of mine, Mme. Grandval, had been forgotten, and seeing her trouble, I at last offered her, towards three o'clock in the morning, to share my room, in which there were two beds. This forced me to take my maid into my own bed, and as she was in the act of coming, I said to her: 'Here we are at the end of the world, the weather is abominable, and the cry would find it hard to follow us here!' At that moment it resounded close to us; Mme. Grandval jumped up terribly frightened, and ran through the whole house, waking everybody, and keeping us all in such a state of excitement that not an eye was closed the whole night. Seven or eight days later, as I was chatting merrily with a number of friends, at the striking of the hour, a shot was heard, coming apparently through my window. We all heard it and saw the fire, but the pane was not broken. Everybody thought at once of an attempt to murder me, and some friends hastened instantly to the Chief of Police. Men were immediately sent to search the houses opposite, and for several days and nights the street was strictly guarded by a number of soldiers; my own house was searched from roof to cellar, and friends came in large companies to assist in watchings: nevertheless, the shot fell night after night at the same hour, for three months, with unfailing accuracy. No clue was found and no sign was seen save the sound of the shot and the sight of the fire. Daily reports of the occurrence were sent to the headquarters of the police, new measures were continually devised and applied, but the authorities were baffled as well as all who tried to fathom the mystery. I became at last quite accustomed to the disturbance, and was in the habit of speaking of it as the doing of a bon diable, because he contented himself so long a time with jugglers' tricks; but one night as I had stepped through the open window out upon a balcony, and was standing there with my agent by my side, the shot suddenly fell again and knocked us both back into the room, where we fell down as if dead. When we recovered our consciousness, we got up, and after some hesitation, confessed to each other that our ears had been severely boxed, his on the right side and mine on the left, whereupon we gave way to hearty laughter. The next night was quiet, but on the following day I was riding with my maid to a friend's house, where I had been invited to meet some acquaintances. As we passed through a certain part of the city, I recognized the houses in the bright moonlight, and said jestingly: 'This looks very much like the part of town where poor S. used to live.' At the same moment a near church clock struck eleven, and instantly a shot was fired at us from one of the buildings, which seemed to pass through our carriage. The coachman thought we had been attacked by robbers, and whipped his horses to escape; I knew what it meant, but still felt thoroughly frightened, and reached the house in a state little suited for social enjoyment. This was, however, the last time my unfortunate friend used a gun.
"In place of the firing there came now a loud clapping of hands, with certain modulations and repetitions. This sound, to which I had become accustomed on the stage by the kindness of my friends, did not disturb me as much as my companions. They would station themselves around my door and under my window; they heard it distinctly, but could not see a trace of any person. I do not remember how long this continued; but it was followed by the singing of a sweet, almost heavenly melody, which began at the upper end of the street and gradually swelled till it reached my house, where it slowly expired. Then the disturbance ceased altogether.
"The only light that was ever thrown upon the mystery came from an old lady who called on me on the pretext of wishing to see my house which I had offered for rent. I was very much struck by her venerable appearance and her evident emotion. I offered her a chair and sat down opposite to her, but was for some time unable to say a word. At last she seemed to gather courage and told me that she had long wished to make my acquaintance, but had not dared to come so long as I was constantly surrounded by hosts of friends and admirers. At last she had happened to see my advertisement and availed herself of the opportunity in order to see me—and to visit my house, which had a deep though melancholy interest in her eyes. I guessed at once that she was the faithful friend who alone remained by the bedside of poor S., when he was prostrated by a fatal disease and refused to see anybody else. For months, she now told me, he had spoken of nothing save of myself, looking upon me now as an angel and now as a demon, but utterly unable to keep his thoughts from dwelling uninterruptedly upon the one subject which filled his mind and his heart alike. I tried to explain to the old lady how I had fully appreciated his good qualities and noble impulses, finding it, however, impossible to fall in with his peculiar views of society and to promise, as he insisted I should do, to forsake all I loved for the purpose of living with him in loneliness and complete retirement. I told her, also, that when he sent for me to see him in his last moments, my friends prevented my going, and that I felt myself that the sight of his death under such circumstances would have been dangerous in the extreme to my peace of mind, besides being utterly useless to the dying man. She admitted the force of my reasoning, but repeated that my refusal had hastened his end and deprived him at the last moment of all self-control. In this state of mind, when a few minutes before eleven, the servant had entered and assured him in answer to his passionate inquiry, that no one had come, he had exclaimed: 'The heartless woman! She shall gain nothing by her cruelty, for I will pursue her after death as I have pursued her during life!' and with these words on his lips he had expired."
The impression produced by this thoroughly authenticated recital is a strong argument in favor of a continued connection after death of the human soul with the world in which we live. There was a man whose whole existence was absorbed by one great and all-pervading passion; it brought ruin to his body and disabled his mind from correcting the vagaries of his fancy. He died in this state, with a sense of grievous wrong and intense thirst of revenge uppermost in his mind. Then follow a number of magic phenomena, witnessed, for several years, by thousands of attached friends and curious observers, defying the vigilance of soldiers and the acuteness of police agents. These disturbances, at first bearing the stamp of willful annoyance, gradually assume a milder form, as if expressive of softening indignation; they become weaker and less frequent, and finally cease altogether, suggestive of the peace which the poor erring soul had at last found, by infinite mercy and goodness, when safely entering the desired haven.