THE CONVULSIONISTS OF ST. MÉDARD
Of all the mental epidemics that have visited Europe, beyond question the most remarkable, and in some of its features the most inexplicable, is that which prevailed in Paris some hundred and thirty years ago, among what were called the Convulsionists of St. Médard.
The celebrated Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, during his life the opponent and enemy of the Jesuits, whom he caused to be excluded from the theological schools of Louvain, left behind him, at his death, a treatise, posthumously published in 1640, entitled, "Augustinus," in which he professed to set forth the true opinions of St. Augustine on those century-long disputed questions of Grace, Free-Will, and Predestination. Taking ground against the Molinists, he contended for the doctrine of Predestination antecedent and absolute, a gift purely gratuitous, of God's free grace, independent of any virtue or merit in the recipient soul. This doctrine, set forth in five propositions, was condemned, in the middle of the seventeenth century, by Popes Innocent X. and Alexander VII.; and against it, when revived by Father Quesnel in the beginning of the eighteenth century, there was fulminated, in 1713, by Pope Clement XI., the famous Bull Unigenitus.
From this Bull, accepted in France after long opposition, the Jansenist party appealed to a future Papal Council, thence deriving their name of Appellants. Among these, one of the most noted and zealous was the Diacre Pâris, who refused a curacy, to avoid signing his adhesion to what he regarded as heresy, consumed his fortune in works of charity, and his health in austerities of a character so excessive that they abridged his life. Dying, as his partisans have it, in the odor of sanctity, and protesting with his last breath against the doctrines of the obnoxious Bull, his remains were deposited, on the second of May, 1727, in the small church-yard of St. Médard, situated in the twelfth arrondissement of Paris, on the Rue Mouffetard, not far from the Jardin des Plantes.
To the tomb of one whom they regarded as a martyr to their cause the Jansenist Appellants habitually resorted, in all the fervor of religious zeal, heated to enthusiasm by the persecution of the dominant party. And there, after a time, phenomena presented themselves, which caused for years, throughout the French capital and among the theologians of that age, a fever of excitement; and which, though they have been noticed by medical and other writers of our own century, have not yet, in my judgment, attracted, either from the medical profession or from the pneumatological inquirer, the attention they deserve.
Of these phenomena a portion were physical, and a portion were mental or psychological. The former, first appearing in the early part of the year 1731, consisted (as alleged) partly of extraordinary cures, the apparent result of violent convulsive movements which overtook the patients soon after their bodies touched the marble of the tomb, sometimes even without approaching it, by swallowing, in wine or water, a small portion of the earth gathered from around it, the effect being heightened by strict fasting and prayer,—partly of what were called the "Grands Secours," literally "Great Succors," consisting of the most desperate, one might say murderous, remedies, applied, at their urgent request, to relieve the sufferings of the Convulsionists. These measures, called of relief, and carried to an incredible excess, were of such a character, that, during any normal state of the human system, they would have destroyed, not one, but a hundred lives, if the patient, or victim, had been endowed with so many. Those who regarded this marvellous immunity from what seemed certain immolation as a miraculous interposition of God were called Succorists; their opponents, ascribing such effects to the interference of the Devil in protection of his own, or (a somewhat rare opinion in those days) to natural agency, went by the name of Anti-Succorists. (Secouristes and Anti-Secouristes.)
Some of these alleged cures, but more especially some of these so-called succors, were of a nature so far passing belief, that one would be tempted to cast them aside as sheer impostures, were not the main facts vouched for by evidence, not from the Jansenists alone, but from their bitterest opponents, so direct, so overwhelmingly multiplied, so minutely circumstantial, that to reject it would amount to a virtual declaration, that, in proof of the extraordinary and the improbable, we will accept no testimony whatever, let its weight or character be what it may. Accordingly, we find dispassionate modern writers, medical and others, while reminding us, as well they may, that enlightened observers of these strange phenomena were lacking,[3] and while properly suggesting that we ought to make allowance for exaggeration in some of the details, yet admitting as incontestable realities the substantial facts related by the historians of St. Médard.
Among these historians the chief is Carré de Montgéron, a magistrate of rank and high character, Counsellor of the Parliament of Paris. An enthusiast, and a weak logician, as hot enthusiasts generally are, Montgéron's honesty is admitted to be beyond question. Converted to Jansenism on the seventh of September, 1731, in the church-yard of St. Médard, by the strange scenes there passing, he expended his fortune, sacrificed his liberty, and devoted years of his life, in the preparation and publication of one of the most extraordinary works that ever issued from the press.[4] It consists of three quarto volumes, of some nine hundred closely printed pages each. Crowded with repetitions, and teeming with false reasoning, these volumes nevertheless contain, backed by certificates without number, such an elaborate aggregation of concurrent testimony as I think human industry never before brought together to prove any contested class of phenomena.
Not less zealous, if less voluminous, were the writers opposed to what was called "the work of the convulsions." Of these one of the chief was Dom La Taste, Bishop of Bethléem, author of the "Lettres Théologiques," and of the "Mémoire Théologique," in both of which the extravagances of the Convulsionists are severely handled; a second was the Abbé d'Asfeld, who, in 1738, published his "Vains Efforts des Discernans," in the same strain; and another, M. Poncet, who put forth an elaborate reply to the Succorists, entitled "Réponse des Anti-Secouristes à la Réclamation."