The convulsions, commencing in the year 1731, almost immediately assumed an epidemical character, spreading so rapidly that in a few months the affected reached the number of eight hundred. These were to be found not only on the tomb and in the cemetery itself, but in the streets, lanes, and houses adjoining. Many, after returning from the exciting scenes of St. Médard, were seized with convulsions in their own dwellings.
The numbers and the excitement went on increasing, and conversions to Jansenism were counted by thousands; the scenes became daily more extravagant, and the phenomena more extraordinary, until the King, moved either by the representations of physicians or by the remonstrances of Jesuit theologians, caused the cemetery to be closed on the twenty-ninth of January, 1732.[5]
Not for such interdiction, however, did the phenomena, once in progress, intermit. For fifteen years, or longer,[6] the symptoms continued, with more or less violence. Indeed, the number of Convulsionists greatly increased after the cemetery was closed, extending to those who had no ailment or bodily infirmity.[7]
The symptoms, though varying in different individuals, were of one general character, partaking, especially as to the muscular phenomena, of the nature of hysteria, or hystero-catalepsy. The patient, soon after being placed on the revered tomb, or on the ground near it, was commonly attacked by a tumultuous movement of all his members. Contractions exhibited themselves in the neck, shoulders, and principal muscles all over the body. The nervous system became dreadfully excited. The heart beat violently, and the patient, sometimes retaining partial consciousness and suffering extreme pain, could not restrain violent cries. He usually experienced, also, a tingling or pricking sensation in any diseased member. Those who from birth had been afflicted with paralysis, or partial paralysis, of a limb, or one side of the body, felt the convulsions chiefly in that limb or side. The convulsions were often so violent that numerous assistants could scarcely restrain the patient from seriously injuring himself by dashing his body or limbs against the marble.[8]
The Demoiselle Fourcroy, alleged to have been suddenly cured, on the fourteenth of April, 1732, by means of these convulsions, of a confirmed anchylosis, which had deformed her left foot, and which the physicians had pronounced incurable,[9] thus describes, in her deposition, her sensations:—"They caused me to take wine in which was some earth from the tomb of M. de Pâris, and I immediately engaged in prayer, as the commencement of a neuvaine" (that is, a nine-days' act of devotion). "Almost at the same moment I was seized with a great shuddering, and soon after with a violent agitation of the members, which caused my whole body to jerk into the air, and gave me a force I had never before possessed,—so that the united strength of several persons present could scarcely restrain me. After a time, in the course of these violent convulsive movements, I lost all consciousness. As soon as they passed off, I recovered my senses, and felt a sensation of tranquillity and internal peace, such as I had never experienced before."[10]
It was usually at the moment of recovery from these convulsions, as Montgéron alleges and the certificates published by him declare, that the cures deemed by him miraculous were effected. Sometimes, however, these cures were gradual only, extending through several days or weeks.
In Montgéron's work fourteen distinct cures are minutely reported, all of persons declared by the attendant physicians to be incurable. Each of these cures, with the documentary evidence in support of it, occupies from fifty to one hundred pages of his book. The greater number are cases of paralysis, usually of one entire side of the body, in some instances complicated with general dropsy, in others with cancer, in others again with attacks of apoplexy. There are four cases where the eyesight was restored,—one of them of a lachrymal fistula; one of a young Spanish nobleman, who suddenly recovered the use of his right eye, the left, however, remaining uncured; and there is a case in which a young woman, deaf and dumb from birth, is reported to have been suddenly and completely cured on the tomb of M. de Pâris, at the moment the convulsions ceased, immediately repeating, though not understanding, any word that was spoken to her by the bystanders.
My limits do not permit me to follow Montgéron through the details and the documentary proof of these cures. That the patient, in each case, previously examined by some physician of reputation, was pronounced incurable, does not prove that he was so. Yet, unless Montgéron lie, some of the cures are inexplicable, upon any received principles of medical science. One man, (Philippe Sergent,) whose right knee had shrunk to such a degree that the right leg was, and had been for more than a year, three finger-breadths shorter than the left, was, according to the certificates, cured on the spot, threw away his crutches, and walked home, unaided, followed by a wondering crowd. Another patient, (Marguerite Thibault,) affected by general dropsy, and whose feet and legs were swollen to three times their natural size, is reported to have been cured so suddenly that before she left the tomb her servant could put on her feet the same slippers she had worn previously to her malady. This woman had also been afflicted, for three years, with paralysis of the left side, so complete as to deprive it of all power of motion. Yet she is stated to have raised herself, unaided, on the tomb, to have walked from the spot, and even to have ascended the stairs of her house on her return. The symptom immediately preceding her cure is said to have been "a beneficent heat, which diffused itself over the entire left side, so long deadly cold." This was followed by a consciousness of power to move it; and her first effort was to stretch out her paralytic arm.[11]
But these cures, wonderful as they appear, are far less marvellous than another class of phenomena already referred to.
The convulsions were often accompanied by an urgent instinctive desire for certain extreme remedies, sometimes of a frightful character,—as stretching the limbs with a violence similar to that of the rack,—administering on the breast, stomach, or other parts of the body, hundreds of terrible blows with heavy weapons of wood, iron, or stone,—pressing with main force against various parts of the body with sharp-pointed swords,—pressure under enormous weights,—exposure to excessive heat, etc. Montgéron, viewing the whole as miraculous, says,—"God frequently causes the convulsionists the most acute pains, and at the same time intimates to them, by a supernatural instinct, that the formidable succors which He desires that they should demand will cause all their sufferings to cease; and these sufferings usually have a sort of relation to the succors which are to prove a remedy for them. For instance, an oppression on the breast indicates the necessity for blows of extreme violence on that part; an excessive cold, or a devouring heat, when it suddenly seizes a convulsionist, requires that he should be pushed into the midst of flames; a sharp pang, similar to that caused by an iron point piercing the flesh, demands a thrust of a rapier,[12] given in the spot where the pain is felt, be it In the throat, in the mouth, or in the eyes, of which there are numerous examples; and let the rapier be pushed as it may, the point, no matter how sharp, cannot pierce the most tender flesh, not even the eye of the patient: of this, in my third proposition, I shall adduce proof the most incontestable."[13]