Inf. v. 5
[3] "Les observateurs éclairés manquaient en 1737 pour suivre la transformation des phénomènes morbides."—Calmeil, De la Folie, Tom. II. p. 317.
[4] La Vérité des Miracles opérés par l'Intercession de M. de Pâris et autres Appellans démontrée; avec des Observations sur le Phénomène des Convulsions, par Carré de Montgéron, Conseiller au Parlement de Paris. 3 vols. 4to. 2d ed. Cologne, 1745.
The first edition, consisting, however, of a single volume only, appeared in 1737, and was presented to the King in person at Versailles, by M. de Montgéron, on the twenty-ninth of July of that year. The work was translated into German and Flemish; and besides several editions which appeared in France, one was published in Germany and two in Holland. It is illustrated with costly engraving.
Though the King (Louis XV.) received M. de Montgéron in an apparently gracious manner, yet, the very night after his reception, as he had himself foreseen, he was arrested and cast into the Bastille. Thence he was transferred from one place of confinement to another; and at the time he was preparing the second edition of his work, he was still (in 1744) a prisoner in the citadel of Valence. (See Advertisement to that edition, note to page vii.) He died in exile at Valence, in 1754.
[5] Voltaire, with his usual wit and irreverence, proposed that the notice, proclaiming the royal command, to be affixed to the gate of the church-yard should read as follows:—
"De part le Roi, défense à Dieu
De faire miracle en ce lieu."
[6] Hecker alleges that "the insanity of the Convusionnaires lasted, without interruption, until the year 1790," that is, for fifty-nine years, and was only interrupted by the excitement of the French Revolution; also, that, in the year 1762, the "Grands Secours" were forbidden by act of the Parliament of Paris.—Epidemics of the Middle Ages, from the German of I.F.C. Hecker, M.D., translated by B.G. Babington, M.D., F.R.S., London, 1846, p. 149.
There were published by Renault, parish, priest at Vaux near Ancerre, two pamphlets against the Succorists,—one entitled "Le Secourisme détruit dans ses Fondemens," in 1759, and the other, "Le Mystère d'Iniquité," as late as 1788,—an evidence that the controversy was kept up for at least half a century.
[7] "A peine l'entrée du tombeau eût elle été fermée, qu'on vit le nombre des Convulsionnaires s'accroître extraordinairement. Les convulsions commencèrent à s'étendre jusqu'à, des personnes qui n'avaient ni maladie ni infirmité corporelle."—Œuvres de Colbert, Tom. II. p. 203. (This is Colbert, Bishop of Montpelier, and nephew of Louis XIV.'s minister.)