Besides these gifts, real or alleged, there was occasionally observed, during ecstasy, an extraordinary development of the musical faculty. Montgéron tells us,—"Mademoiselle Dancogné, who, as was well known, had no voice whatever in her natural state, sings in the most perfect manner canticles in an unknown tongue, and that to the admiration of all those who hear her."[38]
As to the general character of these psychological phenomena, the theologians of that day were, with few exceptions, agreed that they were of a supernatural character,—the usual question mooted between them being, whether they were due to a Divine or to a Satanic influence. The medical opponents of the movement sometimes took the ground that the state of ecstasy was allied to delirium or insanity,—and that it was a degraded condition, inasmuch as the patient abandoned the exercise of his free will: an argument similar to that which has been made in our day against somewhat analogous phenomena, by a Bostonian.[39]
In concluding a sketch, in which, though it be necessarily a brief one, I have taken pains to set forth with strict accuracy all the essential features which mark the character of this extraordinary epidemic, it is proper I should state that the opponents of Jansenism concur in bringing against the convulsionists the charge that many of them were not only ignorant and illiterate girls, but persons of bad character, occasionally of notoriously immoral habits; nay, that some of them justified the vicious courses in which they indulged by declaring these to be a representation of a religious tendency, emblematic of that degradation through which the Church must pass, before, recalled by the voice of Elias, it regained its pristine purity.
Montgéron, while admitting that such charges may justly be brought against some of the convulsionists, denies the general truth of the allegation, yet after such a fashion that one sees plainly he considers it necessary, in establishing the character and divine source of the discourses and predictions delivered in the state of ecstasy, to do so without reference to the moral standing of the ecstatics. When one of his opponents (the physician who addressed to him the satirical letter already referred to) ascribes to him the position, that one must decide the divine or diabolical state of a person alleged to be inspired by reference to that person's morals and conduct, he replies,—"God forbid that I should advance so false a proposition!" And he proceeds to argue that the Deity often avails Himself, as a medium for expressing His will, of unworthy subjects. He says,—
"Who does not know that the Holy Spirit, whose divine rays are never stained, let them shine where they will, 'bloweth where it listeth,' and distributes its gifts to whom best it seems, without always causing these to be accompanied by internal virtues? Does not Scripture inform us that God caused miracles to be wrought and great prophecies to be delivered by very vicious persons, as Judas, Caiaphas, Balaam, and others? Jesus Christ himself teaches us that there will be workers of iniquity among the number of those who prophesy and of those who will work miracles in his name, declaring that on the Day of Judgment many will say unto him, 'Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name done many wonderful works?' and that he will reply to them, 'Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.'"
And he proceeds thus:—"If, therefore, all that our enemies allege against the character of the convulsionists were true, it does not follow that God would not employ such persons as the ministers of His miracles and His prophecies, provided, always, that these miracles and these prophecies have a worthy object, and tend to a knowledge of the truth, to the spread of charity, and to the reformation of the morals of mankind."[40]
These accusations of immorality are, probably, greatly exaggerated by the enemies of the Jansenists; yet one may gather, even from the tenor of Montgéron's defence, that there was more or less truth in the charges brought against the conduct of some of the convulsionists, and that the state of ecstasy, whatever its true nature, was by no means confined to persons of good moral character.
Such are the alleged facts, physical and mental, connected with this extraordinary episode in the history of mental epidemics.
On the perusal of such a narrative as the above, the questions which naturally suggest themselves are,—To what extent can we rationally attach credit to it? And, if true, what is the explanation of phenomena apparently so incredible?