The Phantom World Part 22

[307] See the following chapter.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

EXAMINATION OF THE APPARITION OF A PRETENDED SPECTRE.

Business[308] having led the Count d'Alais[309] to Ma.r.s.eilles, a most extraordinary adventure happened to him there: he desired Neure to write to our philosopher (Ga.s.sendi) to know what he thought of it; which he did in these words: the count and countess being come to Ma.r.s.eilles, saw, as they were lying in bed, a luminous spectre; they were both wide awake. In order to be sure that it was not some illusion, they called their valets de chambre; but no sooner had these appeared with their flambeaux, than the spectre disappeared.

They had all the openings and cracks which they found in the chamber stopped up, and then went to bed again; but hardly had the valets de chambre retired than it appeared again.

Its light was less shining than that of the sun; but it was brighter than that of the moon. Sometimes this spectre was of an angular form, sometimes a circle, and sometimes an oval. It was easy to read a letter by the light it gave; it often changed its place, and sometimes appeared on the count's bed. It had, as it were, a kind of little bucklers, above which were characters imprinted. Nevertheless, nothing could be more agreeable to the sight; so that instead of alarming, it gave pleasure. It appeared every night whilst the count stayed at Ma.r.s.eilles. This prince, having once cast his hands upon it, to see if it was not something attached to the bed curtain, the spectre disappeared that night, and reappeared the next.

Ga.s.sendi being consulted upon this circ.u.mstance, replied on the 13th of the same month. He says, in the first place, that he knows not what to think of this vision. He does not deny that this spectre might be sent from G.o.d to tell them something. What renders this idea probable is the great piety of them both, and that this spectre had nothing frightful in it, but quite the contrary. What deserves our attention still more is this, that if G.o.d had sent it, he would have made known why he sent it. G.o.d does not jest; and since it cannot be understood what is to be hoped or feared, followed up or avoided, it is clear that this spectre cannot come from him; otherwise his conduct would be less praiseworthy than that of a father, or a prince, or a worthy, or even a prudent man, who, being informed of somewhat which greatly concerned those in subjection to them, would not content themselves with warning them enigmatically.

If this spectre is anything natural, nothing is more difficult than to discover it, or even to find any conjecture which may explain it.

Although I am well persuaded of my ignorance, I will venture to give my idea. Might it not be advanced that this light has appeared because the eye of the count was internally affected, or because it was so externally? The eye may be so internally in two ways. First, if the eye was affected in the same manner as that of the Emperor Tiberius always was when he awoke in the night and opened his eyes; a light proceeded from them, by means of which he could discern objects in the dark by looking fixedly at them. I have known the same thing happen to a lady of rank. Secondly, if his eyes were disposed in a certain manner, as it happens to myself when I awake: if I open my eyes, they perceive rays of light though there has been none. No one can deny that some flash may dart from our eyes which represents objects to us--which objects are reflected in our eyes, and leave their traces there. It is known that animals which prowl by night have a piercing sight, to enable them to discern their prey and carry it off; that the animal spirit which is in the eye, and which may be shed from it, is of the nature of fire, and consequently lucid. It may happen that the eyes being closed during sleep, this spirit heated by the eyelids becomes inflamed, and sets some faculty in motion, as the imagination.

For, does it not happen that wood of different kinds, and fish bones, produce some light when their heat is excited by putrefaction? Why then may not the heat excited in this confined spirit produce some light? He proves afterwards that imagination alone may do it.

The Count d'Alais having returned to Ma.r.s.eilles, and being lodged in the same apartment, the same spectre appeared to him again. Neure wrote to Ga.s.sendi that they had observed that this spectre penetrated into the chamber by the wainscot; which obliged Ga.s.sendi to write to the count to examine the thing more attentively; and notwithstanding this discovery, he dare not yet decide upon it. He contents himself with encouraging the count, and telling him that if this apparition is from G.o.d, he will not allow him to remain long in expectation, and will soon make known his will to him; and also, if this vision does not come from him, he will not permit it to continue, and will soon discover that it proceeds from a natural cause. Nothing more is said of this spectre any where.

Three years afterwards, the Countess d'Alais avowed ingenuously to the count that she herself had caused this farce to be played by one of her women, because she did not like to reside at Ma.r.s.eilles; that her woman was under the bed, and that she from time to time caused a phosphoric light to appear. The Count d'Alais related this himself to M. Puger of Lyons, who told it, about thirty-five years ago, to M.

Falconet, a medical doctor of the Royal Academy of Belle-Lettres, from whom I learnt it. Ga.s.sendi, when consulted seriously by the count, answered like a man who had no doubt of the truth of this apparition; so true it is that the greater number of these extraordinary facts require to be very carefully examined before any opinion can be pa.s.sed upon them.

Footnotes:

[308] Vie de Ga.s.sendi, tom. i. p. 258.

[309] Alais is a town in Lower Languedoc, the lords of which bear the t.i.tle of prince, since this town has pa.s.sed into the House of Angouleme and De Conty.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

OF SPECTRES WHICH HAUNT HOUSES.

There are several kinds of spectres or ghosts which haunt certain houses, make noises, appear there, and disturb those who live in them: some are sprites, or elves, which divert themselves by troubling the quiet of those who dwell there; others are spectres or ghosts of the dead, who molest the living until they have received sepulture: some of them, as it is said, make the place their purgatory; others show themselves or make themselves heard, because they have been put to death in that place, and ask that their death may be avenged, or that their bodies may be buried. So many stories are related concerning those things that now they are not cared for, and n.o.body will believe any of them. In fact, when these pretended apparitions are thoroughly examined into, it is easy to discover their falsehood and illusion.

Now, it is a tenant who wishes to decry the house in which he resides, to hinder others from coming who would like to take his place; then a band of coiners have taken possession of a dwelling, whose interest it is to keep their secret from being found out; or a farmer who desires to retain his farm, and wishes to prevent others from coming to offer more for it; in this place it will be cats or owls, or even rats, which by making a noise frighten the master and domestics, as it happened some years ago at Mosheim, where large rats amused themselves in the night by moving and setting in motion the machines with which the women bruise hemp and flax. An honest man who related it to me, desiring to behold the thing nearer, mounted up to the garret armed with two pistols, with his servant armed in the same manner. After a moment of silence, they saw the rats begin their game; they let fire upon them, killed two, and dispersed the rest. The circ.u.mstance was reported in the country and served as an excellent joke.

I am about to relate some of these spectral apparitions upon which the reader will p.r.o.nounce judgment for himself. Pliny[310] the younger says that there was a very handsome mansion at Athens which was forsaken on account of a spectre which haunted it. The philosopher Athenodorus, having arrived in the city, and seeing a board which informed the public that this house was to be sold at a very low price, bought it and went to sleep there with his people. As he was busy reading and writing during the night, he heard on a sudden a great noise, as if of chains being dragged along, and perceived at the same time something like a frightful old man loaded with iron chains, who drew near to him. Athenodorus continuing to write, the spectre made him a sign to follow him; the philosopher in his turn made signs to him to wait, and continued to write; at last he took his light and followed the spectre, who conducted him into the court of the house, then sank into the ground and disappeared.

Athenodorus, without being frightened, tore up some of the gra.s.s to mark the spot, and on leaving it, went to rest in his room. The next day he informed the magistrates of what had happened; they came to the house and searched the spot he designated, and there found the bones of a human body loaded with chains. They caused him to be properly buried, and the dwelling house remained quiet.

Lucian[311] relates a very similar story. There was, says he, a house at Corinth which had belonged to one Eubatides, in the quarter named Cranaus: a man named Arignotes undertook to pa.s.s the night there, without troubling himself about a spectre which was said to haunt it.

He furnished himself with certain magic books of the Egyptians to conjure the spectre. Having gone into the house at night with a light, he began to read quietly in the court. The spectre appeared in a little while, taking sometimes the shape of a dog, then that of a bull, and then that of a lion. Arignotes very composedly began to p.r.o.nounce certain magical invocations, which he read in his books, and by their power forced the spectre into a corner of the court, where he sank into the earth and disappeared.

The next day Arignotes sent for Eubatides, the master of the house, and having had the ground dug up where the phantom had disappeared, they found a skeleton, which they had properly interred, and from that time nothing more was seen or heard.

It is Lucian, that is to say, the man in the world the least credulous concerning things of this kind, who makes Arignotes relate this event.

In the same pa.s.sage he says that Democritus, who believed in neither angels, nor demons, nor spirits, having shut himself up in a tomb without the city of Athens, where he was writing and studying, a party of young men, who wanted to frighten him, covered themselves with black garments, as the dead are represented, and having taken hideous disguises, came in the night, shrieking and jumping around the place where he was; he let them do what they liked, and without at all disturbing himself, coolly told them to have done with their jesting.

I know not if the historian who wrote the life of St. Germain l'Auxerrois[312] had in his eye the stories we have just related, and if he did not wish to ornament the life of the saint by a recital very much like them. The saint traveling one day through his diocese, was obliged to pa.s.s the night with his clerks in a house forsaken long before on account of the spirits which haunted it. The clerk who read to him during the night saw on a sudden a spectre, which alarmed him at first; but having awakened the holy bishop, the latter commanded the spectre in the name of Jesus Christ to declare to him who he was, and what he wanted. The phantom told him that he and his companion had been guilty of several crimes; that having died and been interred in that house, they disturbed those who lodged there until the burial rites should have been accorded them. St. Germain commanded him to point out where their bodies were buried, and the spectre led him thither. The next day he a.s.sembled the people in the neighborhood; they sought amongst the ruins of the building where the brambles had been disturbed, and they found the bones of two men thrown in a heap together, and also loaded with chains; they were buried, prayers were said for them, and they returned no more.

If these men were wretches dead in crime and impenitence, all this can be attributed only to the artifice of the devil, to show the living that the reprobate take pains to procure rest for their bodies by getting them interred, and to their souls by getting them prayed for.

But if these two men were Christians who had expiated their crimes by repentance, and who died in communion with the church, G.o.d might permit them to appear, to ask for clerical sepulture and those prayers which the church is accustomed to say for the repose of defunct persons who die while yet some slight fault remains to be expiated.

Here is a fact of the same kind as those which precede, but which is attended by circ.u.mstances which may render it more credible. It is related by Antonio Torquemada, in his work ent.i.tled _Flores Curiosas_, printed at Salamanca in 1570. He says that a little before his own time, a young man named Vasquez de Ayola, being gone to Bologna with two of his companions to study the law there, and not having found such a lodging in the town as they wished to have, lodged themselves in a large and handsome house, which was abandoned by everybody, because it was haunted by a spectre which frightened away all those who wished to live in it; they laughed at such discourse, and took up their abode there.

At the end of a month, as Ayola was sitting up alone in his chamber, and his companions sleeping quietly in their beds, he heard at a distance a noise as of several chains dragged along upon the ground, and the noise advanced towards him by the great staircase; he recommended himself to G.o.d, made the sign of the cross, took a shield and sword, and having his taper in his hand, he saw the door opened by a terrific spectre that was nothing but bones, but loaded with chains.

Ayola conjured him, and asked him what he wished for; the phantom signed to him to follow, and he did so; but as he went down the stairs, his light blew out; he went back to light it, and then followed the spirit, which led him along a court where there was a well. Ayola feared that he might throw him into it, and stopped short.

The spectre beckoned to him to continue to follow him; they entered the garden, where the phantom disappeared. Ayola tore up some handfuls of gra.s.s upon the spot, and returning to the house, related to his companions what had happened. In the morning he gave notice of this circ.u.mstance to the Princ.i.p.als of Bologna.

They came to reconnoitre the spot, and had it dug up; they found there a fleshless body, but loaded with chains. They inquired who it could be, but nothing certain could be discovered, and the bones were interred with suitable obsequies, and from that time the house was never disquieted by such visits. Torquemada a.s.serts that in his time there were still living at Bologna and in Spain some who had been witnesses of the fact; and that on his return to his own country, Ayola was invested with a high office, and that his son, before this narration was written, was President in a good city of the kingdom (of Spain).

Plautus, still more ancient than either Lucian or Pliny, composed a comedy ent.i.tled "Mostellaria," or "Monstellaria," a name derived from "Monstrum," or "Monstellum," from a monster, a spectre, which was said to appear in a certain house, and which on that account had been deserted. We agree that the foundation of this comedy is only a fable, but we may deduce from it the antiquity of this idea among the Greeks and Romans.

The poet[313] makes this pretended spirit say that, having been a.s.sa.s.sinated about sixty years before by a perfidious comrade who had taken his money, he had been secretly interred in that house; that the G.o.d of Hades would not receive him on the other side of Acheron, as he had died prematurely; for which reason he was obliged to remain in that house of which he had taken possession.

"Haec mihi dedita habitatio; Nam me Acherontem recipere noluit, Quia praemature vita careo."

The pagans, who had the simplicity to believe that the Lamiae and evil spirits disquieted those who dwelt in certain houses and certain rooms, and who slept in certain beds, conjured them by magic verses, and pretended to drive them away by fumigations composed of sulphur and other stinking drugs, and certain herbs mixed with sea water.

Ovid, speaking of Medea, that celebrated magician, says[314]--

"Terque senem flamma, ter aqua, ter sulphure l.u.s.trat."

And elsewhere he adds eggs:--

"Adveniat quae l.u.s.tret a.n.u.s lectumque loc.u.mque, Deferat et tremula sulphur et ova manu."

In addition to this they adduce the instance of the archangel Raphael,[315] who drove away the devil Asmodeus from the chamber of Sarah by the smell of the liver of a fish which he burnt upon the fire. But the instance of Raphael ought not to be placed along with the superst.i.tious ceremonies of magicians, which were laughed at by the pagans themselves; if they had any power, it could only be by the operation of the demon with the permission of G.o.d; whilst what is told of the archangel Raphael is certainly the work of a good spirit, sent by G.o.d to cure Sarah the daughter of Raguel, who was as much distinguished by her piety as the magicians are degraded by their malice and superst.i.tion.

Footnotes:

[310] Plin. junior, Epist. ad Suram. lib. vii. cap. 27.

[311] In Philo pseud. p. 840.

[312] Bolland, 31 Jul. p. 211.

[313] Plaut. Mostell. act. ii. v. 67.