the fashionable study in paris at this time, and that which engrossed most of those who had no business to attend to, was mesmerism—a mysterious science, badly defined by its discoverers, who did not wish to render it too plain to the eyes of the people. dr. mesmer, who had given to it his own name, was then in paris, as we have already heard from marie antoinette.
this doctor mesmer deserves a few words from us, as his name was then in all mouths.
he had brought this science from germany, the land of mysteries, in 1777. he had previously made his début there, by a theory on the influence of the planets. he had endeavored to establish that these celestial bodies, through the same power by which they attract each other, exercised an influence over living bodies, and particularly over the nervous system, by means of a subtle fluid with which the air is impregnated. but this first theory was too abstract: one must, to understand it, be initiated into all the sciences of galileo or newton; and it would have been necessary, for this to have become popular, that the nobility should have been transformed into a body of savants. he therefore abandoned this system, and took up that of the loadstone, which was then attracting great attention, people fancying that this wonderful power was efficacious in curing illnesses.
unhappily for him, however, he found a rival in this already established in vienna; therefore he once more announced that he abandoned mineral magnetism, and intended to effect his cures through animal magnetism.
this, although a new name, was not in reality a new science; it was as old as the greeks and egyptians, and had been preserved in traditions, and revived every now and then by the sorcerers of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, many of whom had paid for their knowledge with their lives. urbain grandier was nothing but an animal magnetizer; and joseph balsamo we have seen practising it. mesmer only condensed this knowledge into a science, and gave it a name. he then communicated his system to the scientific academies of paris, london, and berlin. the two first did not answer him, and the third said that he was mad. he came to france, and took out of the hands of dr. storck, and of the oculist wenzel, a young girl seventeen years old, who had a complaint of the liver and gutta serena, and after three months of his treatment, restored her health and her sight.
this cure convinced many people, and among them a doctor called deslon, who, from his enemy, became his pupil. from this time his reputation gradually increased; the academy declared itself against him, but the court for him. at last the government offered him, in the king’s name, an income for life of twenty thousand francs to give lectures in public, and ten thousand more to instruct three persons, who should be chosen by them, in his system.
mesmer, however, indignant at the royal parsimony, refused, and set out for the spa waters with one of his patients; but while he was gone, deslon, his pupil, possessor of the secret which he had refused to sell for thirty thousand francs a year, opened a public establishment for the treatment of patients. mesmer was furious, and exhausted himself in complaints and menaces. one of his patients, however, m. de bergasse, conceived the idea of forming a company. they raised a capital of 340,000 francs, on the condition that the secret should be revealed to the shareholders. it was a fortunate time: the people, having no great public events to interest them, entered eagerly into every new amusement and occupation; and this mysterious theory possessed no little attraction, professing, as it did, to cure invalids, restore mind to the fools, and amuse the wise.
everywhere mesmer was talked of. what had he done? on whom had he performed these miracles? to what great lord had he restored sight? to what lady worn out with dissipation had he renovated the nerves? to what young girl had he shown the future in a magnetic trance? the future! that word of ever-entrancing interest and curiosity.
voltaire was dead; there was no one left to make france laugh, except perhaps beaumarchais, who was still more bitter than his master; rousseau was dead, and with him the sect of religious philosophers. war had generally occupied strongly the minds of the french people, but now the only war in which they were engaged was in america, where the people fought for what they called independence, and what the french called liberty; and even this distant war in another land, and affecting another people, was on the point of termination. therefore they felt more interest just now in m. mesmer, who was near, than in washington or lord cornwallis, who were so far off. mesmer’s only rival in the public interest was st. martin, the professor of spiritualism, as mesmer was of materialism, and who professed to cure souls, as he did bodies.
imagine an atheist with a religion more attractive than religion itself; a republican full of politeness and interest for kings; a gentleman of the privileged classes tender and solicitous for the people, endowed with the most startling eloquence, attacking all the received religions of the earth.
imagine epicurus in white powder, embroidered coat, and silk stockings, not content with endeavoring to overturn a religion in which he did not believe, but also attacking all existing governments, and promulgating the theory that all men are equal, or, to use his own words, that all intelligent beings are kings.
imagine the effect of all this in society as it then was, without fixed principles or steady guides, and how it was all assisting to light the fire with which france not long after began to consume herself.
