Part 15

After a visit or two, I was considered sufficiently advanced to be scientifically examined. One of the very best of the _somnambules_ was employed on the occasion, and every thing being in readiness, she was put to sleep. There was a faithshaking brevity in this process, which, to say the least, if not fraudulent, was ill-judged. The doctor merely pointed his fingers at her once or twice, looking her intently in the eye, and the woman gaped; this success was followed up by a flourish or two of the hand, and the woman slept; or was magnetised. Now this was hardly sufficient even for my theory of the influence of the imagination. One could have wished the _somnambule_ had not been so drowsy. But there she was, with her eyes shut, giving an occasional, hearty gape and the doctor declared her perfectly fit for service. She retained her seat, however, moved her body, laughed, talked, and, in all other respects, seemed to be precisely the woman she was before he pointed his fingers at her. At first, I felt a disposition to manifest that more parade was indispensable to humbugging me (who am not the Pope, you will remember,) but reflection said, the wisest way was to affect a little faith, as the surest means of securing more experiments. Moreover, I am not certain, on the whole, that the simplicity of the operation is not in favour of the sincerity of the parties, for, were deception deliberately planned, it would be apt to call in the aid of more mummery, and this, particularly, in a case in which there was probably a stronger desire than usual to make a convert.

I gave the _somnambule_ my hand, and the examination was commenced, forthwith. I was first physically inspected, and the report was highly favourable to the condition of the animal. I had the satisfaction of hearing from this high authority, that the whole machinery of the mere material man was in perfect order, every thing working well and in its proper place. This was a little contrary to my own experience, it is true, but as I had no means of seeing the interior clockwork of my own frame, like the _somnambule_, had I ventured to raise a doubt, it would have been overturned by the evidence of one who had ocular proofs of what she said, and should, beyond question, have incurred the ridicule of being accounted a _malade imaginaire_.

Modesty must prevent my recording all that this obliging _somnambule_ testified to, on the subject of my _morale_. Her account of the matter was highly satisfactory, and I must have been made of stone, not to credit her and her mysticisms. M. C—— looked at me, again and again, with an air of triumph, as much as to say, “what do you think of all that now; are you not _really_ the noble, honest, virtuous, disinterested, brave creature, she has described you to be?” I can assure you, it required no little self-denial to abstain from becoming a convert to the whole system. As it is very unusual to find a man with a good head, who has not a secret inclination to believe in phrenology, so does he, who is thus purified by the scrutiny of animal magnetism, feel disposed to credit its mysterious influence. Certainly, I might have gaped, in my turn, and commenced the moral and physical dissection of the _somnambule_, whose hand I held, and no one could have given me the lie, for nothing is easier than to speak _ex cathedrâ_, when one has a monopoly of knowledge.

Encouraged by this flattering account of my own condition, I begged hard for some more indisputable evidence of the truth of the theory. I carried a stopwatch, and as I had taken an opportunity to push the stop on entering the room, I was particularly desirous that the _somnambule_ should tell me the time indicated by its hands, a common test of their powers I had been told; but to this M. C—— objected, referring every thing of this tangible nature to future occasions. In fine, I could get nothing during three or four visits, but pretty positive assertions, expressions of wonder that I should affect to doubt what had been so often and so triumphantly proved to others, accounts physical and moral, like the one of which I had been the subject myself, and which did not admit of either confirmation or refutation, and often repeated declarations, that the time was not distant when, in my own unworthy person, I was to become one of the most powerful magnetisers of the age. All this did very well to amuse, but very little towards convincing; and I was finally promised, that at my next visit, the _somnambule_ would be prepared to show her powers, in a way that would not admit of cavil.

I went to the appointed meeting with a good deal of curiosity to learn the issue, and a resolution not to be easily duped. When I presented myself, (I believe it was the fourth visit,) M. C—— gave me a sealed paper, that was not to be opened for several weeks, and which, he said, contained the prediction of an event that was to occur to myself, between the present time and the day set for the opening of the letter, and which the _somnambule_ had been enabled to foresee, in consequence of the interest she took in me and mine. With this sealed revelation, then, I was obliged to depart, to await the allotted hour.

M. C—— had promised to be present at the opening of the seal, but he did not appear. I dealt fairly by him, and the cover was first formally removed, on the evening of the day endorsed on its back, as the one when it would be permitted. The _somnambule_ had foretold that, in the intervening time, one of my children would be seriously ill, that I should magnetise it, and that the child would recover. Nothing of the sort had occurred. No one of the family had been ill, I had not attempted to magnetise any one, or even dreamed of it, and of course, the whole prediction was a complete failure.

To do M. C—— justice, when he heard the result, he manifested surprise rather than any less confident feeling. I was closely questioned, first, as to whether neither of the family had not been ill, and secondly, whether I had not felt a secret desire to magnetise any one of them. To all these interrogatories, truth compelled me to give unqualified negatives. I had hardly thought of the subject during the whole time. As this interview took place at my own house, politeness compelled me to pass the matter off as lightly as possible. There happened to be several ladies present, however, the evening M. C—— called, and, thinking the occasion a good one for him to try his powers on some one besides his regular _somnambules_, I invited him to magnetise any one of the party who might be disposed to submit to the process. To this he made no difficulty, choosing an English female friend as the subject of the experiment. The lady in question raised no objection, and the doctor commenced with great zeal, and with every appearance of faith in his own powers. No effect, however, was produced on this lady, or on one or two more of the party, all of whom obstinately refused even to gape. M. C—— gave the matter up, and soon after took his leave, and thus closed my personal connection with animal magnetism.

If you ask me for the conclusions I have drawn from these facts, I shall be obliged to tell you, that I am in doubt how far the parties concerned deceived others, and how far they deceived themselves. It is difficult to discredit entirely all the testimony that has been adduced in behalf of this power; and one is consequently obliged to refer all the established facts to the influence of the imagination. Then testimony itself is but a precarious thing, different eyes seeing the same objects in very different lights.

Let us take ventriloquism as a parallel case to that of animal magnetism. Ventriloquism is neither more nor less than imitation; and yet, aided by the imagination, perhaps a majority of those who know any thing about it, are inclined to believe there is really such a faculty as that which is vulgarly attributed to ventriloquism. The whole art of the ventriloquist consists in making such sounds as would be produced by a person, or thing, that should be actually in the circumstances that he wishes to represent. Let there be, for instance, five or six sitting around a table, in a room with a single door; a ventriloquist among them, wishes to mislead his companions, by making them believe that another is applying for admission. All he has to do is to make a sound similar to that which a person on the outside would make, in applying for admission. “Open the door, and let me in,” uttered in such a manner, would deceive any one who was not prepared for the experiment, simply because men do not ordinarily make such sounds when sitting near each other, because the words themselves would draw the attention to the door, and because the sounds would be suited to the fictitious application. If there were _two_ doors, the person first moving his head towards one of them, would probably give a direction to the imaginations of all the others; unless, indeed, the ventriloquist himself, by his words, or his own movements, as is usually the case, should assume the _initiative_. Every ventriloquist takes especial care to _direct_ the imagination of his listener to the desired point, either by what he says, by some gesture, or by some movement. Such, undeniably, is the fact in regard to ventriloquism; for we know enough of the philosophy of sound, to be certain it can be nothing else. One of the best ventriloquists of this age, after affecting to resist this explanation of his mystery, candidly admitted to me, on finding that I stuck to the principles of reason, that all his art consisted of no more than a power to control the imagination by imitation, supported occasionally by acting. And, yet I once saw this man literally turn a whole family out of doors, in a storm, by an exercise of his art. On that occasion, so complete was the delusion, that the good people of the house actually fancied sounds which came from the ventriloquist, came from a point considerably beyond the place where they stood, and on the side _opposite_ to that occupied by the speaker, although they stood at the top of a flight of steps, and he stood at the bottom. All this time, the sounds appeared to me to come from the place whence, by the laws of sound, except in cases of reverberation, and of the influence of the imagination, they only could appear to come; or, in other words, from the mouth of the ventriloquist himself. Now, if the imagination can effect so much, even in crowded assemblies, composed of people of all degrees of credulity, intelligence, and strength of mind, and when all are prepared, in part at least, for the delusion, what may it not be expected to produce on minds peculiarly suited to yield to its influence, and this, too, when the prodigy take the captivating form of mysticism and miracles.

In the case of the patient of M. Cloquet, we are reduced to the alternatives of denying the testimony, of believing that recourse was had to drugs, of referring all to the force of the imagination, or of admitting the truth of the doctrine of animal magnetism. The character of M. Cloquet, and the motiveless folly of such a course, compel us to reject the first; the second can hardly be believed, as the patient had not the appearance of being drugged, and the possession of such a secret would be almost as valuable as the art in question itself. The doctrine of animal magnetism we cannot receive, on account of the want of uniformity and exactitude in the experiments, and I think, we are fairly driven to take refuge in the force of the imagination. Before doing this, however, we ought to make considerable allowances for exaggerations, colouring, and the different manner in which men are apt to regard the same thing. My young American friend, who _did_ believe in animal magnetism, viewed several of the facts I have related with eyes more favourable than mine, although even he was compelled to allow that M. C—— had much greater success with himself, than with your humble servant!

LETTER XII. TO RICHARD COOPER, ESQUIRE, COOPERSTOWN.

We entered France in July, 1826, and having remained in and about the French capital, until February, 1828, we thought it time to change the scene. Paris is effectually the centre of Europe, and a residence in it, is the best training an American can have, previously to visiting the other parts of that quarter of the world. Its civilization, usages, and facilities, takes the edge off of our provincial admiration, removes prejudices, and prepares the mind to receive new impressions, with more discrimination and tact. I would advise all our travellers to make this their first stage, and then to visit the north of Europe, before crossing the Alps, or the Pyrenees. Most people, however, hurry into the south, with a view to obtain the best as soon as possible, but it is with this, as in most of our enjoyments, a too eager indulgence defeats its own aim.

We had decided to visit London, where the season, _or winter_, would soon commence. The necessary arrangements were made, and we sent round our cards of p. p. c., and obtained passports. On the very day we were to quit Paris, an American friend wrote me a note to say that a young connexion of his was desirous of going to London, and begged a place for her in my carriage. It is, I believe, a peculiar and a respectable trait, in the national character, that we so seldom hesitate about asking, or acceding to, favours of this sort. Whenever woman is concerned, our own sex yield, and usually without murmuring. At all events, it was so with W——, who cheerfully gave up his seat in the carriage to Miss ——, in order to take one in the _coupé_ of the _diligence_. The notice was so short, and the hour so late, that there was no time to get a passport for him, and, as he was included in mine, I was compelled to run the risk of sending him to the frontiers without one. I was a consul at the time: a titular one, as to duties, but, in reality as much of a consul, as if I had ever visited my consulate.[20] The only official paper I possessed, in connection with the office, the commission and _exequatur_ excepted, was a letter from the _Préfet_ of the Rhone, acknowledging the receipt of the latter. As this was strictly a French document, I gave it to W——, as proof of my identity, accompanied by a brief statement of the reasons why he was without a passport, begging the authorities, at Need, to let him pass as far as the frontier, where I should be in season to prove his character. This statement I signed as consul, instructing W—— to show it, if applied to for a passport, and if the _gensd’armes_ disavowed me, to show the letter, by way of proving who I was. The expedient was clumsy enough, but it was the best that offered.

Footnote 20:

There being so strong a propensity to cavil at American facts, lest this book might fall into European hands, it may be well to explain a little. The consulate of the writer was given to him solely to avoid the appearance of going over to the enemy, during his residence abroad. The situation conferred neither honour nor profit, there being no salary, and, in his case, not fees enough to meet the expense of the office opened by a deputy. The writer suspects he was much too true to the character and principles of his native country, to be voluntarily selected by its government as the object of its honours or rewards, and it is certain he never solicited either. There are favours, it would seem, that are reserved, in America, for those who most serve the interests of her enemies! A day of retribution will come.

This arrangement settled, we got into the carriage and took our leave of Paris. Before quitting the town, however, I drove round to the _rue d’Anjou_, to take my leave of General La Fayette. This illustrious man had been seriously ill, for some weeks, and I had many doubts of my ever seeing him again. He did not conceive himself to be in any danger, however, but spoke of his speedy recovery as a matter of course, and made an engagement with me for the ensuing summer. I bade him adieu, with a melancholy apprehension that I should never see him again.

We drove through the gates of Paris, amid the dreariness of a winter’s evening. You are to understand that every body quits London and Paris just as night sets in. I cannot tell you whether this is caprice, or whether it is a usage that has arisen from a wish to have the day in town, and a desire to relieve the monotony of roads so often travelled, by sleep; but so it is. We did not fall into the fashion, simply because it is a fashion, but the days are so short in February, in these high latitudes, that we could not make our preparations earlier.

I have little agreeable to say concerning the first forty miles of the journey. It rained, and the roads were, as usual, slippery with mud, and full of holes. The old _pavés_ are beginning to give way, however, and we actually got a bit of _terre_ within six posts of Paris. This may be considered a triumph of modern civilization; for, whatever may be said and sung in favour of Appian ways and Roman magnificence, a more cruel invention for travellers and carriage wheels, than these _pavés_, was never invented. A real Paris winter’s day is the most uncomfortable of all weather. If you walk, no device of leather will prevent the moisture from penetrating to your heart; if you ride, it is but an affair of mud and _gras de Paris_. We enjoyed all this until nine at night, by which time we had got enough of it, and in Beauvais, instead of giving the order _à la poste_, the postilion was told to go to an inn. A warm supper and good beds put us all in good humour, again.

In putting into the mouth of Falstaff, the words “shall I not take mine ease, in mine inn,” Shakspeare may have meant no more than the drowsy indolence of a glutton, but they recur to me with peculiar satisfaction, whenever I get unbooted and with a full stomach, before the warm fire of a hotel, after a fatiguing and chilling day’s work. If any man doubt whether Providence has not dealt justly by all of us, in rendering our enjoyments dependent on comparative rather than on positive benefits, let him travel through a dreary day, and take his comfort at night, in a house where every thing is far below his usual habits, and learn to appreciate the truth. The sweetest sleep I have ever had, has been caught on deck, in the middle watch, under a wet pee-jacket, and with a coil of rope for a pillow.

Our next day’s work carried us as far as Abbeville, in Picardy. Here we had a capital supper of game, in a room that set us all shivering with good honest cold. The beds, as usual, were excellent. The country throughout all this part of France is tame and monotonous, with wide reaches of grainlands, that are now brown and dreary, here and there a wood, and the usual villages of dirty stone houses. We passed a few hamlets, however, that were more than commonly rustic and picturesque, and in which the dwellings seemed to be of mud, and were thatched. As they were mostly very irregular in form, the street winding through them quite prettily, they would have been good in their way, had there been any of the simple expedients of taste to relieve their poverty. But the French peasants of this province appear to think of little else but their wants. There was occasionally a venerable and generous old vine, clinging about the door, however, to raise some faint impressions of happiness.

We passed through, or near, the field of Cressy. By the aid of the books, we fancied we could trace the positions of the two armies, but it was little more than very vague conjecture. There was a mead, a breadth of field well adapted to cavalry, and a wood. The river is a mere brook, and could have offered but little protection, or resistance to the passage of any species of troops. I saw no village, and we may not have been within a mile of the real field, after all. Quite likely no one knows where it is. It is very natural that the precise sites of great events should be lost, though our own history is so fresh and full, that to us it is apt to appear extraordinary. In a conversation with a gentleman of the Stanley family, lately, I asked him if Latham-house, so celebrated for its siege in the civil wars, was still in the possession of its ancient proprietors. I was told it no longer existed, and that, until quite recently, its positive site was a disputed point, and one which had only been settled by the discovery of a hole in a rock, in which shot had been cast during the siege, and which hole was known to have formerly been in a court. It is no wonder that doubts exist as to the identity of Homer, or the position of Troy.

We have anglicized the word Cressy, which the French term _Crécy_, or, to give it a true Picard orthography, _Créci_. Most of the names that have this termination are said to be derived from this province. Many of them have become English, and have undergone several changes in the spelling. Tracy, or Tracey; de Courcy, or de Courcey; Montmorency, and Lacy or Lacey, were once _Traci_, _Courci_, _Montmorenci_ and _Laci_.[21] The French get over the disgrace of their ancient defeats, very ingeniously, by asserting that the English armies of old were principally composed of Norman soldiers, and that the chivalrous nobility which performed such wonders were of purely Norman blood. The latter was probably more true than the former.

Footnote 21:

The celebrated Sir William Draper was once present when the subject turned on the descent of families, and the changes that names underwent. “Now my own is a proof of what I say,” he continued, with the intention to put an end to a discourse that was getting to savour of family pride—“my family being directly derived from King Pepin.” “How do you make that out, Sir William?” “By self evident orthographical testimony—as you may see—Pepin, Pipkin, Napkin, Diaper, Draper.”