FRANÇOIS SIMON LOUVET (OF LE HAVRE)
The following communication was given spontaneously at a spiritist meeting, at Le Havre, on February 12th:
“Have pity on a poor wretch who has so long been suffering such terrible tortures! Oh! Emptiness...space...I am falling! I am falling! Help me!... My God, my life was so miserable! I was very poor; I was so often hungry in my old age; it was for that, that I took to drinking, and so grew ashamed and sick of my life... I wanted to die, and I threw myself...Oh, my God! what a moment! Why could I not have waited a little longer, since I was so near the end of my days? Pray for me, that I may not always have this dreadful void underneath me! I shall be dashed to pieces on the stones!...I beseech you, help me, you who know the horrors that are suffered by those who are no longer on the Earth; I address myself to you although you do not know me, because I suffer so much...Why ask me for proofs? I am wretched, is not that enough? If I were hungry, instead of having to bear this horrible misery, so much more terrible, though invisible for you, you would not hesitate to relieve me by giving me a morsel of bread. I ask you to pray for me...I cannot stay any longer...Ask the happy ones who are here, and you will know whom I was. Pray for me.”
FRANÇOIS SIMON LOUVET
(The Medium’s Guide). – He, who has just communicated to you, my child, is a poor wretch who had to undergo the trial of poverty upon the Earth; but he took disgust to life; his courage failed him, and the unfortunate creature, instead of looking upwards as he should have done, gave himself up to drunkenness. Having reached the lowest depth of despair, he put an end to his ill-borne trial by throwing himself from the Tower of Francis the First, on July 22nd, 1857. Take pity on his miserable soul, that has advanced but little, but that has acquired, nevertheless, sufficient knowledge of the future life to suffer and to desire a new trial. Pray to God that this favor may be granted him, and you will do a good deed.
Researches having been made, there was found, in the Journal du Havre of July 23rd, 1857, an article of which the substance was as follows: –
“Yesterday, at 4 p.m., the persons on the pier were painfully affected by a frightful incident; an individual threw himself from the Tower and was dashed to pieces on the stones. It was an old hauler, whose habits of drunkenness had led him to commit suicide. His name is Francois Simon Louvet. His body was carried to the house of one of his daughters, in the Rue de la Corderie; he was sixty-seven years of age.”
This man, who had been dead for six years, still saw himself falling from the Tower and being dashed to pieces on the stones. He was terrified at the void beneath him; he shuddered at the shock that was awaiting him...and, all this, for six weary years! How much longer will his agony continue? He knows not; and this uncertainty increases his anguish. Is not this state as horrible as Hell and its flames? Who has revealed these punishments? Have they been invented by human imagination? No; it is they who are enduring them who come and describe them, as others come and describe their joys. And they often do this spontaneously, without anyone having thought of them, which exclude all idea of their narratives being due to the fancy of the medium.
