The Convulsive of Saint-Médard
PARISIAN SOCIETY, JULY 15th, 1859
News – Francois Paris, a famous deacon of Pâris, deceased in 1727 at
the age of thirty-seven, was the eldest son of a Parliament Counselor.
He should have naturally succeeded his father in that position but he preferred
the ecclesiastic career. After his father’s death he left all assets to his
brother. For some time he taught catechism at St. Cosmos Parish; he took
over the direction of the clergy, giving them conferences. Cardinal Noailles,
to whom he was bonded, wanted to nominate him as Curate of that Pâris,
but an unforeseen obstacle came up. Father Pâris was entirely dedicated to
seclusion. After having experienced several hermitages he secluded himself
at a house in the neighborhood of St. Marcel. He gave himself totally to the
prayers, to the most rigorous penitence and manual labor. He made socks to
the poor who he considered his brothers. He died in that asylum.
Father Pâris had adhered to the Unigenitus bull, interposed by the
four bishops. He had renovated his appeal in 1720. The opposing parties should then diversely describe it. As he had to make socks, the books
he produced were mediocre. Those books gave explanations of St. Paul’s
Epistles to the Romans, to the Galatians and an analysis of the epistle to
the Hebrews that few people read.
His brother erected a tomb to him in the small cemetery of SaintMédard,
where the poor who were helped by the pious deacon went to
pray, and some rich people who he had helped to elevate and some women
who he had educated. There were healings seemingly miraculous and
convulsions that were considered dangerous and ridiculous.
The local authority felt obliged to stop that spectacle, determining the
closure of the cemetery on January 27th, 1732. The same enthusiasts then
carried out their convulsions in private houses. In the opinion of a large
number of people the tomb of Deacon Pâris was the tomb of Jansenism.
Some people, however, saw the hand of God in all that and associated
even more to a sect that produced such wonders. There are many stories
about that Deacon, which nobody would have heard from if they did
not want to transform him into a thaumaturge. Below some among the
strange phenomena presented by the Convulsive of Saint-Médard:
The faculty of withstanding huge blows that human bodies
should be smashed by;
That of speaking unknown languages or forgotten by them;
The faculty of an extraordinary development of the intelligence.
The most ignorant among them improvised speeches about the
grace, the evils of church, the end of the world, etc.;
The faculty of reading the mind;
Once in touch with the diseased, they experienced the pains exactly
in the same places where the sick persons felt them. It was
very frequent to hear them predicting several abnormal phenomena
that should follow up the development of the diseases.
The physical insensitivity produced by the ecstasy gave place to atrocious
scenes. Madness came to the point of crucifying the unfortunate victims; of making they feel every detail of the Passion of Christ. Those
victims – the fact is attested by the most authentic witnesses – demanded
terrible tortures, designated among the convulsive by the name of great
help.
The cure of the sick took place by the simple touch of the tomb
or the dust spread around which was taken with any drink or directly
applied onto the ulcers. Those cures, in large number, are attested by
thousands of witnesses, many of whom are people of Science who were
actually incredulous, registering the fact but not knowing what to attribute
them to.
Pauline Roland
1. Evocation of Deacon Pâris
- I am at your service.
2. What is your current state as spirit?
- I am errant and happy.
3. Have you had another corporeal existence after that one we know?
- No. I am constantly busy in doing the good to human beings.
4. What was the cause of the strange phenomena that took place
with the visitors to your tomb?
- Intrigue and magnetism.
OBSERVATION: Among the observed faculties of the convulsive
some are easily recognized as of magnetism and somnambulism,
from which there is large number of examples. These are, among
others: the physical insensitivity, the perception of thoughts, the
sympathetic transmission of pain, etc. Thus, there is no doubt
that the convulsive were under a kind of awake somnambulistic
state, provoked by the influence mutually and unknowingly exerted
on one another. They were simultaneously magnetizers and
magnetized.
5. Why has a whole population been suddenly endowed by such
strange faculties?
- They communicate very easily in certain cases, and you are
no stranger to the faculties of the spirits so that you don’t understand
that they had a great participation into all that, by
sympathy to those who provoked it.
6. Have you participated directly, as a spirit?
- Not even in the slightest.
7. Did other spirits participate?
- Many.
8. What was their nature, in general?
- Not very elevated.
9. Why have those cures and phenomena stopped when the local authorities
opposed, closing the cemetery? Had the authorities more
power than the spirits then?
- God wanted to stop that since it had degenerated into abuse
and scandal. The means employed by God to stop it was
men’s authority.
10. Since you have not taken part into those cures, why have they
preferred your tomb to any other?
- Do you think that I was consulted? They chose my tomb
knowingly. They exploited first my religious beliefs and then
the little good I had tried to do.
