Mrs. Widow Foulon
The journal Siècle on February 13th, 1865 in the necrology section, published the following note reproduced by the Havre and the Antibes:
“A well liked and appreciated artist in the Havre, Mrs. Widow Foulon, a skillful miniaturist, died on February 3rd in Antibes where she had gone looking for the recovery of her health, altered by work and age, in a more pleasant climate.”
Since we personally knew Mrs. Foulon and enjoyed her friendship we feel happy to complete the very short notice above. It is a duty of friendship and a deserved tribute payed to her unknown virtues and a healthy example to everyone, and to the Spiritists in particular, that will find precious teachings here.
As an artist, Mrs. Foulon was remarkably talented. Her works, fairly appreciated in many exhibitions, were granted multiple honorofic rewards. It is certainly a merit but that is not exception. What actually made her loved and esteemed, what turns her memory dear to all of those that knew her, is the kindness of her character; her private qualities whose reach could only be apprecitated by those that shared her private life because as with all those that have an inate feeling of good, she did not exhibited them and not even was suspicious of them. If there was someone that had no influence of pride that was undoubtedly her. The feeling of personal abnegation had not perhaps ever gone so far as with her. She was always ready to sacrifice her rest, her health and her interests for those that could benefit from her help; her life was not but a long series of dedications as it was, since her youth, a long series of tough and painful trials bedore which her courage, resignation and perseverance have never failed her.
Her talent was the only thing left by the setbacks of life and it was the the brushes that she raised a large family, ensuring an honorable position to all children through her teachings and paintings. Only by knowing her private life one can realize everything that she had to endure in fatigues and deprivations, all difficulties against which she had to fight to reach her objective. But ah! Her sight, worn out by the demanding work of miniatures, was fading away on a daily basis; still sometime more and her already advanced blindness would have been complete.
When Mrs. Foulon learned about the Spiritist Doctrine some years ago, it was like a beam of light to her. She felt like having a veil lifted up from something that was not unknown to ther but that she only had a vague intuition about.
She then studied it with eargerness but at the same time with that lucidity of Spirit and fairness of appreciation that was peculiar to her elevated intelligence. It is necessary to get to know the perplexities of her life, perplexities that instead of affecting her always affected the loved ones, to understand all the consolations that she obtained from this sublime revelation that gave her an umbreakable faith in the future, and showed her the insignificance of the earthly things.
Without the respect due to the intimate things, great teachings would come out of the last period of this life so fruitful in emotions! So the assistance of good spirits did not fail her; the instructions and teachings which they were pleased to bring to this honorable soul form the most edifying collection, but very private, of which we are pleased to have been the provocative agent more than once. Her death was also worthy of her life. She saw the moment approaching without any painful apprehension: to her it was the deliverance of the terrestrial bonds which was to open to her the blessed spiritual life with which she had identified herself by the study of Spiritism.
She died calmly because she was mindful of having accomplished her mission, a mission that she accepted before coming to Earth; of having scrupulously done her duties of wife and mother because also during her life she had abjured every resentiment against those that she could have hard feelings and that had payed her with ungratefulness. She always payed bad with good and left her life with everybody forgiven, delivering herself to the justice and goodness of God. Finally, she died with the serenity that is given by a pure conscience and the certainty of being less separated from her children than during her material life since from now on she could be with them in Spirit in any point of the globe where they could be; help them with her advices and extend her protection to them. Now, what is her fate in the world where she is now? The Spiritists present that already. Let us allow her to report her impressions.
As before, she died on February 3rd. We received the news on the 6th and our first wish was to communicate with her, if possible. At the time we were experiencing a serious illness what explains some of her words. It is important to mention that the medium did not know her and knew nothing about the particularities of her life, of which she speaks spontaneously. Here her first communication on February 6th:
February 6th, 1865 – medium Mrs. Cazemajour
“I was certain that you would like to evoke me just after my passing and therefore I was ready to respond to you since I did not experience disturbance. It is only those that have fear that are involved in its thick darkness. Then, my friend, I am happy now. These poor weakened eyes that only left me with the memory of prisms that had colored my youth with their changing shine, have now opened and found again the splendid horizons that some of your artists idealize in their vague reproductions, but whose majestic and strict reality, and yet full of enchantment, is marked by the most thorough reality. I have been dead for three days only and I feel that I am an artist. My aspirations towards the ideal of beauty in art were not but the intuition of a faculty that I had studied and acquired on other existences, and that developed on the last one. However, what can I do to reproduce a masterpiece worthy of the great scene that impresses the Spirit when arrives at the region of light? Brushes! Brushes! And I will prove to the world that the Spiritst art is the crowning of the Pagan art, of the endangered Christian art that is reserved to the glory of making it revive in its full shine in yor disowned world. Done with the artist. It is time for the friend.
Why, my dear friend (Mrs. Allan Kardec) to suffer so much for my death? Particularly you that know the deceptions and bitterness of my life, you must, on the contrary, rejoice for seeing that I no longer have to drink from the bitter chalice of the earthly pains, a chalice that I drank to the end. Believe me, the dead are happier than the living ones and crying for them is to doubt the truth of Spiritism. Rest assured that you will see me again; I left first because my task was over down here; each one has their own to carry out on Earth and when yours is over you shall come to rest a bit by my side, to restart again if necessary considering that idleness is not part of nature. Each one carries their own tendencies and bows before them; it is a supreme law that demonstrates the power of free-will. Therefore, good friend, indulgence and charity that all of us need mutually be it in the visible as well as in the invisible world. With such a banner everything is alright. Do not ask me to stop talking. Know this, it is the first time I speak! I leave you there.
It is now time for my excellent friend Mr. Kardec. I want to thank him for the kind words that he was so good to address to the friend that preceded him in the tomb, because we did not depart together to the world where I am, my good friend (we had fallen sick on January 31st). What would you have told the beloved companion of your days if the Spirits had not followed a good order on this? She would then have groaned and cried! I understand it, but it is also necessary that you watch him so that he is not exposed to the danger again before finishing the work of Spiritist initiation, without which you take the risk of arriving to our place too early, and like Moses only see the Promised Land from far away. Therefore, remain on guard. It is a friend that advises.
I must go now. I return to my dear children; I will then check, beyond the oceans, if my traveling sheep has finally gotten to the port or if she is a toy to the storms. May the good Spirits protect her! I will join them for that. I will come back to talk to you because I am an untiring speaker. You remember that. So long, good and dear friends. So long.”
Widow Foulon
Observation: Her traveling sheep is one of her daughters, residing in America, and that had just gone through a long and painful journey. Death is only feared by the uncertainty about what happens at that supreme moment and of what is coming next and beyond. The vague belief in future life is not always enough to appease the apprehension of the unknown. Every communication that aims at our initiation in the details and the impressions of the passage tend to mitigate that fear as they gradually make us familiar and identify us with the transition that takes place in us. From that point of view the communication from Mrs. Foulon and Dr. Demeure, that come later, are eminently instructive. The condition of the Spirits after death is essentially variable, according to the diversity of aptitudes, skills and character of each one. Hence, it is through the multiplicity of examples that one may come to understand the real state in the invisible world.
February 8th, 1865
Spontaneous: Here I am among you, sooner than you thought and very happy to see you again, particularly now that you are better and that you will be soon completely recovered, I hope. But I want you to ask me the questions that are of your interest because then I can respond better. Without that there is the risk that I will speak too much and it is necessary that we speak of truly serious things. Isn’t that the case my good Spiritist teacher?
Q. – Dear Mrs. Foulon, I was very happy with the communication you gave the other day with the promise to continue our conversations. I recognized you perfectly well in the communication. You spoke of things that are unknown to the medium and that could only have come from you. Besides, your kind language towards us is very characteristic of your loving soul, but there is in your language a security, a straightness, a firmness that I ignored when you were alive. You know that I allowed myself more than one reprimand in some cases. A. – It is true but since I saw myself seriously ill I recoved the fimness of Spirit, lost by the griefs and vicissitudes that sometimes made me fearful in life. I said to myself: You are Spirit. Forget Earth and prepare yourself to the transformation of your being and see through your thouhgts the luminous path that your soul must follow when you leave the body, and that shall lead you happy and free to the celestial spheres that you shall henceforth inhabit. You will say that it was a bit presumptuous on my side to count on a perfect happiness on leaving Earth but I had suffered so much that I must have atoned my faults from this life and from the preceding ones. Such intuition had not deceived me and it was that intuition that gave me courage, calmness and determination in my last moments. Such determination naturally increased when I saw my hopes come true after my passing.
Q. – Can you describe to us now your passage, awakening and first impressions? A. – I did suffer but my Spirit was stronger than the material suffering caused by the detachment. After the supreme breath I found myself like the syncope patient, unconscious, thinking of nothing, and in a vague sleepiness that wasn’t either the sleepness of the body or the wakening of the soul. I remained like that for a long time. Then, as if coming out of a long faint, I slowly woke up among brothers that were unknown to me. They were all care and kindness towards me; they showed me a point in space that looked like a shiny star and said: “there is the place you are going with us since you no longer belong to Earth.” I then recovered my memory, leaned on them and like a graceful group that shoots towards unknown stars, but certain to find happiness there, we climbed, climbed and the star grew before us: it was a happy world, a superior world where your friend will finally fint rest. I mean rest with respect to the physical fatigues that I endured and the vicissitudes of earthly life but not the indolence of the Spirit because the activity of the Spirit is a pleasure.
Q. – Have you left Earth definitely? A. – I leave here many creatures that are dear to me to leave it definitely. As a Spirit I will then return here because I have a mission to accomplish together with my grandchildren. As a matter of fact you must know well that there is no obstacle to Spirits that live on superior worlds to come and visit Earth.
Q. – It seems that your current position must weaken the relationships that you left here. A. – No, my friend. Love gets the souls together. Belive me, on Earth it is possible to be closer to those that have reached perfection than to those whose inferiority and egotism cause uproar around the terrestrial sphere. Charity and love are two engines of a powerful attraction. They are the link that bonds the union of souls to one another that remains, in spite of distances and places. There is distance only to material bodies. It does not exist to the Spirits.
Q. – According to what you said in your previous communication about your artistic instincts and about the development of the Spiritist art, I thought that you would be one of its main interpreters in a new existence. A. – No. It is like a guide and protector Spirit that I must give the world demonstrations of the possibility of producing masterpieces in the Spiritist art. Children will be painting mediums, and in an age when only fuzzy sketches are produced, they will paint but not things from Earth, they will paint things from worlds where art has reached its full perfection.
Q. – What is your idea now about my works with Spiritism? A. – I think you have the work of souls and that the burden is difficult to carry but I see the objective and know that you will reach it. If possible I will help you out with my advices so that you can overcome the difficulties that will come, by the way inducing you to take some adequate measures to activate, in life, the renovating movement enticed by Spiritism. Your friend, Demeure, together with the Spirit of Truth, will give you an even more useful help. He is wiser and more serious than I am but since I know that the assistance of the good Spirits strengthen you and sustain your work, believe me that you can always and everywhere count on my help.
Q. – Could we conclude from some of your words that you will not give me a personal and very active cooperation to the works of Spiritism? A. – You are mistaken. But I see so many Spirits more capable than me to handle such important question that an invencible feeling of shyness precludes me from responding to you at this time, according to your wishes. It might come. I shall have more courage and wisdom but I need to get to know them better. I died less than four days ago and still am baffled by the dazzling surroundings. Would you understand, my friend? I cannot express the new sensations that I feel. I had to force myself to set aside the fascination that the admirable wonders exert on me. I can only praise and worship God in his works. But that will pass. The Spirits assure me that soon I will be used to all these magnificences and that I will be able to handle all questions related to the earthly renovation with my lucidity of Spirit. Besides all that, keep in mind that I have a family to reassure. Enthusiams has invaded my soul and I hope that it mitigates a bit to be able to handle serious Spiritism with you and not a poetic Spiritism, something that is not good to mankind since they would not understand it.
Good-bye, so long,
From your good friend that loves you and will always love you, my teacher, for she owes you the only lasting and true consolation she had on Earth.
Widow Foulon
Observation: Every serious and enlightened Spiritist will easily find the teachings that stick out from these communications. We will then call your attention to two points only. The first one is the fact that this example shows us the possibility of no longer incarnating on Earth and to move from here to a superior world, without being separated from our loved ones that we left here, because of that. Those that fear reincarnation due to the miseries of life may free themselves from them by doing what is necessary to do, that is, work for their own betterment. The one that does not want to stagnate in inferior layers must instruct oneself and work to move upwards. The second point is the confirmation of this truth: After death we are less separated from those that are dear to us than during life. Just a few days back Mrs. Foulon, restrained by her disease in a little town of the South, only had part of her family by her side. The majority of her children and friends were disperse and far away so that material obstacles precluded them from seeing each other as frequently as they wished. The great distance made even correspondence rare and difficult to some. Just separated from her heavy envelope, she now moves quickly close to each one, transposing distances without fatigue, with the speed of a bolt, she sees them, attend her friendly gatherings, surrounds them with her protection and can, through mediumship, communicate with them any time, as when alive. If we think that some prefer an indefinite separation to this reassuring thought!
Note: It was too late when we received the detailed and interesting necrology published in the Journal du Havre, on Frebruary 10th. Our issue was already composed and complete, ready for publication.
