Part 7 (2/2)

Here is one of a young woman who no doubt was struck by lightning in the position in which she was found after the accident. It was during a violent storm on July 16, 1866; she was alone in the house at Saint-Romain-les-Atheux (Loire), and outside the thunder rolled fearfully. When her parents came back from the fields, they found a sad sight. The young woman had been killed by lightning. They found her kneeling in a corner of the room with her head buried in her hands; she had no trace of a wound. Her child of four months, who was in bed in the same room, was only lightly touched.

Quite recently, on May 24, 1904, at Charolles (Saone-et-Loire), a certain Mlle. Moreau, who lived at Lesmes, was waiting for the end of a storm in a grocer's shop where she had been making some purchases.

Several people were gathered round the fireplace. They felt a great movement following a violent clap of thunder. The sensation having pa.s.sed, every one prepared to go. Mlle. Moreau alone remained seated, and did not move. She had been struck by the fluid, which had made a hole under her right ear and come out by the left!

The petrifying action of the electric fluid is so rapid that hors.e.m.e.n who have been struck have remained on horseback and been carried a long way from the place of the accident without being unsaddled.

According to Abbe Richard, towards the end of the eighteenth century, the procurator of the Seminary of Troyes was coming home on horseback when he was struck by lightning. A brother who followed him, not perceiving this, thought that he was asleep when he saw him reeling.

When he tried to awaken him, he found he was dead.

The following observation is very remarkable on account of the special att.i.tudes preserved by the bodies which had been struck:--

A vessel which was at Port Mahon was struck at the time when the crew were dispersed over the yards to furl the sails. Fifteen sailors who were scattered on the bowsprit were killed or burned in the twinkling of an eye. Some were thrown into the water; others, bent dead across the yard-arm, remained in the position they had occupied before the accident.

Often the corpses of people who have been struck have been found either sitting or standing.

At the approach of a storm a vine-dresser was seated under a nut tree which was planted near a hedge: soon afterwards, when it had ceased raining and the thunder was quiet, his two sisters, who had been taking shelter under the hedge, saw him sitting, and called to him to go back to work, but he did not reply; on going up to him, they found him dead.

In 1853, in the neighbourhood of Asti, a priest who was struck while dining remained in his place.

In 1698, a s.h.i.+p was struck at about four o'clock in the morning, not far from Saint-Pierre. At daybreak a sailor was found sitting stone dead at the bow of the s.h.i.+p, with his eyes open and the whole body in such a natural att.i.tude that he seemed to be alive. He had suffered no injury either external or internal.

Dr. Boudin describes a still more surprising case. A woman was struck while she was in the act of plucking a poppy. The body was found standing, only slightly bent and with the flower still in her hand. It is hard to understand how a human body could remain standing, slightly bent, without a support to prevent its falling. This case is a contradiction to all the laws of equilibrium. But with such a fantastic agent as that with which we are dealing, nothing is surprising--we may expect anything. Thus--

On August 2, 1862, lightning struck the entrance pavilion of the Prince Eugene barracks in Paris just when the soldiers were going to bed. All those who were lying down suddenly found themselves standing, and those who were standing were thrown on the ground.

In the preceding examples the victims struck dead are not disfigured by the fulgurant force. They preserve a deceptive appearance of life.

The catastrophe is so sudden that the face has no time to a.s.sume a sad expression. No contraction of the muscles reveals a transition in the pa.s.sage of life and death. The eyes and mouth are open as though in a state of watching. When the colour of the flesh is preserved, the illusion is complete. But when we approach these statues of flesh--so lately animated with vital fire, now mummified by celestial fire--we are surprised on touching them to find that they crumble to ashes.

The garments are intact, the body presents no difference, it keeps the att.i.tude it had at the supreme moment, but it is entirely burnt, consumed. Thus--

At Vic-sur-Aisne (Aisne) in 1838, in the middle of a violent storm, three soldiers took shelter under a lime tree. Lightning struck them all dead at one blow. All the same, they all three remained standing in their original positions as though they had not been touched by the electric fluid: their clothes were intact! After the storm some pa.s.sers-by noticed them, spoke to them without receiving an answer, and went up to touch them, when they fell pulverized into a heap of ashes.

This experience is not unique, and even the ancients remarked that people who were struck crumbled to dust.

Here is a similar case, no less curious--

On June 13, 1893, at Rodez, a shepherd named Desmazes, seeing that a storm was threatening, collected his beasts and drove them quickly towards the farm. When he was just there, he was struck by lightning.

His body, which was completely incinerated, preserved a natural appearance.

It is by this complete incineration and the probable volatilization of the cinders that certain authors explain the sudden disappearance of some of those who have been struck.

Legend attributes the mysterious death of Romulus to a similar cause.

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