Part 128 (1/2)
”Since you know so much about it, why don't you perform your errand yourself? Why do you appeal to a poor man like me who knows not how to express himself?”
Then the unknown replied to Martin:
”It is not I who will go, but you; do as I command you.”
As soon as he had uttered these words, his feet rose from the ground, his body bent, and with this double movement he vanished.
From this time onwards, Martin was haunted by the mysterious being.
One day, having gone down into his cellar, he found him there. On another occasion, during vespers, he saw him in church, near the holy water stoup, in a devout att.i.tude. When the service was over, the unknown accompanied Martin on his way home and again commanded him to go and see the King. The farmer told his relatives who were with him, but neither of them had seen or heard anything.
Tormented by these apparitions, Martin communicated them to his priest, M. La Perruque. He, being certain of the good faith of his paris.h.i.+oner and deeming that the case ought to be submitted to the diocesan authority, sent the visionary to the Bishop of Versailles.
The Bishop was then M. Louis Charrier de la Roche, a priest who in the days of the Revolution had taken the oath to the Republic. He resolved to subject Martin to a thorough examination; and from the first he told him to ask the unknown what was his name, and who it was who sent him.
But when the messenger in the light-coloured frock-coat appeared again, he declared that his name must remain unknown.
”I come,” he added, ”from him who has sent me, and he who has sent me is above me.”
He may have wished to conceal his name; but at least he did not conceal his views; the vexation he displayed on the escape of La Valette[2766] proved that in politics he was an ultra Royalist of the most violent type.
[Footnote 2766: Antoine Marie Chamans, Comte de La Valette (1769-1830), was a French general during the first empire. Having been arrested in 1815 and condemned to death, he was saved by his wife.--W.S.]
Meanwhile the Comte de Breteuil, Prefect of Eure-et-Loir, had been told of the visionary at the same time as the Bishop. He also questioned Martin. He expected to find him a nervous, agitated person; but when he found him tranquil, speaking simply, but with logical sequence and precision, he was very astonished.
Like M. l'Abbe La Perruque he deemed the matter sufficiently important to bring before the higher authorities. Accordingly he sent Martin, under the escort of a lieutenant of _gendarmerie_, to the Ministre de la Police Generale.
Having reached Paris on March 8, Martin lodged with the _gendarme_ at the Hotel de Calais, in the Rue Montmartre. They occupied a double-bedded room. One morning, when Martin was in bed, he beheld an apparition and told Lieutenant Andre, who could see nothing, although it was broad daylight. Indeed, Martin's visitations became so frequent that they ceased to cause him either surprise or concern. It was only to the abrupt disappearance of the unknown that he could never grow accustomed. The voice continued to give the same command.
One day it told him that if it were not obeyed France would not know peace until 1840.
In 1816 the Ministre de la Police Generale was the Comte Decazes who was afterwards created a duke. He was in the King's confidence. But he knew that the extreme Royalists were hatching plots against his royal master. Decazes wished to see the good man from Gallardon, suspecting doubtless, that he was but a tool in the hands of the Extremists.
Martin was brought to the Minister, who questioned him and at once perceived that the poor creature was in no way dangerous. He spoke to him as he would to a madman, endeavouring to regard the subject of his mania as if it were real, and so he said:
”Don't be agitated; the man who has been troubling you is arrested; you will have nothing more to fear from him.”
But these words did not produce the desired effect. Three or four hours after this interview, Martin again beheld the unknown, who, after speaking to him in his usual manner, said: ”When you were told that I had been arrested, you were told a lie; he who said so has no power over me.”
On Sunday, March 10, the unknown returned; and on that day he disclosed the matter concerning which the Bishop of Versailles had inquired, and which he had said at first he would never reveal.
”I am,” he declared, ”the Archangel Raphael, an angel of great renown in the presence of G.o.d, and I have received power to afflict France with all manner of suffering.”
Three days later, Martin was shut up in Charenton on the certificate of Doctor Pinel, who stated him to be suffering from intermittent mania with alienation of mind.
He was treated in the kindest manner and was even permitted to enjoy some appearance of liberty. Pinel himself originated the humane treatment of the insane. Martin in the asylum was not forsaken by the blessed Raphael. On Friday, the 15th, as the peasant was tying his shoe laces, the Archangel in his frock-coat of a light colour, spoke to him these words:
”Have faith in G.o.d. If France persists in her incredulity, the misfortunes I have predicted will happen. Moreover, if they doubt the truth of your visions, they have but to cause you to be examined by doctors in theology.”
These words Martin repeated to M. Legros; Director of the Royal Inst.i.tution of Charenton, and asked him what a doctor in theology was.
He did not know the meaning of the term. In the same manner, when he was at Gallardon he had asked the priest, M. La Perruque, the meaning of certain expressions the voice had used. For example, he did not understand the wild frenzy of France [_le delvie de la France_] nor the evils to which she would fall a victim [_elle serait en proie_].