Example 8 - FRANÇOIS RIQUIER.

— He was an old bachelor, miserly and very well known, who died at C…, in 1857, bequeathing a considerable fortune to his collateral relatives.

At one time he had been the landlord of a tenant who later forgot him completely, not even knowing whether he was still living or not.

In 1862, a daughter of this lady, subject to fits of catalepsy followed by spontaneous magnetic sleep and also a good writing medium, saw, during one of those sleeps, Mr. Riquier, who, she assured, intended to address himself to her mother.

A few days later, since he had manifested himself spontaneously confirming that intention, they held with him the following conversation: Q. What do you want of us?

A. The money those wretches seized in order to share it out! They sold farms, houses, everything, to enrich themselves! They squandered my goods as if they no longer belonged to me.

See that justice is done to me, since they will not hear me, and I do not wish to witness such infamies. They say I was a usurer, and they have kept my money. Why do they not wish to return it to me? Do they hold that it was ill-gotten? Q. But you are dead, my dear sir, and you no longer have any need of money. Implore God to grant you a new existence of poverty so that you may expiate the usury of this last one.

A. No, I could not live in poverty. I need my money, without which I cannot live.

Besides, I do not need another existence, because I am living at present.

Q. (The following question was put to him with the aim of bringing him back to reality.) Do you suffer?

A. Oh! yes. I suffer worse tortures than those of the cruelest infirmity, for it is my soul that endures them.

Having ever in mind the iniquity of a life that was for many a cause of scandal, I have the awareness of being a wretch unworthy of pity, but my suffering is so great that it is necessary for me to be helped out of this deplorable situation. Q. We will pray for you.

A. Thank you! Pray that I may forget my earthly goods, without which I shall not be able to repent.

Farewell, and thank you.

François Riquier.

Rue de la Charité No. 14.

— It is curious to see this Spirit indicate his dwelling as though he were alive.

The lady hastened to verify it and was greatly surprised to find that it was precisely the last house Riquier had inhabited.

Thus, after five years, he still did not consider himself dead, but rather experienced the anxiety, quite cruel for a usurer, of seeing his goods shared out among the heirs.

The evocation, provoked undoubtedly by some good Spirit, had as its aim to make him understand his state and to predispose him to repentance. [1] [This communication was published in the Spiritist Review of August 1862 under the title The Punishment of a Miser.]