The Countess Mathilde of Canossa.

— Such is the title of a legendary novel, published in 1858, in Rome, by the Rev. Father Bresciani, of the Society of Jesus, author of The Jew of Verona. [Le Juif de Vérone ou Les sociétés secrètes en Italie — Google Books.]

The subject of the work is the History, in the manner of Walter Scott, of the ancient family of Canossa. It was for this reason that the author dedicated it to the present descendant of that illustrious family, the Marquis Octavius of Canossa, podestà of Verona and chamberlain of H. M. the Emperor of Austria. The action takes place in the Middle Ages; the sorcerers and the magi play a great role in it, and the demonic scenes are described with a precision that would make the Scottish novelist envious. The author seems to us less fortunate in his appreciation of the modern Spiritist phenomena, of the talking tables, of magnetism, of somnambulism. Now, here is what we read on this matter in chapter X, page 170:

— “Several of my readers — and perhaps they are not in lesser number — might be astonished to see displayed, in the preceding chapters, all that apparatus of deviltries, of exorcisms, of sorceries, of hallucinations, of fantastic irruptions, which would not be out of place in the fireside tales and the stories of wet nurses. In our days, who still believes in necromancers, in sorcerers, in enchantments, in fascination, in philtres, in commerce with the devil? Would you wish to lead us back to the blue tales of Martin Del Rio, to the naïve superstitions of the people and of the gossips on the street corner, to legends that make the skin of the chubby-cheeked peasant women bristle, who are afraid of werewolves and keep the timid boys from sleeping, in the name of the bogeyman? Really, my friend, this is the opportune moment to rid ourselves of these frivolities! — Such is, more or less, the language I think I hear. “I will reply that, before disdaining the old beliefs, each one must put his hand on his conscience and ask himself, very frankly, whether he is not at least as credulous as some of his ancestors. Let us see a little: What does this vogue of magnetizers and of mediums mean, of turning, talking, and prophetic tables; of somnambulists who see through walls, who read with the elbow, who have before them what is said and done twenty, thirty, forty miles away; who read and write without knowing their ABCs; who, without knowing a word of Medicine, point out, determine all the pathological cases, indicating their causes and prescribing the remedy for them in the usual doses, in all the Greco-Arabic terms of the scientific vocabulary? What are these interrogations of Spirits, these replies from people dead and buried, these prophecies of future events? Who evokes these shades? Who brings them to speak? Who makes them see a future that does not exist? Who makes them utter these blasphemies against God, against the saints of heaven, against the sacraments of the Church? “Come now, good people, speak! Why these contortions and these somber looks? — Ah! who knows, you will end up telling me! Mysteries of Nature, unknown laws, force of lucidity, hidden sense in the human organism! Subtlety of the magnetic fluid, of the nervous influx, of the optical and acoustic undulations; secret virtues that electricity or magnetism excites in the brain, in the blood, in the fibers, in all the vital parts; supreme potencies and forces of the will and of the imagination.

“My friends, these are trifles, words empty of meaning, hollow phrases, ambiguous evasions, enigmas that you do not even understand. The whole difference between us and our ancestors is that, to deny one mystery, we forge a hundred others, whereas for those good people a cat was a cat and the devil, the devil. We have the pretension of endowing Nature with forces that it does not have, nor can have; our elders, wiser and more frank, said, without many circumlocutions, that there were supernatural operations, treating them, very naïvely, as sorcery.

“Nevertheless, less versed than we in the knowledge of natural phenomena, they no doubt arrived at times at taking for a prodigious effect things that do not depart from the natural order, whereas the moderns, much more enlightened, do not fail to regard a good number of the charlatanries of the magnetizers as a mysterious effect of the secret laws of Nature, and the truly diabolical operations as feats of more or less subtle magic. But the most Christian men of the old time well knew that the evil Spirits, evoked by means of certain signs, certain conjurations, certain pacts, appeared, replied, hallucinated the imagination, making an impression in a thousand ways and, above all, doing the greatest harm they could to those who conversed with them. Confess, then, in good faith that, even in our days, in greater number than formerly, we have our necromancers, enchanters, and sorcerers, with the difference that our poor fathers had a horror of these maleficences, practiced by them in secret, in the darkness, in the caverns, in the forests, and that many repented, confessed, and did penance; today, however, they are practiced in salons resplendent with gold and light, in the presence of the curious, of young ladies, children, and mothers, without the least scruple and often delighting in the superstitions of the Middle Ages. “Believe me: in all epochs men have wished to keep dealings with the demon, and that cunning spirit, although men do not return it to the abysses and maintain commerce with it, lends itself to all transformations. In the idolatrous centuries it lived with the oracles and the pythonesses; it showed itself in the form of a dove, of a magpie, of a cock, of a serpent, and sang fateful verses. In the Middle Ages it presented itself pedantic to the barbarous peoples and appeared to them under terrible forms, in monstrous conjurations. If, at times, it shrank and made itself subtle to the point of lodging in the hair, in little bottles, in philtres, which the sorcerers made lovers drink, it was not without inspiring a great terror. Today, on the contrary, it lends itself to the civilization of the century; it rejoices in the elegant world, in the brilliant soirées; alternately, sleeping with the somnambulists, dancing with the tables, writing with the baskets. In truth, is it not very gracious? It takes care not to frighten anyone! It dresses in the American style, the English, the Parisian, the German. It is really amiable, beneath the beard and the thin mustache of the Italians. It is the darling of the salons and would be very clumsy if it did not clothe itself in an irreproachable distinction. See, it has become so good an apostle that it converses very courteously with that lady who still goes to Mass and who, if you said to her: — Careful! There are things that are not natural and could not be; there is in this something nebulous; good Christians do not deal with these things — would laugh in your face and reply with a little daft air: — What the deuce! all this is very natural; I too am Christian; but I am not an imbecile. “Meanwhile, should an occasion present itself, she will magnetize her twenty-year-old daughter, in order to make her read, in her magnetic intuition, distant facts and secrets of the future.

“I leave you to consider whether that handsome devil in yellow gloves must laugh in the face of the good Christian woman!”

— We leave to our readers the care of appreciating the judgment of Father Bresciani: in vain will they seek there, as we did, peremptory arguments against the Spiritist ideas, any demonstration whatever of the falsity of these ideas. No doubt he thinks that it is not worth the trouble to make them a serious refutation and that a breath suffices to dispel them. Yet it seems to us that, like the majority of adversaries, he arrives at a consequence entirely different from the one expected, since he does not prove, beyond all doubt, that this is not, nor can be. As Father Bresciani is a man of incontestable talent and superior instruction, we think that, since his aim was to combat the Spirits, he had to gather against them his most terrible weapons; whence we conclude that, if he does not say much, it is because he has nothing more to say; that if he gives no other proofs it is because he has none better to oppose, without which he would not have taken the care to leave them at the bottom of the bag. The most ridiculed, in all that argumentation, are not the Spirits, but the devil himself, who is treated a bit cavalierly, and not as something taken seriously. We would be led to think, before this jesting spirit, that the author no more believes in the devil than in the Spirits. If, therefore, as is claimed, the devil is the sole agent of all the manifestations, one is forced to agree that it plays a role more amusing than terrible and much more capable of exciting curiosity than of frightening. Such is, moreover, up to the present, the result of all that has been said and written against Spiritism, so that they have served it more than harmed it. According to the majority of the critics, the fact of the manifestations has no import. It is a passing enthusiasm, a salon plaything, and the author does not seem to us to have regarded it on a more serious side. If that is so, why torment oneself? Leave it to fashion to bring tomorrow another pastime, and Spiritism will live what the mania for Chinese vases lived: the space of two seasons. By throwing stones at it, they give the impression of fearing it, since one does not seek to strike down except what one fears. If it is a chimera, a utopia, why beat against windmills? It is true, they say, that the devil sometimes meddles in it, but there would be no need for so many authors, like this one, to paint the devil in rosy colors, to awaken in all women the desire to know it.

Has Father Bresciani well examined the question? Has he weighed the import of all his words? Let him permit us our doubt. When he says: What are these replies from people dead and buried? Who makes them see a future that does not exist?, we ask ourselves whether it was a Christian or a materialist who wrote such things, though the materialist would speak of the dead with more respect. — Who makes them utter these blasphemies against God? But where are these blasphemies? The author, who attributes everything to the devil, supposed them; he would know, on the contrary, that the most unlimited confidence in the infinite goodness of God is the basis of Spiritism; that everything in it is done in the name of God; that the most perverse Spirits do not speak of it except with fear and respect, and the good ones with love. What is blasphemous in this? — But what to think of these words: We have the pretension of endowing Nature with forces that it does not have, nor can have; our elders, wiser, treated them, very naïvely, as sorcery. Thus, it is wiser to attribute the phenomena of Nature to the devil than to God. While we proclaim the infinite power of the Creator, Father Bresciani imposes limits on it; Nature, which sums up the divine work, does not have, and cannot have, other forces besides those we know. As for those that might be discovered, it is wiser to attribute them to the devil who, thus, would be more powerful than God. Is there any need to inquire on which side lies the blasphemy or the greater respect for the Supreme Being? — Finally, the devil takes on all appearances: In truth, is it not very gracious? It dresses in the American style, the English, the Parisian; it is really amiable beneath the beard and the thin mustache of the Italians, and would be very clumsy if it did not clothe itself in an irreproachable distinction. We do not know whether the Italian gentlemen will feel flattered at being taken for devils in yellow gloves. Who are these beautiful ladies, who make a darling of these gracious demons and who, before the charitable warning that there is in this something nebulous, laugh in your face, exclaiming: What the deuce! I am not an imbecile! If it is a figure taken for reality, we will ask in what world they make use of such fine expressions. We regret that the author has not drawn his knowledge of Spiritism from a more serious source, with which he would not speak so frivolously. As long as more peremptory arguments are not opposed to him, his partisans may sleep quite tranquil. [1]

[The Spirit of the countess Mathilde of Canossa is one of the characters of the book Liberation.]

[2] One vol. in-8, translated from the Italian. J.-B. Pélagaud et Cie, rue des Saints-Pères, 57, Paris. Price 3 fr. 50.

[3] Martin Del Rio, learned Jesuit, born at Anvers (Antwerp) in 1551 and died in 1608. The author makes allusion to his work entitled: Disquisitiones Magicœ.

[4] Translator's note: Emphasis ours. In the original, guéridons, small center tables, pedestal tables. We have preferred to translate it as baskets, in an allusion to the beak baskets used in the rudimentary psychography of nascent Spiritism, and which better applies to the present case.