Death of Joseph Méry.

— A man of talent, an intellect of the first rank, a poet and distinguished man of letters, Mr. Joseph Méry, died in Paris on June 17, 1866, at the age of sixty-seven and a half. Although he was not an avowed adept of Spiritism, he belonged to the numerous class of those who may be called unconscious Spiritists, that is, those in whom the fundamental ideas of Spiritism exist in the state of intuition. On that account, and without departing from our specialty, we may devote a few lines to him, which will not be useless to our instruction.

It would be superfluous to repeat here the information that most of the newspapers published, on the occasion of his death, about his life and his works. We shall reproduce only the following passage from the notice in the Siècle (June 19), because it is a just homage rendered to the man's character. After having enumerated his literary works, the author of the article describes him thus: “Joseph Méry was prodigal in conversation; a brilliant talker, an improviser of stanzas and rhymes, he scattered witticisms and paradoxes with an indefatigable verve; and, a particularity that honors him, he never ceased to be benevolent toward all. It is one of the finest praises that can be given to a writer.”

— We have said that Mr. Méry was a Spiritist by intuition. He believed not only in the soul and its survival, in the spiritual world that surrounds us, but in the plurality of existences; in him this belief was the result of remembrances. He was persuaded that he had lived in Rome under Augustus, in Germany, in the Indies, etc. Certain details were so present to his memory that he described with exactness places he had never seen. It is to this faculty that the author of the aforementioned article alludes when he says: “His inexhaustible imagination created the regions he had not seen, divined the customs, describing the inhabitants with a fidelity all the more marvelous because he possessed it in spite of himself.” We cited the most remarkable facts concerning him in the issue of the Review of November 1864, reproducing, under the title of Remembrances of past existences, the biographical article published by Mr. Dangeau in the Journal littéraire of September 25, 1864, which we accompanied with some reflections. This faculty was perfectly well known to his fellows in literature. What did they think of it? For some it was nothing but a singular effect of the imagination. But as Mr. Méry was an esteemed man, of simple and upright character, whom they knew to be incapable of an imposture — the exactness of certain local descriptions had been recognized — and as one could not rationally charge it to madness, many said that there might be something true in it; for this reason these facts were recalled in one of the discourses delivered at his tomb. Now, had they regarded them as aberrations of his mind, they would have passed over them in silence. It is, then, in the presence of an immense gathering of listeners, of the elite of literature and the press, in a grave and solemn circumstance, one of those that most command respect, that it was said that Mr. Méry remembered having lived in other epochs and proved it by facts. This cannot fail to give rise to reflections, all the more since, outside of Spiritism, many people adopt the idea of the plurality of existences as the most rational. The facts of this nature concerning Mr. Méry being one of the remarkable particularities of his life and having had repercussion on the occasion of his death, one cannot but believe it.

— Now, what are the consequences of this belief, abstraction made of Spiritism? If we admit that we have already lived once, we can and even must have lived several times, and we may live again after this existence. If we live again several times, it cannot be with the same body; therefore, there is in us an intelligent principle independent of matter and which preserves its individuality. As one sees, it is the negation of the materialist and pantheist doctrines. This principle, or soul, living again on Earth, since it can preserve the intuition of its past, cannot be lost in the infinite after death, as is commonly believed; it must, in the interval between its corporeal existences, remain in the human milieu; having to take up new existences in this same humanity, it must not lose sight of it; it must follow its vicissitudes. Here, then, is the spiritual world that surrounds us, in the midst of which we live. In this world are naturally found our relatives and friends, who must continue to take an interest in us, as we take an interest in them, and who are not lost to us, since they exist and can be near us. Behold what they are forced to come to believe; behold the consequences to which those who admit the principle of the plurality of existences are led; behold what Méry believed. What more does Spiritism do? It calls Spirits these same invisible beings and says that, being in our midst, they can manifest their presence and communicate with the incarnate. When the rest has been admitted, is this so very preposterous? As one sees, the distance that separates Spiritism from the intimate belief of many people is very small. The fact of the manifestations is but an accessory and the practical confirmation of the fundamental principle admitted in theory. Why, then, do some of those who admit the basis repel that which should serve as proof? Because of the false idea they form of it. But those who take the trouble to study and deepen it soon recognize that they are nearer to Spiritism than they thought and that the greater part of them are Spiritists without knowing it: they lack only the name. This is why one sees so many Spiritist ideas emitted at every moment by those very ones who reject the term, and why certain people accept so easily these same ideas. When it is a matter of a question of a word, one is very close to understanding. Touching upon everything, Spiritism enters the world through an infinity of doors. Some are brought to it by the fact of the manifestations; others, by the misfortune that strikes them and against which they find in this belief the only true consolation; others still, by the philosophical and religious idea; finally, others by the principle of the plurality of existences. Méry, contributing to give credit to this principle in a certain world, perhaps does more for the propagation of Spiritism than if he had been openly an avowed Spiritist.

— It is precisely at the moment when this great law of Humanity comes to affirm itself by facts and by the testimony of an honorable man, that, for its part, the Roman curia comes to disavow it, placing on the Index The Plurality of the Existences of the Soul, by Pezzani (newspaper Le Monde, June 22, 1866); inevitably this measure will have the effect of provoking its examination. The plurality of existences is not a mere philosophical opinion; it is a law of Nature, which no anathema can prevent from being, and with which Theology, sooner or later, will have to come to agreement. The haste to condemn, in the name of the Divinity, a law which, like all those that govern the world, is the work of the Divinity, is somewhat exaggerated. It is much to be feared that soon this condemnation will not fare otherwise than the one that was launched against the movement of the Earth and the periods of its formation.

— The following communication was obtained at the Society of Paris, on June 22, 1866, through the medium Mr. Desliens:

Question — Mr. Méry, we had the advantage of knowing you only by reputation; but your talents and the deserved esteem with which you were surrounded lead us to hope to find, in the conversations we shall hold with you, an instruction from which we shall profit and which will leave us happy, every time you wish to come among us.

The questions we should like to address to you today, if the recent date of your death permits you to answer, are these:

1st — How did your passage from this life to the other take place, and what were your impressions on entering the spiritual world?

2nd — In life did you have knowledge of Spiritism? What did you think of it?

3rd — Is what is said of your remembrances of previous existences exact? What influence did these remembrances exert on your earthly life and your writings?

We deem it superfluous to ask whether you are happy in your new position; the goodness of your character and your honorableness lead us to hope so.

Answer — Gentlemen, I am extremely touched by the testimony of sympathy that you are good enough to give me, and which is contained in the words of your honored president. I feel happy to respond to your appeal, for my present situation affirms to me the reality of a teaching whose intuition I bore at birth, and also because you think of what remains of Méry, the novelist, in the future of my intimate and living part, in my soul, in short, whereas my numerous friends thought, above all, in leaving me, of the personality that abandoned them. They cast me their last farewell, wishing that the earth be light upon me! What remains of Méry for them?… A little dust and works upon whose merit I am not called to pronounce myself… Of my new life, not a word! They recalled my theories as one of the singularities of my character, the imposition of my convictions as a magnetic effect, a charm that would disappear with my absence; but of the Méry who survived the body, of that intelligent being who today gives an account of his life of yesterday and who thinks of his life of tomorrow, what did they say?… Nothing!… they did not even think of it… The novelist so gay, so sad, at times so amusing, departed; they gave him a tear, a remembrance! In eight days they will think of him no more, and the vicissitudes of the war will make them forget the return of the poor exile to his homeland. Senseless ones! for a long time they said: “Méry is ill; he is weakening, he is growing old.” How mistaken they were!… I was going toward youth; believe it; it is the child who weeps on entering life who advances toward old age; the mature man who dies finds again eternal youth beyond the grave!

Death was for me an ineffable sweetness. My poor body, chastised by illness, suffered the last convulsions and all was said; but my Spirit was coming forth little by little from its swaddling-clothes and was soaring, still a prisoner and already aspiring to the infinite!… I was set free without disturbance, without shock; I had no surprise, for the tomb no longer had a veil for me. I drew near to a known shore; I knew that devoted friends awaited me on the beach, for it was not the first time I had made that voyage.

As I used to say to my astonished listeners, I knew the Rome of the Caesars; I commanded as a subaltern conqueror in that Gaul which I recently inhabited as a citizen; I helped to conquer your homeland, to subjugate your brave ancestors, then I departed to retemper my strength at the source of intellectual life, to choose new trials and new means of progress. I saw the banks of the Ganges and those of the rivers of China; I assimilated civilizations so different from yours and yet so great, so advanced in their kind. I lived in the torrid zone and in temperate climes; I studied the customs of here and of there; successively warrior, poet, writer, philosopher, and always a dreamer… This last existence was for me a kind of summary of all those that preceded it. I acquired recently; only yesterday I was spending the treasures accumulated in a series of existences, of observations, and of studies.

Yes, I was a Spiritist in heart and in spirit, if not by reasoning. Pre-existence for me was a fact, reincarnation a law, Spiritism a truth. As for the questions of detail, I confess in good faith that I attached no great importance to them. I believed in the survival of the soul, in the plurality of its existences, but I never tried to fathom whether it could, after having left its mortal body, maintain, free, relations with those who are still bound to the chain. Ah! Victor Hugo said rightly: “The Earth is but the penitentiary of heaven!…” At times one breaks one's chain, but only to take it up again. Surely one does not leave here except by leaving to the guards the care of, when the moment comes, untying the bonds that bind us to the ordeal. I am happy, very happy, because I have the awareness of having lived well!

Forgive me, gentlemen, it is still Méry, the dreamer, who speaks to you; and permit me to return to a gathering where I feel at ease. There must be something to learn with you and, if you are willing to receive me among the number of your invisible listeners, it is with happiness that I shall remain among you, listening, instructing myself, and speaking, should the occasion present itself to me.

J. Méry.

[1]

[Index Librorum prohibitorun et expurgandorum. — List of books forbidden by the Church which began to be made from the IV Lateran Council, 1515.]