The farmer Thomas Martin and Louis XVIII.

— The revelations made to Louis XVIII by a farmer of the Beauce, shortly after the second return of the Bourbons, had at the time a great repercussion, and even today their memory has not faded. But few people know the details of this incident, the key to which only Spiritism can now provide, as it can to all facts of this kind. It is a most interesting subject of study, because the facts, almost contemporary, are of perfect authenticity, since they are attested by official documents. We shall give a succinct summary of it, but one sufficient for them to be appreciated.

Thomas-Ignace Martin was a small farmer of the borough of Gallardon, situated four leagues from Chartres. Born in 1783, he was therefore thirty-three years old when the events we are about to relate took place. He died on May 8, 1834. He was married, the father of four minor children, and enjoyed in his commune the reputation of a perfectly honest man. The official reports describe him as a man of good sense, though of great naivety, on account of his ignorance of the most common things; of a gentle and peaceable character, he involved himself in no intrigue; of perfect rectitude in all things and of complete disinterestedness, of which he gave numerous proofs, which excludes any idea of ambition on his part. Thus, when he returned to his town after the visit to the king, he resumed his habitual occupations as if nothing had happened, even avoiding speaking of what had befallen him. Upon his departure for Paris, the director of the Charenton asylum had the greatest trouble in the world to get him to accept 25 francs for his travel expenses. The following year, his wife being pregnant with their fifth child, a person distinguished by his position and who knew the mediocrity of his fortune, had a proposal made to him through a third party of 150 francs to cover his needs in that circumstance. Martin refused, saying: “It can only be because of these things that happen to me that money is offered to me, for, without this, no one would speak of me, nor even know me. But since the thing does not come from me, I ought to receive nothing for it. So thank that person, for although I am not rich, I want to receive nothing.” On other occasions he refused more considerable sums, which would have made him comfortable. Martin was simple, but neither credulous nor superstitious; he performed his religious duties scrupulously, but without exaggeration or ostentation, and always exactly within the strict limit of what was necessary, visiting his parish priest at most once a year. Consequently, there was in him neither false devotion nor religious overexcitement. Nothing in his habits and in his character was capable of exalting his imagination. He had seen the return of the Bourbons with pleasure, but without concerning himself with politics in any way and without becoming involved with any party. Wholly devoted to the labor of the fields from childhood, he read neither books nor newspapers. One easily understands the importance of this information about Martin's character in the case at hand. Since a man is moved neither by interest, nor by ambition, nor by fanaticism, nor by superstitious credulity, he wins serious claims to confidence. Now, here in summary fashion is how the events that befell him came about.

— On January 15, 1816, around half past two in the afternoon, he was alone, occupied in spreading manure on a field three-quarters of a league from Gallardon, in a very deserted canton, when, suddenly, there appeared to him a man of about five feet and one or two inches, of slender body, with a thin, delicate, and very white face, wearing a golden frock coat or redingote, entirely buttoned and falling to his feet, with shoes tied with laces and a round hat with a high crown. This man said to Martin:

“You are to go to the king and tell him that his person is in danger, as well as that of the princes; that wicked people are still trying to overthrow the government; that several writings or letters are already circulating in some provinces of his States in this regard; that he must exercise a rigorous and general policing in all his States and, above all, in the capital; that he must also restore the Lord's day, so that it be sanctified, for that holy day is unknown to a large part of his people; that he have public works interrupted on those days; that he have public prayers ordered for the conversion of the people; that he urge them to penitence; that he have abolished and annihilated all the disorders that are committed in the days preceding Lent; failing which, France will fall into new misfortunes.” A little surprised by the sudden apparition, Martin answered him: “But you may well go and find others than me for an errand like this. It is not with hands like these (dirty with dung) that I am going to speak to the king!”

— No, replied the stranger, it is you who shall go. — But, replied Martin, since you know so much, you may well go yourself to seek the king and tell him all this. Why do you address yourself to a poor man like me, who does not even know how to express himself? — It will not be I who go, said the stranger, it will be you; pay attention to what I say and do all that I order you.

After these words Martin saw him disappear more or less in this way: his feet seemed to rise from the ground, his head to lower, and his body, shrinking, ended by vanishing at the height of the waist, as if it had evaporated into the air. More astonished by this manner of disappearing than by the sudden apparition, Martin wished to go away, but could not; he remained, in spite of himself, and returned to his task which, having to last two hours and a half, lasted only an hour and a half, which redoubled his astonishment.

— Some may perhaps find puerile certain recommendations Martin was to make to the king, especially concerning the observance of Sunday, in relation to the means, apparently supernatural, employed to transmit them to him, and to the difficulties that such a measure was bound to encounter. But it is probable that this was only a kind of passport to reach him, because the principal object of the revelation, which was much graver, was not to be known, as will be seen later, until the moment of the interview. The essential thing was that Martin should be able to reach the king, and for this the intervention of some members of the high clergy was necessary. Now, the importance the clergy attaches to the observance of Sunday is well known; how should the sovereign not be moved, when the voice of heaven was going to make itself heard through a miracle? It was fitting, then, to favor Martin, rather than to discourage him. Nevertheless, it was necessary that things should proceed of themselves.

— Martin hastened to tell his brother what had happened to him, and both went to communicate it to the parish priest, Monsieur Laperruque, who endeavored to dissuade Martin by attributing the thing to his imagination.

On the 18th, at six o'clock in the evening, Martin having gone down to the cellar to fetch potatoes, the same individual appeared to him standing at his side, while he was kneeling, occupied in gathering them. Terrified, he leaves the lamp there and flees. On the 18th, a new apparition at the entrance of a winepress, and Martin again flees.

On Sunday, January 21, Martin was entering the church at the hour of vespers; as he was taking holy water, he noticed the stranger, who was also taking it and who followed him to the entrance of his pew. Throughout the course of the office he was very recollected, and Martin noticed that he had his hat neither on his head nor in his hands. On leaving the church he followed him to his house, walking at his side, with his hat on his head. Having reached the wide gate, he found himself suddenly before him, face to face, and said to him: “Discharge yourself of your task and do what I told you; I will not leave you in peace until your obligation is fulfilled.” Hardly had he pronounced these words when he disappeared, without, this time, nor in the following apparitions, Martin having seen him disappear gradually, as the first time. On January 24, a new apparition in the granary, followed by these words: “Do what I order you; it is time.” Let us note these two modes of disappearance: the first, which could not be that of a corporeal being of flesh and blood, no doubt had as its object to prove that it was a fluidic being, foreign to material humanity, a circumstance that was to be brought out 50 years later and explained by Spiritism, whose doctrines it confirmed, while at the same time it was to furnish a subject of study.

It is known that in these recent times incredulity has sought to explain apparitions by optical effects, and that, when artificial phenomena of this kind appeared in some theaters, produced by a combination of mirrors and lights, there was a general outcry in the press, to say: “Here, at last, is the secret of all apparitions discovered! It is with the aid of such means that this absurd belief has spread in all ages and that credulous persons have let themselves be deceived by subterfuges!”

We refuted, as could not fail to be the case (Review, July 1863), that strange explanation, a worthy counterpart of the famous cracking muscle of Doctor Jobert de Lamballe, who accused all Spiritists of being mad and who himself, unfortunately, languished several years in an asylum for the insane. But we shall ask, in the case here at hand, why and how apparatuses of this nature, necessarily complicated and bulky, could have been arranged and operated in a field isolated from any habitation, and where Martin found himself absolutely alone, without his having perceived anything? How could those same apparatuses, which function in obscurity with the aid of artificial lights, have produced an image in full sunlight? How could they have been instantaneously transported to the cellar and to the granary, places little suited to machinations, to the church, and thence followed Martin to his house, without anyone having noticed anything? These sorts of artificial images are seen by all the spectators. How is it that in the church, and on leaving the church, only Martin saw the individual? Will they say that he saw nothing, but that, in good faith, he was the victim of a hallucination? This explanation is belied by the material fact of the revelations made to the king and which, as will be seen, could not have been known in advance by Martin. There is in this a positive, material result, which is not peculiar to illusions.

— The parish priest of Gallardon, to whom Martin gave a faithful account of the apparitions, and who took exact notes of them, judged it fitting to address himself to his bishop, at Versailles, for whom he gave him a detailed letter of recommendation. There, Martin repeated all that he had seen and, after various questions, the bishop charged him to ask the stranger, on his behalf, whether he would present himself, his name, who he was, and who had sent him, recommending to him that he tell everything to his parish priest.

A few days after Martin's return, Monsieur the parish priest received a letter from his bishop, by which he testified to him that the man he had sent seemed to have great enlightenment on the important object he was dealing with. From then on a continuous correspondence was established between the bishop and the parish priest of Gallardon. The Monsignor, for his part, in view of the gravity of the first apparition, judged it fitting to make of this a ministerial and police matter; consequently, he sent every report he received from Monsieur the parish priest to Monsieur Decazes, minister of the general police.

Tuesday, January 30, the stranger appeared again to Martin and said to him: “Your errand is well begun, but those who have it in their hands do not occupy themselves with it; I was present, though invisible, when you made your declaration; you were told to ask my name and on whose behalf I came; my name shall remain unknown, and he who sent me (showing Heaven) is above me. — Why do you always address yourself to me, replied Martin, for a mission like this, I who am only a peasant? There are so many people of intelligence! — It is to humble pride, said the stranger, pointing to the earth; you must not take pride in what you have seen and heard, for pride supremely displeases God; practice virtue; attend the offices that are held in your parish on Sundays and feast days; avoid the cabarets and bad company, where all sorts of impurities are committed and where evil conversations reign. Do no carting on Sundays and holidays.”

— During the month of February, the stranger still appeared several times to Martin, telling him, among other things: “Persist, O my friend, and you will succeed. You will appear before incredulity and confound it; I have yet another thing to tell you that will convince them and they will have nothing to answer. — Hasten your mission; they do nothing of what I have told you; those who have the matter in their hands are intoxicated with pride; France is in a state of delirium; she will be given over to all sorts of misfortunes. — You will go to the king; you will tell him what I have announced; he may admit with him his brother and his nephews. When you are before the king I will reveal to you secret things from the time of his exile, but the knowledge of which will be given to you only at the moment when you are brought into his presence.” Meanwhile, Monsieur the count of Breteuil, prefect of Chartres, received a letter from the minister of the general police, who invited him to verify “whether these apparitions, given out as miraculous, were not rather a play of Martin's imagination, a true illusion of his exalted mind, or, finally, whether the alleged unknown envoy and, perhaps, Martin himself, ought not to be severely examined by the police and then handed over to the courts.”

On March 5 Martin received the visit of his stranger, who said to him: “You will soon appear before the first magistrate of your Department; you must relate things as they are announced to you; you must take into consideration neither rank nor dignity.”

Martin had not been informed that he was to go to the prefect; here, therefore, it is not a matter of a simple communication about a vague thing: it is the prevision of a fact that is going to be realized. This is constantly repeated throughout the series of these events; Martin was always informed by his stranger of what would happen to him, of the persons in whose presence he would find himself, of the places to which he would be led. Now, this is not the result of illusion and of chimerical things. Since the individual says to Martin: tomorrow you will see such a person, or you will be led to such a place, and the thing comes to pass, it is a positive fact that cannot result from imagination.

— The next day, March 6, accompanied by Monsieur the parish priest, Martin went to the house of the prefect, in Chartres. At first the latter conversed at length in private with Monsieur the parish priest; then, having Martin shown in, he asked: “But if I were to put you in irons and arrest you for announcing such things, would you continue to say what you state? — As you please, answered Martin without being intimidated; I can say only the truth. — But, the prefect went on, if you were to appear before an authority superior to mine, for example, before the minister, would you maintain what you have just told me? — Yes, sir, replied Martin, and before the king himself.” Surprised by such assurance, allied to such great simplicity, and still more by the strange accounts the parish priest had given him, the prefect decided to send Martin to the minister. The next day, March 7, Martin set off for Paris, escorted by Monsieur André, lieutenant of police, who had orders to watch all his steps and not to leave him either by day or by night. They lodged on the Rue Montmartre, “hôtel de Calais,” in a room with two beds. On Friday, March 8, Monsieur André conducted Martin to police headquarters. On entering the courtyard of the hotel, the stranger presented himself to him and said: “You are going to be interrogated in various ways; do not be afraid nor disquieted, but say things as they are.” After these words, he disappeared. We shall not relate here all the interrogations to which Martin was subjected, by the minister and his secretaries, without his letting himself be intimidated by threats, nor disconcerted by the traps they set for him, to make him fall into contradiction, confounding his interrogators by his answers full of sense and of cool composure. Martin having described his stranger, the minister said to him: “Well then! you will see him no more, for I have just arrested him. — Eh! How could you have arrested him, retorted Martin, since he disappears like a flash of lightning? — If he disappears for you, the minister resumed, he does not disappear for everyone. And turning to one of his secretaries: Go see whether that man I had arrested is still in prison.” A few moments later the secretary returned and answered: “Sir, he is still there. — Well then! said Martin, if you have arrested him and show him to me, I will recognize him; I have seen him too many times for that.”

Next came a man who carefully examined Martin's head, parting his hair to the right and to the left; the minister also did the same, no doubt to verify whether he had any indicating sign of madness, to which Martin contented himself with saying: “Look as much as you like, I have never been ill in my life.”

Returning to the hotel, in the evening Martin said to Monsieur André: “But the minister had told me that he had put in prison the man who appeared to me. Then he released him, for he appeared to me afterward and said to me: You were interrogated today, but they will not do what I said. The one you saw this morning wanted you to believe that I had been detained; tell him that he has no power over me and that it is already time for the king to be informed.” That very instant Monsieur André went to make his report to the police, while Martin, without disquieting himself, lay down and slept peacefully.

The next day, the 9th, Martin having gone down to ask for the lieutenant's boots, the stranger presented himself in the middle of the staircase and said to him: “You will be visited by a physician who comes to ascertain whether you have an impressionable imagination or whether you have lost your mind; but those who send him are madder than you.” Indeed, that same day the celebrated alienist, Monsieur Pinel, came to visit him and subjected him to an interrogation appropriate to that kind of inquiry. “In spite of his skill — says the report — he was unable to obtain any indication, however slight, of probable insanity. His investigations led only to a simple conjecture of the possibility of hallucination and of intermittent mania.” For certain people, it seems that nothing more is needed to be branded as mad: it suffices not to think as they do. This is why those who believe in something of the other world pass for madmen in the eyes of those who believe in nothing.

After Doctor Pinel's visit, the stranger presented himself to Martin and said to him: “You must go and speak to the king. When you are in his presence I will inspire you about what you are to say to him. I make use of you to humble pride and incredulity. They are trying to set the matter aside, but if you do not achieve your aim, it will be unveiled by another way.”

— On March 10, Martin being in his room, the stranger appeared to him and said: “I had said that my name would remain unknown, but, since incredulity is so great, it is necessary that I reveal my name to you. I am the angel Raphael, an angel very famous before God. I have the power to strike France with every sort of scourge.” At these words, Martin was seized with terror and felt a sort of convulsion.

Another day, having gone out with Martin, Monsieur André met an officer who was a friend of his, with whom he conversed for an hour, in English, a language Martin naturally did not understand. The next day the stranger, whom he now calls the angel, said to him: “Those who were with you yesterday spoke about you, but you did not understand their language; they said that you were coming to speak to the king, and one said that when he returned to his country the other would give him news, to learn how the thing had turned out.” Monsieur André, to whom Martin gave an account of all his conversations with the stranger, was very surprised to see that what he had said in English, so as not to be understood by the peasant, had been disclosed. Although Doctor Pinel's report did not conclude in favor of madness, but only of a possibility of hallucination, Martin was nonetheless taken to the Charenton asylum, where he remained from March 13 to April 2. There he was the object of minute surveillance and submitted to the special study of the specialists. Likewise inquiries were made in his country, about his antecedents and those of his family, without, in spite of all the investigations, the least appearance or predetermining cause of madness having been established. To render homage to the truth, it must be said that there he was always treated with much attention on the part of Monsieur Royer-Collard, chief director of the house, and by other physicians, and that they subjected him to none of those treatments in use in such kinds of establishments. If he was placed there, it was far less as a measure of confinement than to have more facility in observing his real state of mind.

— During his stay at Charenton, he had very frequent visits from his stranger, which presented no notable particularity, except this one in which he said to him: “There will be discussions: some will say that it is imagination; others, that it is an angel of light; others, still, that it is an angel of darkness. I permit you to touch me.” Then, Martin related, he took my right hand and pressed it; afterward he opened the redingote in front, and when it was open, he seemed to me more brilliant than the rays of the Sun. I could not look at him; I was obliged to put my hand before my eyes. When he closed the redingote, I saw nothing more shining; he appeared to me as before. This opening and closing took place without any movement on his part.

— Another time, while he was writing to his brother, he saw at his side the stranger, who dictated to him a part of the letter, recalling the predictions he had made about the misfortunes with which France was threatened. Here, then, is Martin at the same time a seeing medium and a writing medium.

However much care had been taken so that the matter should not spread, it did not fail to cause a certain sensation in the high official circles. Meanwhile, it is probable that it would have come to nothing, if the archbishop of Reims, grand chaplain of France, later archbishop of Paris and cardinal Périgord, had not taken an interest in it. n He spoke to Louis XVIII and proposed to him to receive Martin. The king declared to him that he had not yet heard the matter spoken of, so true is it that, often, sovereigns are the last to know what is happening around them and most concerns them. Consequently, he ordered that Martin be presented to him. On April 2 Martin was conducted from Charenton to the house of the minister of the general police. While he waited for the moment to be received, his stranger appeared to him and said: “You are going to speak to the king and you will be alone with him; do not fear to appear before him; as for what you will have to say to him, the words will come to your mouth.” It was the last time he saw him. The minister received him with much benevolence and said that he would have him taken to the Palace of the Tuileries.

It is generally believed that Martin came of his own accord to Paris, presented himself at the palace, insisting on speaking to the king; that, rebuffed, he returned to the charge with such persistence that Louis XVIII, having been informed, ordered that he be let in. As one sees, things happened in a different way. It was not until 1828, four years after the king's death, that he made known the secret particulars that he revealed to him and that made a deep impression on him, for such was the essential object of that visit; the other motives alleged, as we said, were nothing but a means of reaching him. His stranger let him remain ignorant of these things until the last moment, fearing that an indiscretion wrested by the artifice of the interrogations would make the project fail, which would inevitably have occurred. After his visit to the king, Martin went to take his leave of the director of Charenton and departed immediately for his country, where he resumed the habitual course of his labors, without ever attributing to himself any merit for what had happened to him.

— The object we proposed to ourselves in this account was to show the points by which it connects with Spiritism. The particulars revealed to Louis XVIII being foreign to our subject, we shall abstain from mentioning them. We shall say only that they referred to family matters of the greatest intimacy; they moved the king to the point of making him weep much, he declaring later that the things that had been revealed to him were known only to God and to himself. They had as a consequence to make him renounce the coronation, the preparations for which had already been ordered. n We shall report of this interview only a few passages of the record written in 1828, dictated by Martin himself, in which the character and the simplicity of the man are depicted.

— “We arrived at the Tuileries around three o'clock and without anyone having said anything. We came up to the first officer of Louis XVIII, to whom a letter was handed and who, after having read it, said to me: Follow me. We stopped for a few moments, because Monsieur Decazes was with the king. When the minister came out I went in, and before I had said a word the king ordered the officer to withdraw and to close the doors.

The king was seated at his table, facing the door. There were pens, papers, and books. I greeted the king, saying: “Sire, I salute you.” The king said to me: “Good day, Martin.” Then I said to myself: He knows my name. “Certainly, Sire, you know why I come.” “Yes; I know that you have something to tell me and I was told that it was something you can tell only to me. Sit down.” Then I sat down in an armchair facing the king, so that there was only the table between us. I asked him how he was faring. — The king said to me: “I am faring a little better than these past days; and you, how are you faring? — I am faring well. — What is the object of your journey? — And I said to him: You may send for, if you wish, your brother and his children. The king interrupted me, saying: It is useless; I will tell them what you have told me.” After this, I recounted to the king all the apparitions I had had and which are in the record. “I know all this; the archbishop of Reims had already told me all of it. But it seems that you have something to tell me in particular and in secret.” Then I felt come to my mouth the words the angel had promised me, and I said to the king: “The secret I have to tell you is that…” (There follow details about certain measures to take and the manner of governing, which, like the instructions given in the continuation of the conversation, could not have been inspired except at that moment, for they are beyond the reach of Martin's degree of culture).

“It was at this account that the king, struck with astonishment and deeply moved, said: “O my God! O my God! this is quite true; only I, you, and God know this; promise to keep the greatest secret about these communications.” And I promised him. After this I said to him: “Avoid having yourself crowned; if you were to attempt it, you would be struck dead at the ceremony of the coronation.” From that moment until the end of the conversation the king wept continually.”

When I had finished, he told me that the angel who had appeared to me was the one who led the young Tobias to Rages and who had him married. Then he asked which of my hands the angel had pressed. I answered: “This one,” showing the right. The king took it, saying: “Let me touch the hand the angel pressed. Pray always for me. — Of course, Sire; my family and I, as well as Monsieur the parish priest of Gallardon, have always prayed that the matter would have a good end.”

I greeted the king, saying to him: “I wish you good health. Sire, I was told, once my mission to you was fulfilled, to ask you permission to return to my family; that you would not refuse it and that no harm would befall me. — You will suffer nothing. I have given orders for you to be dispatched. The minister will arrange dinner and a bed, and papers so that you can return tomorrow. — But I would be glad to return to Charenton to take my leave and to fetch a shirt I left there. — Does it not displease you to stay at Charenton? Were you well there? — No displeasure; and if I were not certain of having been well there, I would not ask to return. — Well then! since you wish it, the minister will conduct you on my behalf.” I went back to find my conductor, who was waiting for me, and we went together to the house of the minister.

Done at Gallardon, on March 9, 1828.

Signed:

Thomas Martin.

— Martin's conversation with the king lasted at least 55 minutes.

If, after his visit to the king, Martin no longer saw his stranger, the manifestations did not fail to continue under another form; from a seeing medium, he became a hearing medium. Here are some fragments of letters that he wrote to the former parish priest of Gallardon:

January 28, 1821 “Monsieur the parish priest, I write to inform you of a thing that has happened to me. Last Tuesday, January 23, being at the plow and without having seen anyone, I heard a voice that spoke to me, saying: “Son of Japheth! n stop and pay attention to the words that are addressed to you.” That very instant my horses stopped, without my having said anything, for I was greatly amazed. Here is what I was told: “In this great region a great tree will be planted, and on the same stock, another will be planted that is inferior to the first; the second tree has two branches, of which one broke and soon afterward withered from a furious wind, and that wind did not cease to blow. In the place of that branch there arose another, new, tender, which replaced it; but that wind, which is always agitated, will one day rise with such convulsions that… and after this frightful catastrophe, the peoples will be in the last desolation. Now, my son, that those days may be shortened; invoke heaven that the fatal wind, coming out of the northwest, may be barred by powerful barriers, and that its progress may have nothing repugnant. These things are obscure to you, but others will understand them easily.” “Here, sir, is what happened to me on Tuesday, around one o'clock in the afternoon. I understand nothing of this. You will tell me, if you understand something of it. I have spoken of all this to no one, not even to my wife, for the world is wicked. I was resolved to keep all this in silence, but I have decided to write to you today, because tonight I could not sleep and I have always had these words in my memory; I beg you to keep them secret, for the world would mock them. Sir, they called me son of Japheth. I know no one in our family with this name. Perhaps they were mistaken or took me for another.”

February 8, 1821 “I had forbidden you to speak of what I told you; I was wrong, because this cannot remain hidden. It is necessarily required that this pass before the great ones and the foremost of the State, so that they may see the danger with which they are threatened, for the wind of which I spoke to you before is going to provoke terrible disasters, because the wind always blows around the tree. If they do not pay attention to this, before long it will be toppled. At the same moment another tree, with what comes out of it, will experience the same fate. Yesterday the same voice came to speak to me, and I saw nothing.”

February 21, 1821 “Sir, this morning I had a great fright. It was nine o'clock. I heard a great noise near me and saw nothing, but I heard speech, after the noise had ceased, and I was told: Why were you afraid? do not fear; I do not come to do any harm. You are surprised to hear speech and see nothing; do not be astonished; it is necessary that these things be discovered; I make use of you to send you, as I am sent. The philosophers, the unbelievers, the impious do not believe that their maneuvers are seen, but it is necessary that they be confounded… Be at peace, continue to be what you have been; your days are numbered and not a single one will escape you. I forbid you to prostrate yourself before me, for I am only a servant like you.” “Sir, here is what was said to me; I do not know who the person is who speaks to me; he has a rather strong voice, and very clear. I had the idea of speaking, but I did not dare, for I see no one.”

— It remains to know what is the individuality of the Spirit who manifested himself. Was it, truly, the angel Raphael? There are strong reasons to doubt it, and there would be many things to say against such an opinion. But, in our opinion, this is a secondary question. The capital fact is that of the manifestation, of which one could not doubt, whose incidents have their reason for being through the proposed result, and today have their instructive side.

A fact that, no doubt, will have escaped no one, is that of Martin's words, concerning a sum that was offered to him: “Since the thing does not come from me, he said, I ought to receive nothing for it.” Here, then, is a simple peasant, an unconscious medium who, fifty years ago, an epoch in which one was far from thinking of Spiritism, has, of himself, the intuition of the duties imposed by mediumship, of the sanctity of this mandate. His good sense, his natural loyalty make him understand that what comes from a celestial source, and not from himself, ought not to be paid for.

Some may perhaps wonder at the difficulties Martin encountered in carrying out the mission with which he was charged. Why, they will say, did the Spirits not bring him directly to the king? As we have seen, these difficulties, this slowness had their usefulness. It was necessary that he pass through Charenton, where his reason was subjected to the most rigorous investigations of official and little credulous science, in order that it be established that he was neither mad nor exalted. As was seen, the Spirits triumphed over the obstacles interposed by men, but as these have their free will, they could not prevent them from putting up hindrances. Let us note, in this connection, that Martin made, so to speak, no effort to reach the king. The circumstances led him to it, almost in spite of himself, and without its having been necessary to insist much. Now, these circumstances were evidently directed by the Spirits, acting upon the thought of the incarnate, because Martin's mission was serious and had to be realized.

The same happens in all analogous cases. Apart from the question of prudence, it is evident that, without the difficulties there are in reaching them, sovereigns would be assailed by alleged revealers. In these recent times, how many people have believed themselves called to similar missions, which were only the result of obsessions, in which their pride was brought into play, in spite of themselves, and could result only in mystifications! To all those who believed they ought to consult us in similar cases, we have always said, demonstrating the evident signs by which lying Spirits betray themselves: “Beware of any maneuver that would infallibly lead you to confusion. Be assured that if your mission is real, you will be put in a position to carry it out; that, at a given moment, if you are to find yourself in a certain place, to it you will be led, in spite of yourself, by circumstances that will have the appearance of being an effect of chance. Moreover, be assured that a thing, when it is in the designs of God, will surely be realized, and that he does not subordinate such realization to the good or the ill will of men. Distrust missions fixed and proclaimed in advance, for they are nothing but stimulants to pride; missions reveal themselves through facts. Distrust also predictions for a certain day and hour, for serious Spirits never act thus.” We have been fortunate enough to stop some of them, to whom events were able to prove the prudence of these counsels. As one sees, there is more than one similitude between these facts and those of Joan of Arc, not that there is any comparison to be established as to the importance of the results achieved, but as to the cause of the phenomenon, which is exactly the same and, to a certain extent, as to the object. Like Joan of Arc, Martin was warned by a being of the spiritual world to go and speak to the king to save France from a danger and, also like her, it was not without difficulty that he reached him. There is, however, between the two manifestations, this difference: Joan of Arc only heard the voices that counseled her, whereas Martin constantly saw the individual who spoke to him, not in a dream or in an ecstatic sleep, but under the appearance of a living being, as a tangible-form Spirit would be. But from another point of view, the facts that happened to Martin, although less resounding, were not for that reason of any lesser scope, as proof of the existence of the spiritual world and of its relations with the corporeal world, and because, being contemporary and of incontestable notoriety, they cannot be placed in the ranks of legendary histories. By their repercussion, they served as landmarks for Spiritism, which was to, a few years later, confirm their possibility by a rational explanation and, by the law in virtue of which they are produced, make them pass from the domain of the marvelous to that of natural phenomena. Thanks to Spiritism, there is not a single one of the phases presented by Martin's revelations of which one cannot give a perfect account. Martin was an unconscious medium, endowed with an aptitude of which the Spirits made use, as of an instrument, to reach a determined result, and that result was far from being entirely in the revelation made to Louis XVIII. The Spirit who manifested himself to Martin characterizes him perfectly, saying: “I make use of you to humble pride and incredulity.” This is the mission of all mediums destined to prove, by facts of all kinds, the existence of the spiritual world and of a force superior to Humanity, because such is the providential object of the manifestations. We shall add that the king himself was an instrument in this circumstance. A position as elevated as his was needed, the very difficulty of reaching him, in order that the matter might have repercussion, and the authority of an official thing. The minute investigations to which Martin was subjected could only increase the authenticity of the facts, because they would not have taken all these precautions for a mere private individual. The thing would have passed almost unnoticed, whereas even today it is recalled and it furnishes an authentic proof in support of the Spiritist phenomena. [1] The detailed particulars and the proofs in support are found in a work entitled [Le passé et l'avenir expliqués par des événements extraordinaires … - Google Books.]: The past and the future explained by the extraordinary events that befell Thomas Martin, farmer of the Beauce. — Paris, 1832, House of BRICON bookseller, rue du Vieux-Colombier, 19; Marseille, same house, rue du Saint-Sépulcre, 17. — This work, today out of print, is very rare.

[2] [Talleyrand, Bishop of. . Born in Paris on October 16, 1736, and died on October 20, 1821. Alexandre Angélique de Talleyrand-Périgord, chaplain of the king, the abbé Gard, coadjutor archbishop of Reims in 1766, abbot of Hautvillers, in 1769, vice-president of the quinquennial assembly of the clergy in 1770, archbishop of Reims October 27, 1776, was a member of the clergy, of the Estates General in 1789. He was named grand chaplain of Louis XVIII, in 1808. Named cardinal on July 28, 1817, and archbishop of Paris in 1819. — Source: http://lavieremoise.free.fr/dossiers/dossiers.php?id_dossier=191]

[3] [The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Mosoch and Tiras.] (Genesis, 10.2)