Mademoiselle Dumesnil, an attractive young girl.

— Several newspapers spoke of a young girl endowed with the singular faculty of drawing to herself the furniture and other objects placed within a certain radius, and of lifting, by simple contact, a chair upon which a person was seated. The Petit Journal of November 4 carried the following article on the subject:

“The white magpie of Dinan is no more surprising as a phenomenon than the magnetic young lady indicated in the following correspondence:

“Sir, “I come to point out to you a fact that might present much interest to your readers. If you are willing to take the trouble to verify it, you will find in it ample material for numerous articles.

“A young girl, Mademoiselle Dumesnil, thirteen years of age, possesses a fluid of an extraordinary attractive force, which makes all the wooden objects around her come to her. Thus the chairs, the tables, and everything made of wood instantly moves toward her. This faculty revealed itself in this young girl about three weeks ago. Until now this extraordinary phenomenon, which they have not yet been able to explain, has manifested itself only to the people of the girl’s social circle, neighbors, etc., who observed the fact a few days ago. The young lady’s surprising faculty has spread, and, as I am assured, she is in the process of negotiating with an impresario, who proposes to exhibit the phenomenon publicly.

“Since yesterday she went to the house of a great personage to whom she was recommended; publicity will not be long in taking hold of this event, and I hasten to forewarn you, so that you may have the first fruits.

“This girl works as a polisher of metals and lives with her parents, who are poor people.

“In the expectation that you will explain to us this inexplicable mystery, I beg you to accept my most sincere greetings.”

Brunet.

Employee, Christofle House, 56 rue de Bondy.

“I know no more than you, my dear correspondent, in the matter of magnetic science, and I regard as a mere curiosity your charming enchantress of the oak, the beech, and the mahogany, whom I advise, this winter, not to burn in the fireplace… anything but coal…”

— Here, certainly, is a strange phenomenon, very worthy of attention, and which must have a cause. If it is established that there is no subterfuge involved, which is easy to ascertain, and if the known laws are powerless to explain it, it is evident that it reveals the existence of a new force. Now, the discovery of a new principle may be fruitful in results. What is at least as surprising as this phenomenon is to see men of intelligence have for such facts only a haughty indifference and jeers in bad taste. And yet, it was not a question of Spirits, nor of Spiritism. What conviction can be expected of people who have none, who do not seek it and do not desire it? What serious study can be hoped for from this? Is not striving to convince them a waste of time, a useless expenditure of forces that could be better employed with men of good will, who are not lacking? We have always said: With prejudiced people, who will neither see nor hear, the best thing to do is to leave them in peace and prove to them that one does not need them. If anything is to triumph over their incredulity, the Spirits will know well how to find it and employ it when the moment comes.

— To return to the young girl, her parents, who are in a precarious position, seeing the sensation she produced and the concourse of notable people she attracted, no doubt thought that here was for them a source of fortune. They are not to be blamed, for, being ignorant even of the name of Spiritism and of mediums, they could not understand the consequences of an exploitation of this kind. To them their daughter was a phenomenon; they resolved, then, to install her on the boulevards, among the other phenomena. They did better: they installed her at the Grand-Hôtel, a place more suitable for the productive aristocracy. But, alas! the golden dreams soon vanished. The phenomena no longer reproduced themselves except at rare intervals, and in so irregular a manner that it was necessary to abandon almost immediately the splendid lodging and return to the workshop. To exhibit a faculty so capricious that it fails precisely at the moment when the spectators, who have paid their admission, are gathered and expect to be shown it for their money! As a phenomenon, it is better for speculation to have a child with two heads, because, at least, there it is. What is to be done if one has no strings to take the place of the invisible actors? The most honorable course is to withdraw. Nevertheless, according to a letter published in a newspaper, it appears that the young girl has not entirely lost her power, but she is subject to such intermittences that it becomes difficult to seize the favorable moment. One of our friends, an enlightened Spiritist and a profound observer, was able to witness the phenomenon and was only moderately satisfied with the result. “I believe,” he told us, “in the sincerity of these people, but, for the incredulous, the effect is not produced, at this moment, under conditions that defy all suspicion. I do not deny it, for I know that the thing is possible; I am only stating my impressions. As I have caught supposed mediums of physical effects in flagrant fraud, I have realized the maneuvers by which certain effects can be simulated, deceiving people who do not know the conditions of real effects, so that I affirm only with full knowledge of the case, not trusting my eyes. In the very interest of Spiritism, my first care is to examine whether fraud is possible, with the help of sagacity, or whether the effect may be due to a common material cause. Besides,” he added, “there it is forbidden to be a Spiritist, to act through the Spirits, and even to believe in them.” It is to be noted that since the misfortune of the Davenport brothers, all the exhibitors of extraordinary phenomena reject any participation of the Spirits in their business, and they do well; Spiritism has only to gain by not being mixed up in these exhibitions. It is one more service rendered by these gentlemen, because it is not by such means that Spiritism will recruit proselytes.

Another observation is that, each time it is a question of some spontaneous manifestation, or of any phenomenon attributed to an occult cause, those generally taken as experts are people, sometimes learned men, who do not know the least thing about what they are to observe and who come with a preconceived idea of denial. Who is charged with deciding whether or not there is an intervention of the Spirits or a spiritual cause? Precisely those who deny spirituality, who do not believe in the Spirits and do not want them to exist. One is certain in advance of their answer. They avoid taking the opinion of anyone suspected of Spiritism, first because it would be to believe in the thing, and then because they fear a solution contrary to the one they want. They do not reflect that only an enlightened Spiritist is fit to judge the circumstances under which Spiritist phenomena may be produced, just as only a chemist is fit to know the composition of a body, and that, in this respect, the Spiritists are more skeptical than many people; that, far from giving credit to an apocryphal phenomenon, they have every interest in pointing it out as such and in unmasking the fraud. Nevertheless, an instruction emerges from this: the very irregularity of the facts is a proof of sincerity; if they resulted from any artificial means, they would be produced at the desired moment. This is the reflection made by a journalist who had been invited to go to the Grand-Hôtel. There were that day a few other notable guests and, despite two hours of waiting, the girl obtained not the slightest effect. “The poor child,” said the journalist, “was disconsolate, and her face betrayed uneasiness. ‘Be reassured,’ he said to her; ‘not only does this failure not discourage me, but it leads me to believe that your account is sincere. If there were any charlatanism or trickery on your part, your stroke would not have failed. I will return tomorrow.’” In fact, he returned five times, without any further results. On the sixth time she had left the hotel. “From which I conclude,” added the journalist, “that the poor Mademoiselle Dumesnil, after having built fine castles at the expense of her electromagnetic virtues, was obliged to resume her place in the polishing workshops of Mr. Ruolz.” The facts having been established, it is certain that there was in her a special organic disposition that lent itself to this kind of phenomenon; but, setting aside any subterfuge, it is certain that if her faculty depended solely on her organism, she would have had it, like the electric fish, always at her disposal. Considering that her will, her most ardent desire, were powerless to produce the phenomenon, it is because there was, in the fact, a cause that was foreign to her. What is this cause? Evidently the one that governs all mediumistic phenomena: the concurrence of the Spirits, without which the best-endowed mediums obtain nothing. Mademoiselle Dumesnil is an example that they are not at anyone’s orders. However ephemeral her faculty may have been, it did more for the conviction of certain people than if it had been produced on fixed days and hours, at her command before the public, as in the maneuvers of conjuring. It is true that nothing attests in an ostensible manner to the intervention of the Spirits in this circumstance, because there are no intelligent effects, apart from the girl’s powerlessness to act at her will. The faculty, as in all mediumistic effects, is inherent in her; the exercise of the faculty may depend on a foreign will. But, even admitting that the Spirits have nothing to do with it, it is none the less a phenomenon destined to draw attention to the fluidic forces that govern our organism, and which so many people persist in denying.

If this force here were purely electrical, it would nonetheless denote an important modification in electricity, since it acts upon wood, to the exclusion of metals. This alone would well be worth the trouble of being studied.