The Count of Ourches.

The Count of Ourches was one of the first in Paris who occupied themselves with the Spiritist manifestations, from the moment the accounts of those that had occurred in America arrived. By the credit conferred upon him by his social position, his fortune, his family relations, and, above all, by the loyalty and honorability of his character, he contributed powerfully to its popularization. At the time of the fashion of the turning tables, his name had acquired great notoriety and a certain authority in the world of the adepts; he has, therefore, his name marked in the annals of Spiritism. Impassioned by the physical manifestations, he devoted to them an ingenuous and somewhat blind confidence, which was at times abused, owing to the ease with which they lend themselves to imitation. Exclusively dedicated to that kind of manifestations, from the sole point of view of the phenomenon, he did not follow Spiritism in its new scientific and philosophical phase, for which he had little sympathy, remaining a stranger to the great movement that took place in the last ten years. He died on May 5, 1867, at the age of 80. About him the Indépendance Belge published a long and most interesting biographical article, signed by Henry de Pène, and reproduced in the Gazette des Étrangers of Paris (5, rue Scribe) of Thursday, May 23; therein full justice is done to his eminent qualities, and his belief in the Spirits is judged with a moderation to which the first of these newspapers had not accustomed us. The article ends thus:

“All this, I well know, will cause a certain number of positive spirits to shrug their shoulders and say: “He is mad!”; however much brain he may have, they will soon say that he is mad. The Count of Ourches was a superior man, who had set as his goal to surpass his fellows, uniting the positive lights of Science to the flashes and visions of the supernatural.”