Chapter 8 GALLARDON

Original

GALLARDON, a town of the region of Chartres, is built upon the spine formed by the valleys of the Ocre and the Voise, two of those narrow and sinuous ravines, clothed with trembling alders and poplars, which traverse the immense plateau of La Beauce. The houses rise, stage above stage, on the side of the hill; then, at the summit of the slope, commences the endless plain, the ocean of harvests, dotted with the whirling iron arms of water-pumping windmills, where the towers of the cathedral of Chartres are dimly seen above the horizon. Gallardon was formerly a strong defensive position, and the ruin of its old donjon, "the shoulder of Gallardon," still sketches curious outlines against the sky. Gallardon possesses a remarkable church, whose choir is a marvel of elegance, and whose nave is covered with a beautiful vault of painted wood. It also boasts of a beautiful Renaissance house.... Finally, it is noted for the richness of its fields and above all for the excellence of its beans.

But, today, neglecting the picturesque, archaeological and horticultural merits of Gallardon, I wish to tell the story of a singular personage who was born in this tiny village of La Beauce, Thomas Ignatius Martin, a visionary laborer, known under the name of Martin of Gallardon. 14

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In 1816, the White Terror reigned in La Beauce as in other places. Gallardon had not escaped the fever which torments the least village of France on the morrow of every revolution. Conquered and furious, the Liberals met in the hall of an inn to exchange their regrets and their rancors; with airs of bravado they evoked the memories of the Revolution and the glories of the Empire. Opposite them, and in opposition to them, the Royalist Committee celebrated the victory of its party and exploited it. It annoyed and threatened its adversaries, bombarded the Chamber with petitions, and the ministers with denunciations. It was the appointed hour for all reprisals, all enthusiasms and all credulities.

Thomas Ignatius Martin was born at Gallardon of a family of small farmers who had been known there from time immemorial. He was thirty-three years old and the father of four children. He was a robust, simple, upright, easy-going and open-hearted citizen. In the midst of aroused passions he had never mixed in political affairs. On the testimony of the mayor of Gallardon, "the Revolution always seemed to displease him, especially on account of the disorders which it caused, in which he never took part. He remained tranquil in all these events, even on the 20th of March, when Bonaparte returned; he seemed, however, to be angry at the banishment of the King; but he also took tranquilly the return of the King in the month of July, rejoicing at it, but without ostentation." In short, he was a wise man. He fulfilled his religious duties exactly, but without fervor, went to mass, kept Lent, read nothing but his prayer book and when, passing by his fields, the curate asked of him: "How goes the work?" he replied: "Much obliged, M. Curé, it goes well." He was never seen at the tavern.

Now, on February 15, 1816, about half-past two in the afternoon, Thomas was in his fields busy in spreading manure on his land, when he suddenly saw an unknown man appear before him. This man, who appeared to be about five feet two inches high, was slim of figure, with a tapering, delicate and very white face; he was enveloped to his feet in a long frock coat of blonde color, was shod with boots tied with strings, and wore a high silk hat. He said to Martin in a very gentle voice:

"It is necessary that you should go to see the King; that you should say to him that his life is in danger, as well as that of the princes; that evil men are still attempting to overturn the government; that several writings or letters are already in circulation in some provinces of his States on this subject; that it is necessary that he shall have an exact and general watch kept in all his States, and especially in the capital; that it is also necessary that he should exalt the day of the Lord, that it may be kept holy; that this holy day is misused by a great portion of his people; that it is necessary that he shall cause public works to stop on that day; that he shall cause public prayers to be ordered for the conversion of the people; that he shall exhort them to penitence; that he shall abolish and annihilate all the disorders which are committed on all the days which precede the holy forty days of Lent: that if he does not do all these things, France will fall into new evils. It is necessary that the King should behave towards his people as a father to his child who deserves to be punished; that he shall punish a small number of the most culpable among them to intimidate the others. If the King does not do what is said, there will be made so great a hole in his crown that this will bring him entirely to ruin."

To this discourse Martin replied very judiciously: "But you can certainly go away and find others than me to undertake such a commission as that."

"No," replied the unknown, "it is you who shall go." Martin replied still more judiciously: "But since you know it so well, you can indeed go yourself to find the King and say all that to him; why do you address yourself to a poor man like me, who does not know how to explain himself?" The unknown showed himself inflexible: "It is not I," said he, "who shall go, it will be you; pay attention to what I say to you, for you shall do all that I command you." Then his feet appeared to lift from the earth, his head to sink, his body to shrink, and the apparition disappeared. A mysterious force prevented Martin from quitting his field and made him finish his work much more rapidly than was usual.

When he returned to Gallardon, Martin went to his priest to relate the adventure to him. The curate, who was called M. Laperruque, advised him to eat, drink and sleep well, without worrying about this chimera. But, on the following day, the unknown presented himself on several occasions before the more and more frightened peasant, and repeated to him the order to go and find the King.

Martin, on the advice of the curate, visited the Bishop of Versailles, who questioned him and sent him back to Gallardon. A new apparition: the unknown declares that he will not tell his name, that he is sent from heaven, and that if Martin is chosen above all to speak to Louis XVIII, "it is to lower pride." From this day he does not cease to lecture Martin: "It is not necessary to believe that it is by the will of men that the usurper came last year, it is to punish France.... France is in a state of delirium: it shall be delivered to all sorts of evils...." At the same time he warned him "that he would be led before the King, that he would discover to him the secret things of the period of his exile, but that the knowledge of them would only be given to him at the moment when he would be introduced into the King's presence." Whether he cultivates his fields, or whether he remains in the barn to thresh his wheat, the unfortunate farmer always finds himself in the presence of the haunting apparition.

Meanwhile, the curate Laperruque corresponds with the Bishop of Versailles, who corresponds with the Minister of Police. The latter requests the prefect of Eure-et-Loir to verify "if these apparitions, said to be miraculous, were not rather a flight of the imagination of Martin, a veritable illusion of his exalted spirit; or if possibly the pretended apparition, or perhaps Martin himself, ought not to be severely questioned by the police and then turned over to the courts."

Original

Warned by the unknown that he is soon going to appear "before the first magistrate of his arrondissement," Martin repairs to Chartres with his curate, and goes to see the prefect; he relates to him his visions, announces himself as ready to repeat the story of them to the Minister of Police and to the King himself, and on March 7, at five o'clock in the morning, departs from Chartres by the diligence, in the company of M. André, lieutenant of gendarmes. They both arrive at Paris at half-past five and take rooms at the H?tel de Calais, Rue Montmartre.

On the next morning, the lieutenant of gendarmes takes his man to the General Police Headquarters. In the courtyard, the unknown appears again to Martin: "You are going," says he, "to be questioned in several ways; have neither fear nor inquietude, but tell the things as they are." It is nine o'clock; the minister, M. Decazes, has not yet arisen. A secretary makes Martin undergo a preliminary interrogatory. The latter allows himself to be neither intimidated nor disconcerted. Then he is introduced into the private room of the minister, to whom he relates again the series of apparitions, and describes the countenance and the clothing of the unknown. "Well," the minister then says to him, "you will see him no more, for I am going to have you arrested and taken to prison." This news leaves Martin very incredulous.... And, having returned to the H?tel de Calais, he again hears the unknown assure him that the police have no power over him, and that it is high time to warn the King.

The minister begins to be embarrassed. It is evident that the words of the unknown are not unlike-even to style-the discourses uttered by M. de Marcellus, M. de Chateaubriand, the ultras who meet every evening in the Rue Thérèse, in the salon of M. Piet, in short, all the enemies of M. Decazes. On the other hand, the simplicity of Martin, his air of frankness, the concordance of his stories, all preclude the idea of an imposture. Could this peasant, then, be playing a part in some political machination? But it is impossible to discover who could be the instigators of the mystification. M. Decazes, to get to the bottom of the affair, then orders Pinel, physician in chief of the Salpêtrière, to repair to the H?tel de Calais and examine the individual in question. After a long conversation, Pinel decides that Martin is afflicted with an "intermittent alienation"; then he reflects and writes to the minister that the wisest course is to take the subject to Charenton for a few days, in order that it may be possible to observe him and pronounce upon his case.

Meanwhile, the unknown continues to appear to Martin and to announce to him the worst catastrophes. Suddenly, on March 10, he decides to reveal his name: "I had told you that my name would remain unknown; but, since incredulity is so great, it is necessary that I discover my name to you; I am the Archangel Raphael, an angel very celebrated at the throne of God; I have received the power to strike France with all sorts of plagues." And he adds that peace will not return to France before the year 1840. These words terrify Martin.

Three days later, the lieutenant of gendarmes causes him to enter a hired carriage and, under pretext of a drive, conducts him to Charenton. Martin, however, displays no astonishment at this: the supernatural voice has warned him of it.

Martin remained about three weeks at Charenton, observed and studied very closely by Doctor Royer-Collard, chief physician of the hospital. He set down his observations and his conclusions in a long report, which he signed with Pinel. It is from this document that I have just related the first visions of Martin.

This report gives us a high idea of the prudence, the method and the scruples of the physicians who prepared it. As we read these clear and judicious pages, we are obliged to recognize that if the science of mental maladies has made little progress since 1816, the specialists resort to boldness of diagnosis and obscurities of language which Pinel and Royer-Collard knew nothing of. These two doctors knew that their work would pass under the King's eyes, and they doubtless put particular care into it. Nevertheless, not one of our most famous alienists would consent today to sign such an avowal of uncertainty, nor, above all, to express his doubts and reserves in a fashion as limpid and as intelligible, without once dissimulating by a barbarous jargon the fragility of his knowledge.

The doctors begin by an exposition of the facts, the apparitions of the archangel, the confidences of Martin to his curate, his trip to Paris and his arrival at Charenton. They report that after having submitted him to a detailed examination, they had found in him no sign of malady nor any symptom of derangement of mind: he is sound of body, reasons well, manifests neither overexcitement nor violence; he accepts his internment with resignation and asks only that he be permitted to accomplish his mission, for he continues to receive the visits and the admonitions of the archangel. We shall see that he finally obtained entry to the presence of the King. But let us see first, according to expert medical testimony, whether Martin was an impostor or an illuminate.

"If Martin is an impostor," say the doctors, "he can have become so only in one of two ways: either by imagining his r?le alone and executing it without any outside assistance, or by obeying the influence of other persons more enlightened than himself and by receiving their counsel and their instruction."

The physicians discard the first hypothesis; what they themselves have observed of the character of Martin and what they have learned through information brought from Gallardon, prevents their believing in trickery. "Martin was the last man in the world whom one would suspect of forming a project such as this and of cleverly bringing together all the parties to it; he did not have the religious and political acquaintances which this requires, and he would never have been able to compose by himself alone the discourses which he assures us were addressed to him; but even supposing, contrary to all probability, that he might have been capable of conceiving such a plan, his skill would have come to an end at the first difficulty of execution. Let us imagine him in this contingency face to face with the different persons who have questioned him; let one oppose his inexperience to their penetration, his ignorance to the artifice of their questions, his timidity to the impression of respect which the exercise of authority always calls forth, and let one ask one's self if he would not have been disconcerted a score of times and fallen into the traps which were laid for him in all directions. Let us add that, if he had only been an adroit rogue, he would have infallibly sought to turn this roguery to his own profit by making it a means of fortune or of credit. Now, he has not dreamed for a single instant of taking advantage of the extraordinary things which happened to him; he has not even been willing to accept a small sum of money which was offered him for his traveling expenses; he has never worked to acquire partisans, and finally, he has returned to his village as simple and with as little pretension as before. Has one ever seen rogues so disinterested?"

Must we believe that Martin is not the sole author of the imposture and that he was guided by outside advice? The physicians combat equally this hypothesis which would have made policemen smile in the beginning. Here is their reasoning, and it is very strong: "To admit this second hypothesis, it is necessary to admit also that a certain number of men, attached to some political or religious faction and knowing Martin directly or indirectly, should have entered into close relations with him at some time before January 15, and have continued these relations from January 15 up to the time of Martin's removal to Paris, and also in Paris itself, during the sojourn which he made there, and even at Charenton during the three weeks which he passed there...." Without these precautions, Martin, abandoned to himself and now obedient only to vague and insufficient guidance, would not have been able to escape the perils which surrounded him.... Previous to January 15, Martin associated only with his family or the people of his village; he has never been known to have had any acquaintance or association with persons of a higher class; consequently he has not had them; for in a village nothing remains secret; every one knows what his neighbor is doing. From January 15 up to the time of his removal to Paris, the most authentic reports certify that he has seen only his curate, the Bishop of Versailles and the prefect of Eure-et-Loir, and we know exactly what passed between them and Martin. In the journey from Gallardon to Paris, and during the stay which he made in that city, Martin was accompanied by an officer of gendarmes who left him neither by day nor by night, and who affirms that, with the exception of M. Pinel, no one at all has had an interview with him. As to Charenton, we certify that he there met only three strangers: one was the commandant and the two others [M. Sosthène de La Rochefoucauld and the Abbé Dulondel, sent by the Archbishop of Rheims, to whom the King had entrusted the care and the solution of the Martin affair.], discreet persons, incapable of becoming the instruments of trickery; that all three have had communication with Martin only in the presence of the director, and that they were rigorously restricted to addressing a few questions to him without making any kind of insinuation.... Martin talked of his visions neither to the patients, nor to the attendants, nor to the gardeners. Besides, no letter, no advice, had reached him from outside... Then Martin is neither an impostor nor an accomplice in an imposture. He thus actually experienced the sensations which he reports.

Having established the sincerity of Martin, the physicians asked themselves how his intellectual condition should be characterized.

Martin is the puppet of hallucinations. Therefore his affection approaches insanity in certain characteristics. "It is for this reason," adds Royer-Collard, "that M. Pinel and myself did not hesitate at first sight to regard this affection as a particular kind of insanity, and it is probable that any other physician would have thought as we do on this point. But if Martin's affection approaches insanity in some particulars, it also differs from it in important and basic respects..." What were they? "In the case of ordinary mental patients, the hallucination of the senses is almost always led up to and brought on by causes which have acted strongly upon their imagination, or disturbed more or less the exercise of their intellectual faculties; it never manifests itself without a special concentration of efforts of the attention or the imagination upon a single idea or upon a particular series of ideas, at least in the period which immediately precedes the vision." Now, in Martin's case, there is nothing like this. He has religious visions, although he had a mind little inclined to the mystic and was even a rather lukewarm Christian. His visions relate to politics, yet he was a stranger to the passions of his fellow citizens and did not read the newspapers. Among ordinary insane, visions are always accompanied by a certain ecstatic exaltation which gives the seer the attitude of the inspired, of the prophet, and never permit him to relate his visions with calmness and tranquillity. Now Martin remains constantly the same. He confides his visions only to his superiors, he appears more annoyed than glorified by them, he relates them with simplicity; he is not turned for one instant from his habitual occupations. Singular coincidences justified certain of the prophecies of Martin: "If it is necessary to make use of the testimony of the officer of gendarmes who accompanied him, Martin announced to him in the morning the visit which M. Pinel was to make in the afternoon, without there being any way in which he could learn of this.... We are equally assured that he had actually written to his brother under date of March 12, to warn him that the authorities were going to have information collected in his neighborhood, in regard to the persons with whom he habitually associated there, while the letter by which these inquiries were ordered was not written until the sixteenth of the same month...." Pinel and Royer-Collard willingly admit that there exist "incontestable occurrences of previsions and presentiments which were later realized by the event." But what appears not less certain "is that these occurrences are met with only in the case of persons who enjoy all their faculties and never among the mentally afflicted. This is a side of our nature which remains inexplicable to us even to this day and which will probably long escape our researches." Finally, Martin is distinguished by his excellent health from other hallucinate insane, who are always the victims of physical troubles.

What can then be the nature of this condition, so individual and so different from insanity as it is usually observed?

I have had to abridge this long scientific discussion, but I will copy the conclusions of the report verbatim:

"We here find ourselves arrested by important considerations. On the one hand, it very often happens that true insanity shows itself at first only by indefinite symptoms and takes its real form and its complete development only at a period more or less remote from its first appearance; on the other hand, the methods of classification applied even to this day in medicine are still very imperfect, and lack much of that degree of precision which seems to belong especially to the other physical sciences.... The external and tangible properties of objects are the only ones which receive the attention of the doctor: it is by the examination of these that he regulates his ministry, and intellectual facts are almost always surrounded with so many obscurities that it is extremely difficult to assert rigorously exact analogies or differences.

"If these reflections are true, in general, they are especially so with respect to the facts observed in Martin's case, and the mere statement of these facts furnishes a sufficient proof of this. We consequently think that Martin's condition may change. It would be rash to pronounce upon this condition before the lapse of a year, and until then we think it is proper that we should abstain from judging him. We also think that this condition, as we have observed it, cannot, taking into consideration the present imperfection of our knowledge, be characterized in a precise manner, and that even if we suppose that it would always remain the same, it would still be necessary to wait, in order to determine its nature, until facts of the same kind, observed and recorded with care, should have been discovered in sufficient quantity to spread new light upon this still obscure portion of our knowledge."

Consequently, Pinel and Royer-Collard declare that they have found it necessary to refrain from giving any treatment, they decide that the minister has done "an act of justice and humanity" in returning Martin to his family, and request that, during a period of considerable duration, he should be the subject of "enlightened observation."

When Louis XVIII decided to summon Martin to the Tuileries, he had not yet read this report, which was not drawn up until several days later.

But M. Decazes had communicated to him the observations of the physicians, and the Archbishop of Rheims in like manner the impressions of his emissary, Abbé Dulondel. To what sentiment did he respond in summoning Martin? Probably to simple curiosity. "Infected with his century, it is to be feared that religion was for the Very Christian king' only an elixir suitable for the amalgamation of the drugs of which royalty is composed." (This admirable formula is by Chateaubriand.)

On April 2, Martin was conducted from Charen-ton to police headquarters. The minister announced to him that he was about to be taken to see the King, then went into a neighboring room. Then Martin beheld the archangel, and heard these words: "You are going to speak to the King and you will be alone with him; have no fear in appearing before the King because of what you have to say to him." A carriage was ready. But the peasant preferred to go to the Tuileries on foot, and the first gentleman in waiting introduced him into the King's apartment.

* * *

Martin was in the presence of Louis XVIII; he was finally going to be able to acquit himself of his mission and to transmit to the King the warnings of the archangel.

He himself reported this interview to Doctor Royer-Collard; then, after returning to Gallardon, he made a more detailed statement to his curate, M. Laperruque; the latter wrote down the relation under the dictation of Martin, who certified to its exactness, and the manuscript was sent to the prefecture of Chartres. We are obliged to confine ourselves to the statements of the laborer of La Beauce, for the scene had no witness. To the Duchess of Berry, who questioned him about this personage, Louis XVIII merely replied that Martin was a very worthy man who had given him good advice from which he hoped to be able to profit.

Martin finds the King seated at a table "upon which," he says, "there were many papers and pens." He bows, hat in hand.

"Sire, I salute you."

"Good morning, Martin."

"You surely know, Sire, why I come."

"Yes, I know that you have something to tell me and I have been told that it was something which you could say only to me. Be seated." Martin takes an armchair, sits down on the other side of the table, facing the King, and begins the conversation.

Original

"How is your health, Sire?"

"I feel a little better than I have for some time; and how are you getting along?"

"I am very well, thank you."

"What is the reason for your coming here?" And the seer commences to relate the admonitions and the prophecies of the archangel, all that had happened to him since January 15, the date of the first apparition. He adds:

"It has also been said to me: One has betrayed the King and will betray him again; a man has escaped from prison; the King has been made to believe that this occurred through subtleness, skill and chance; but the thing is not so, it was premeditated; those who should have attempted to recapture him have neglected the matter; they have used in their task much slowness and negligence; they have caused him to be pursued when it was no longer possible to recapture him. I do not know who, they have not told me this."

"I know him well, it is Lavalette."

"It has been said to me that the King examines all his employees, and especially his ministers."

"Have they not named the persons to you?"

"No, it has been said to me that it was easy for the King to know them; as for myself I do not know them."

Martin pretends that, at this moment, Louis XVIII lifted his eyes to heaven, saying: "Ah! it is necessary!"... and began to weep. Seeing which, he himself wept with the King to the end of the interview. But his emotion does not prevent him from continuing.

"It has also been said to me that the King should send into his provinces confidential officials to examine the administrations, without their being warned, without their even knowing that any one has been sent; and you will be feared and respected by your subjects. It has been said to me that I should say to you that the King should remember his distress and his adversity in the time of his exile. The King has wept for France; there has been a time when the King no longer had any hope of returning hither, seeing France allied with all its neighbors."

"Yes, there was a time when I no longer had any hope, seeing all the States which no longer had any support."

"God has not wished to destroy the King; he has recalled him into his States at the moment when he least expected it. At last the King has returned to his legitimate possessions. What are the acts of grace which have been returned for such a benefit? To punish France once more, the usurper has been drawn from his exile: it was not by the will of men, nor by the effect of chance that things were permitted thus. He returned without forces, without arms, without any defense being made against him. The legitimate King was obliged to abandon his capital, and although he believed that he could still hold one city in his States, he was obliged to abandon it."

"It is very true, I intended to remain at Lille."

"When the usurper returned... [let us omit these historic matters]. The King again re?ntered his States. Where are the acts of grace which have been rendered to God for so glorious a miracle?" And Louis XVIII still weeps.... Then Martin recalls to him private facts regarding his exile.

"Keep the secret of them," returns the King; "there will only be God, you and myself who will ever know that.... Has it not been said to you how it is necessary that I should conduct myself in governing France?"

"No, he has made no mention to me of all that which is in the writings; the minister has the writings, as the things have been announced."

"Has he not said to you that I have already sent forth decrees for all that you have spoken of to me?"

"No, no one has mentioned it to me...."

"... If, however, he returns, you will ask him how it is necessary that I should conduct myself in governing."

"It has been said to me that as soon as my commission to the King had been accomplished, I would never see anything more and that I would be undisturbed."

Louis XVIII, perhaps less troubled than the worthy Martin believes, continues to question the seer and to make him detail the circumstances under which certain of his previsions have been realized. (The medical report informs of these curious coincidences.) Then, having listened to this story-"It is the same angel," he says, "who led the young Tobias to Ragès and who made him marry her." He takes the right hand of Martin, that which the angel has pressed, and adds: "Pray for me."

"Surely, Sire, I and my family, as well as the curate of Gallardon, have always prayed that the affair should succeed."

"How old is the curate of Gallardon? Has he been with you long?"

"He is almost sixty; he is a worthy man; he has been with us about five or six years."

"I commend myself to you, to him and to all your family."

"Surely, Sire, it is much to be desired that you should remain; because if you should happen to depart or if some misfortune should come to you, we others would risk nothing also by going away, because there are also evil people in our country; they are not lacking."

After having renewed all the recommendations which the archangel had charged him to transmit to the King, Martin wishes Louis XVIII good health and asks his permission to return "to the center of his family."

"I have given orders to send you back there."

"It has always been announced to me that no harm and no evil would happen to me."

"Nor will anything happen to you; you will return there tomorrow; the minister is going to give you supper and a bedroom and papers to take you back."

"But I would like it if I could return to Charenton to bid them good-by and to get a shirt which I left there."

"Did it not trouble you to remain at Charenton? Did you get along well there?"

"No trouble at all; and surely if I did not get along well there, I would not ask to go back."

"Well, since you desire to go back there, the minister will see that you are sent there at my expense."

On the next day, having said farewell to the physicians at Charenton, Martin was taken back to Chartres, where the prefect of Eure-et-Loir recommended him to observe the greatest discretion in regard to his adventure, then he returned to Gallardon. The curiosity seekers who had been worried by his absence questioned him: "When you have business," he replied to them, "do you not go and do it? Well, I have been to do mine." And he went back to working in the fields.

M. Decazes and the King himself would doubtless have preferred that the affair should remain secret; but it was soon bruited about. Troubled by the extraordinary events which had occurred in France in the last two years, imaginations were eager for the supernatural. On the other hand, the most violent members of the Royalist party did not find it inopportune that a miraculous voice had come to recall to the sovereign his duties as "very Christian king."

Copies of the medical report and manuscript relations circulated among the public. In the month of August, 1816, an English journal told the story of Martin. It was published in the Journal général de France in January, 1817. Finally pamphlets were printed. A "former magistrate" of Dijon told the stories of the visions which he considered miraculous; he accused the physicians of having "spread clouds over the truth of the revelations made to Martin," and compared the "divine" mission of the peasant to that of Joan of Arc. A priest, Abbé Wurtz, answered: for him, all the visions of the man of Gallardon were only fables and illusions; they touched upon "the dignity of the most august family of the universe"; this pretended archangel was an enemy of the legitimate monarchy; upon the high hat of the unknown, there was perhaps a tricolored cockade under the white one!

Finally, there appeared a work which subsequently ran into twenty editions and spread the name of Martin of Gallardon throughout the whole of France: Relation Concerning the Events Which Happened to a Laborer of La Beauce in the Early Days of 1816. Its author was M. Silvy, "former magistrate," a man of great knowledge and of great piety; it was he who acquired the site of the ruins of Port-Royal and who perpetuated in the nineteenth century the spirit and the traditions of Jansenism.

Written from the accounts of Martin himself and the reports of the director and the doctors of Charenton, this relation was accompanied by religious considerations. M. Silvy did not doubt that Thomas had been inspired by God through the mediation of an archangel. He interpreted in his own fashion the quite scientific prudence which the doctors had evidenced in refusing to give a definite opinion upon the case of the illuminate. A whole life of disinterestedness and charity proved the good faith of M. Silvy. But it is sufficient, to eliminate the idea of a fraud, to know the mortifications and the disillusions which eventually overwhelmed this honest man, without affecting his belief.

The police commenced to be stirred up. The peasant had been sent back to his plow with a recommendation to be silent; he was silent, but many others talked in his stead. It was impossible to act vigorously against him without becoming ridiculous, for the authorities had been forced to recognize his sincerity, and the report signed by the alienists would not allow a personage as inoffensive as he to be returned to Charenton. Measures were therefore taken against his historian, and the police prosecuted M. Silvy. The latter, who was a good Royalist, did not hesitate to declare that when the first edition of his pamphlet was sold out he would bind himself not to publish a second. This, for the moment, was all that M. Decazes could wish. The prosecution was abandoned: the publicity of a trial was useless.

The archangel Raphael had announced to Martin that "when his commission had been carried out he would see nothing more." But, one day, the visions recommenced, to the great astonishment of all those who had believed in the first revelations. They admitted their embarrassment, and made the conjecture that, after having received his inspirations from a messenger of light, Martin might now be visited by a messenger of darkness. Besides, the archangel did not appear again. Martin merely heard voices which announced to him the fall of the Bourbons and the dismemberment of France; he saw hands tracing mysterious letters upon the walls; he predicted frightful catastrophes. The peasant had become prophet. His mental condition changed, in accordance with the prediction of Doctor Royer-Collard. People came to consult him from twenty leagues around. His poor cracked head put him at the mercy of all the plotters.

He got mixed up in his revelations. We have seen that when he had been admitted to the presence of Louis XVIII, he had told the latter certain secrets of his exile and that the King had begged him to preserve this confidence. He was silent until the death of the King; but in 1825 he believed that he was able to speak and made this strange confidence to Duc Mathieu de Montmorency; one day Louis XVIII, then Count of Provence, had, while hunting, formed the design of killing Louis XVI, had even taken aim at his brother, and only chance had prevented the murder. It was this criminal thought that he, Martin, had recalled to the King. Certain Royalists observed, not without foundation, that the historical knowledge of Martin was not very sound, and that it was not a question here of secrets of the period of exile.

Martin did not trouble himself about these inconsistencies, and continued to prophesy. In 1830 he announced the Revolution. On the Saturday which preceded the ordinances, he heard a voice pronounce these words: "The ax is raised, blood is going to flow." When Charles X in flight sent the Marquis de la Rochejacquelin to him from Rambouillet to question him as to the decision he must make, Martin replied that all was over and that it was necessary to leave France. On the next day, while listening to the mass, he saw three red tears, three black tears, and three white tears, fall upon the chalice. The puzzle was solved by three words: Death, Mourning, Joy. The Joy seemed superfluous to the adherents of the legitimate monarchy.

As to the famous "secret of the King," it was not long before he gave a new version of it. What he had revealed to Louis XVIII was the survival of Louis XVII. He had fallen into the hands of the partisans of Naundorff; he remained there until his death.

Shortly after the Revolution of 1830, there appeared an anonymous pamphlet entitled: The Past and the Future Explained by Extraordinary Events. The author, who did not give his name, was Abbé Perrault, secretary of the Grand Almonry of France during the Restoration and member of a "Committee of Researches Respecting Louis XVII." He made use of the revelations of Martin to demonstrate the illegitimacy of Louis XVIII and of Charles X, and Martin certified to all of this with his name and his signature. 15

His former friends, whom he seemed to deny and whom he allowed to be defamed by the anonymous author of the pamphlet, were greatly grieved by this. I have before me a touching letter which was written him at that time by M. Silvy: "May the Lord deign to give you eyes enlightened by the heart, to lead you back into the way of truth and sincerity. I cannot nor should I conceal from you that in separating yourself from it, as you seem to have done for several years, you do an infinite wrong to the special work with which you were charged by the angel of the Lord in the early months of 1816. You were then only a simple instrument in his hands, chosen by him as a good villager whom no one could suspect of belonging to any party, and unhappily there are many of these which divide the Church and the State. What a change has happened in you! And what a difference between Thomas Martin as he showed himself in 1816, and the same Thomas Martin in 1832!... Such is the evil fruit (the fruit of death) of this book (a lie) Du passé et de Vavenir, which confirms and must confirm more than ever different persons in unbelief and in avoidance of the salutary advice which was given to all France by the mission which was confided to you (and which you have just dishonored). I have learned by myself and I am still certain from different testimonies that many of those who at first had believed in your first announcements no longer give to you the shadow of faith. I could even name to you, if you desire it, curates and honorable priests, vicars and even seminarists whom your new visions and their manifest falsity have totally disgusted with your previous revelations of 1816..." This letter was not answered. The unfortunate Martin belonged henceforward to those who exploited his hallucinations.

When, in the month of May, 1833, the clock-maker of Crossen, Duc de Normandie, arrived at Paris to make himself known to his faithful, and when the sect commenced to be organized, the King and the Prophet met. The circumstances of this interview are not known precisely. According to certain authors, Martin was taken to Saint Arnoult, a village near Dourdan, to the home of the curate Appert, one of the most zealous and most devoted partisans of Naundorff; there, in the presbytery, they presented him to a mysterious personage whom he immediately hailed as the true King of France, while the friends of Naundorff wept at the spectacle of the miracle. But the Viscount of Maricourt received from the mouth of Doctor Antoine Martin, son of Thomas Martin, a version according to which the scene may have been less solemn and less touching. In September, 1833, on waking one morning, Martin said to his son: "At this moment there resides at Paris, with Madame de Rambaud, an unknown who calls himself King Louis XVII. My angel requires me to assure myself of his identity. Let us depart, my son." They departed. "Are you King Louis XVII?" Martin brusquely said to the stranger who was called Naundorff, when he was in his presence. "In that case, you have upon the shoulder, a half-ring, an indelible sign of your identity, marked there by the Queen your mother, a sleeping lion upon your breast and a dove on your thigh." Then Naundorff took the Martins, father and son, into "a discreet place prescribed by decency," and allowed them to see that these signs were marked upon his body. 16

From the day when Martin enrolled himself in Naundorffs party he leads a wandering life, full of tribulations. He stays but rarely in his own village. He retires sometimes to Chartres, sometimes to Versailles; for the voices order him incessantly to flee from his enemies and to hide himself.

On April 12, 1834, he leaves Gallardon to make a retreat at Chartres. When leaving, he tells his wife that he well knows that something is going to happen to him, but that he confides all to the will of God. He goes to see some honorable persons who are accustomed to receive him. But, when his novena is finished and he is about to return home, he is taken with frightful pains and dies before a doctor can be called. The honorable persons send for the widow, require her to send the body of the deceased to the home of a curate, her relation, and the latter is requested to declare that the death took place in his house. He refuses, and the body is transported to Gallardon. The strangeness of all these circumstances and the appearance of the body cause suspicion of poisoning. Martin's family demand that the body shall be exhumed and an autopsy made. The doctors examine the body, but nothing more is heard of the affair.

Thus ends very mysteriously the seer Thomas Martin of Gallardon.

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