464 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



thing gave M. Peiresc greater pleasure than his observations upon the 

 bloody rain, said to have fallen about the beginning of July. Large 

 drops were seen both in Paris itself upon the walls of the cemetery of 

 the greater church, which is near the walls of the city, upon the walls 

 of the city, and likewise upon the walls of villas, hamlets, and towns 

 for some miles round the city. In the first place, M. Peiresc went to 

 examine the drops themselves, with which the stones were reddened, 

 and spared no pains to obtain the means of conversing with some 

 husbandmen beyond Lambesc, who were reported to have been so 

 astonished at the shower, as to leave their labour and fly for safety 

 into the neighbouring houses. This story he ascertained to be with- 

 out foundation. To the explanation offered by the philosophers, who 

 said that the rain might have come from vapours, which had been 

 raised out oi red earth, he objected that evaporated fluids do not re- 

 tain their former hues, as is plainly exemplified in the colourless wa- 

 ter distilled from red roses. Nor was he better satisfied with the 

 opinion of the vulgar, countenanced by some of the theologians, who 

 maintained that the appearance was produced by demons, or witches, 

 shedding the blood of innocent babes. This he thought was a mere 

 conjecture, scarcely reconcileable with the goodness and providence 

 of God. In the meantime an accident happened, which discovered 

 to him, as he thought, the true cause of the phenomenon. He had 

 found some months before a chrysalis of a remarkable size and form, 

 which he enclosed in a box. He thought no more of it, until, hearing 

 a buzz within the box, he opened it, and perceived that the chrysalis 

 had been changed into a most beautiful butterfly, which immediately 

 flew away, leaving at the bottom of the box a red drop of the size of 

 a shilling. As this happened about the time when the shower was 

 supposed to have fallen, and when a vast multitude of those insects 

 was observed fluttering through the air in every direction, he con- 

 cluded that" the drops in question were some kind of excrementitious 

 matter emitted by them, when they alighted upon the walls. He 

 therefore examined the drops again, and remarked, that they were not 

 upon the upper surfaces of stones and buildings, as they would have 

 been, if a shower of blood had fallen from the sky, but rather in cavi- 

 ties and holes, where insects might nestle. Besides this, he took 

 notice that they were to be seen upon the walls of those houses only, 

 which were near the fields, and not upon the more elevated parts of 

 them, but only up to the same moderate height at which the butter- 

 flies were accustomed to flutter. In this way he explained the story, 

 told by Gregory of Tours, of a bloody shower seen at Paris in the 

 time of Childebert, at different places, and upon a house in the vici- 

 nity of Senlis ; and another said to have fallen in the time of King 

 Robert, about the end of June, the drops of which could not be washed 

 out by means of water, when they had fallen upon flesh, garments, or 

 stones, but might be washed out from wood ; for the lime here stated 

 was the season for the butterflies ; and he showed that no water could 

 wash out these red marks from stones. After discussing these and 

 similar arguments in the presence of much company at the house of 

 his friend Varius, they determined to inspect the appearance together, 



and 



