REPORT ON ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 127 
but the public, despite the scientific form of the sentence, 
thought it excessively severe. What then will be said 
of that which was pronounced by Buffon ?—“We will 
never see each other more, Sir!” These words will 
appear at once both harsh and solemn, for they were 
occasioned by a difference of opinion on the comparative 
merits of Sedaine and the Abbé Maury. Our friend 
resigned himself to this separation, nor ever allowed his 
just resentment to be perceived. I may even remark, 
that after this brutal disruption he showed himself more 
attentive than ever to seize opportunities of paying a 
legitimate homage to the talents and eloquence of the 
French Pliny. 
REPORT ON ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 
We are now going to see the astronomer, the savant, 
the man of letters, struggling against passions of every 
kind, excited by the famous question of animal mag- 
netism. 
At the beginning of the year 1778, a German doctor 
established himself at Paris. This physician could not 
fail of succeeding in what was then styled high society. 
He was a stranger. His government had expelled him; 
acts of the greatest effrontery and unexampled charlatan- 
ism were imputed to him. 
His success, however, exceeded all expectations. The 
Gluckists and the Piccinists themselves forgot their dif- 
ferences, to occupy themselves exclusively with the new 
comer. 
Mesmer, since we must call him by his name, pre- 
tended to have discovered an agent till then totally 
unknown both in the arts and in physics; an univer- 
sally distributed fluid, and serving thus as a means of 
