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 Abbe 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 



