150 BAILLY. 



see, gentlemen, to what sad trials military men would be 

 exposed, if the Mesmerian theory of atmospheric con- 

 flicts were to regain favour. We ought to be carefully 

 on our guard against a ruse de guerre, of which no one 

 till then had ever thought, that is, against cocks, wild 

 boars, &c., for through them an army might suddenly 

 be deprived of its commander-in-chief. " It would also 

 be requisite not to entrust command," Montaigne says, 

 " to men who would fly from apples more than from 

 arquebusades." 



It is not only amongst the corpuscular emanations of 

 living animals that the Mesmerists asserted conflicts to 

 occur. They unhesitatingly extended their speculations 

 to dead bodies. Some ancients dreamt that a catgut cord 

 made of a wolf's intestines would never strike in uni- 

 son with one made from a lamb's intestine ; a discord of 

 atmospheres renders the phenomenon possible. It is still 

 a conflict of corporeal emanations that explains the other 

 aphorism of an ancient philosopher : " The sound of a 

 drum made with a wolfs skin takes away all sonorous- 

 ness from a drum made with a lamb's skin." 



Here I pause, Gentlemen. Montesquieu said : " When 

 God created the brains of human beings, he did not in- 

 tend to guarantee them." 



To conclude : Servan's witty, piquant, agreeably writ- 

 ten pamphlet was worthy under this triple claim of the 

 reception with which the public honoured it ; but it did 

 not shake, in any one part, the lucid, majestic, elegant 

 report by Bailly. The magistrate of Grenoble has said, 

 that in his long experience he had met men accustomed 

 to reflect without laughing, and other men who only 

 wished to laugh without reflecting. Bailly thought of 

 the first class when he wrote his memorable report. 



