130 BAILLY. 



who, with receipt in hand, put the weak in intellect under 

 contribution. 



The magnetizers had had the address to intimate that 

 the mesmeric crises manifested themselves only in per- 

 sons endowed with a certain sensitiveness. From that 

 moment, in order not to be ranged among the insensible, 

 both men and women, when near the rod, assumed the 

 appearance of epileptics. 



Was not Father Hervier really in one of those parox- 

 ysms of the disease when he wrote, " If Mesmer had 

 lived contemporary with Descartes and Newton, he 

 would have saved them much labour : those great men 

 suspected the existence of the universal fluid; Mesmer 

 has discovered the laws of its action " ? 



Count de Gebelin showed himself stranger still. The 

 new doctrine would naturally seduce him by its connec- 

 tion with some of the mysterious practices of ancient 

 times ; but the author of The Primitive World did not 

 content himself with writing in favour of Mesmerism 

 with the enthusiasm of an apostle. Frightful pain, 

 violent griefs, rendered life insupportable to him ; Ge- 

 belin saw death approaching with satisfaction, so from 

 that moment he begged earnestly that he might not be 

 carried to Mesmer's, where assuredly "he could not die." 

 We must just mention, however, that his request was not 

 attended to ; he was carried to Mesmer's, and died while 

 he was being magnetized. 



Painting, sculpture, and engraving were constantly re- 

 peating the features of this Thaumaturgus. Poets wrote 

 verses to be inscribed on the pedestals of the busts, or 

 below the portraits. Those by Palisot deserve to be 

 quoted, as one of the most curious examples of poetic 

 licences : 



