302 THEPHILOSOPHY 



round. This fuppofed fliower of blood, M. de Reaumur remarks, 

 would probably have been tranfmitted to us as a great and a real 

 prodigy, if Aix had not then been poflefled of a philofopher, who, 

 amidft other fpecies of knoyvledge, did not negledt the operations 

 and oeconomy of infeds. This philofopher was M. de Peirefc, 

 whofe life is written by Gaflendi. This life contains a number of 

 curious fads and obfervations. Among others, M. de Peirefc dif- 

 covered the caufe of the pretended fhower of blood at Aix, which 

 had created fo general an alarm. About the beginning of July, the 

 walls of a church-yard adjacent to the city, and particularly the walls 

 of the fmall villages in the neighbourhood, were obferved to be 

 fpotted with large drops of a blood-coloured liquid. The people, as 

 well as fome theologians, confidered thofe drops as the operation of 

 forcerers, or of the Devil himfelf. M. de Peirefc, about that time, 

 had picked up a large and beautiful chryfalis, which he laid in a 

 box. Immediately after its transformation into the butterfly ftate, 

 M. de Peirefc remarked, that it had left a drop of blood-coloured li- 

 quor on the bottom of the box, and that this drop, or ftain, was as 

 large as a French fou. The red ftains on the walls, on (tones near 

 the highways, and in the fields, were found to be perfedlly fimilar 

 to that on the bottom of M. de Peirefc's box. He now no longer 

 hefitated to pronounce, that all thofe blood-coloured ftains, wherever 

 they appeared, proceeded from the fame caufe. The prodigious 

 number of butterflies which he, at the fame time, faw flying in the 

 air, confirmed his original idea. He likewife obferved, that the 

 drops of the miraculous rain were never found in the middle of the 

 city; that they appeared only in places bordering upon the country; 

 and that they never fell upon the tops of houfes, or upon walls 

 more elevated than the heigiit to which butterflies generally rife. 

 What M, de Peirefc faw himfelf, he fhowed to many perfons of 

 knowledge, or of curiofity, and eftablifhed it as an lAconteftible fatSt, 



that 



