“They placed her in a chair. The ecclesiastic, little, active, energetic, took her hand and applied to it, one after the other, three precious stones. Then he said coolly, ‘Mademoiselle, you are the victim of consanguineal sorcery.’
“I could hardly keep from laughing.
“ ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘two years back, for that is when your paralytic stroke came on. You must have had a quarrel with a kinsman or kinswoman?’
“It was true. Poor Marie had been unjustly accused of the theft of a watch which was an heirloom belonging to an aunt of hers. The aunt had sworn vengeance.
“ ‘Your aunt lives in Lyons?’
“She nodded.
“ ‘Nothing astonishing about that,’ continued the priest. ‘In Lyons, among the lower orders, there are witch doctors who know a little about the witchcraft practised in the country. But be reassured. These people are not powerful. They know little more than the A.B.C.’s of the art. Then, mademoiselle, you wish to be cured?’
“And after she replied that she did, he said gently, ‘That is all. You may go.’
“He did not touch her, did not prescribe any remedy. I came away persuaded that he was a mountebank. But when, three days later, the girl was able to raise her arms, and all her pain had left her, and when, at the end of a week, she could walk, I had to yield in face of the evidence. I went back to see him, had occasion to do him a service; and thus our relations began.”
“But what are his methods?”
“He opens, like the curate of Ars, with prayer. Then he evokes the militant archangels, then he breaks the magic circles and chases—‘classes,’ as he says—the spirits of Evil. I know very well that this is confounding. Whenever I speak of this man’s potency to my confrères they smile with a superior air or serve up to me the specious arguments which they have fabricated to explain the cures wrought by Christ and the Virgin. The method they have imagined consists in striking the patient’s imagination, suggesting to him the will to be cured, persuading him that he is well, hypnotizing him in a waking state—so to speak. This done—say they—the twisted legs straighten, the sores disappear, the consumption-torn lungs are patched up, the cancers become benign pimples, and the blind eyes see. This procedure they attribute to miracle workers to explain away the supernatural—why don’t they use the method themselves if it is so simple?”
“But haven’t they tried?”
“After a fashion. I was present myself at an experiment attempted by Dr. Luys. Ah, it was inspiring! At the charity hospital there was a poor girl paralyzed in both legs. She was put to sleep and commanded to rise. She struggled in vain. Then two interns held her up in a standing posture, but her lifeless legs bent useless under her weight. Need I tell you that she could not walk, and that after they had held her up and pushed her along a few steps, they put her to bed again, having obtained no result whatever.”
“But Dr. Johannès does not cure all sufferers, without discrimination?”
“No. He will not meddle with any ailments which are not the result of spells. He says he can do nothing with natural ills, which are the province of the physician. He is a specialist in Satanic affections. He has most to do with the possessed whose neuroses have proved obdurate to hydrotherapeutic treatment.”
“What does he do with the precious stones you mentioned?”
“First, before answering your question, I must explain the significance and virtue of these stones. I shall be telling you nothing new when I say that Aristotle, Pliny, all the sages of antiquity, attributed medical and divine virtues to them. According to the pagans, agate and carnelian stimulate, topaz consoles, jasper cures languor, hyacinth drives away insomnia, turquoise prevents falls or lightens the shock, amethyst combats drunkenness.
“Catholic symbolism, in its turn, takes over the precious stones and sees in them emblems of the Christian virtues. Then, sapphire represents the lofty aspirations of the soul, chalcedony charity, sard and onyx candor, beryl allegorizes theological science, hyacinth humility, while the ruby appeases wrath, and emerald ‘lapidifies’ incorruptible faith.
“Now in magic,” Des Hermies rose and took from a shelf a very small volume bound like a prayer book. He showed Durtal the title: Natural magic, or: The secrets and miracles of nature, in four volumes, by Giambattista Porta of Naples. Paris. Nicolas Bonjour, rue Neuve Nostre Dame at the sign Saint Nicolas. .
“Natural magic,” said Des Hermies, “which was merely the medicine of the time, ascribes a new meaning to gems. Listen to this. After first celebrating an unknown stone, the Alectorius, which renders its possessor invincible if it has been taken out of the stomach of a cock caponized four years before or if it has been ripped out of the ventricle of a hen, Porta informs us that chalcedony wins lawsuits, that carnelian stops bloody flux ‘and is exceeding useful to women who are sick of their flower,’ that hyacinth protects against lightning and keeps away pestilence and poison, that topaz quells ‘lunatic’ passions, that turquoise is of advantage against melancholy, quartan fever, and heart failure. He attests finally that sapphire preserves courage and keeps the members vigorous, while emerald, hung about one’s neck, keeps away Saint John’s evil and breaks when the wearer is unchaste.
“You see, antique philosophy, medieval Christianity, and sixteenth century magic do not agree on the specific virtues of every stone. Almost in every case the significations, more or less farfetched, differ. Dr. Johannès has revised these beliefs, adopted and rejected great
