e
pneumatological inquirer, the attention they deserve.

Of these phenomena a portion were physical, and a portion were mental or
psychological. The former, first appearing in the early part of the year
1731, consisted (as alleged) partly of extraordinary cures, the apparent
result of violent convulsive movements which overtook the patients soon
after their bodies touched the marble of the tomb, sometimes even
without approaching it, by swallowing, in wine or water, a small portion
of the earth gathered from around it, the effect being heightened by
strict fasting and prayer,--partly of what were called the "_Grands
Secours_," literally "Great Succors," consisting of the most desperate,
one might say _murderous_, remedies, applied, at their urgent request,
to relieve the sufferings of the Convulsionists. These measures, called
of relief, and carried to an incredible excess, were of such a
character, that, during any normal state of the human system, they would
have destroyed, not one, but a hundred lives, if the patient, or victim,
had been endowed with so many. Those who regarded this marvellous
immunity from what seemed certain immolation as a miraculous
interposition of God were called _Succorists_; their opponents,
ascribing such effects to the interference of the Devil in protection of
his own, or (a somewhat rare opinion in those days) to natural
agency, went by the name of _Anti-Succorists_. (_Secouristes_ and
_Anti-Secouristes_.)

Some of these alleged cures, but more especially some of these so-called
_succors_, were of a nature so far passing belief, that one would be
tempted to cast them aside as sheer impostures, were not the main facts
vouched for by evidence, not from the Jansenists alone, but from their
bitterest opponents, so direct, so overwhelmingly multiplied, so
minutely circumstantial, that to reject it would amount to a virtual
declaration, that, in proof of the extraordinary and the improbable, we
will accept no testimony whatever, let its weight or character be what
it may. Accordingly, we find dispassionate modern writers, medical and
others, while reminding us, as well they may, that enlightened observers
of these strange phenomena were lacking,[3] and while properly
suggesting that we ought to make allowance for exaggeration in some of
the details, yet admitting as incontestable realities the substantial
facts related by the historians of St. Medard.

Among these historians the chief is Car