crowd could no longer approach the tomb the
miracles ceased. A little Parisian ridicule helped to end the matter. A
wag wrote up over the gate of the cemetery.

"De par le Roi, defense a Dieu De faire des miracles dans ce lieu"--

which, being translated from doggerel French into doggerel English, is--

"By order of the king, the Lord must forbear To work any more of his miracles here."

But the theological spirit remained powerful. The French Revolution had
not then intervened to bring it under healthy limits. The agitation
was maintained, and, though the miracles and cases of possession were
stopped in the cemetery, it spread. Again full course was given to
myth-making and the retailing of wonders. It was said that men had
allowed themselves to be roasted before slow fires, and had been
afterward found uninjured; that some had enormous weights piled upon
them, but had supernatural powers of resistance given them; and that, in
one case, a voluntary crucifixion had taken place.

This agitation was long, troublesome, and no doubt robbed many
temporarily or permanently of such little brains as they possessed.
It was only when the violence had become an old story and the charm of
novelty had entirely worn off, and the afflicted found themselves
no longer regarded with especial interest, that the epidemic died
away.(401)

(401) See Madden, Phantasmata, chap. xiv; also Sir James Stephen,
History of France, lecture xxvi; also Henry Martin, Histoire de France,
vol. xv, pp. 168 et seq.; also Calmeil, liv. v, chap. xxiv; also
Hecker's essay; and, for samples of myth-making, see the apocryphal
Souvenirs de Crequy.

But in Germany at that time the outcome of this belief was far more
cruel. In 1749 Maria Renata Singer, sub-prioress of a convent at
Wurzburg, was charged with bewitching her fellow-nuns. There was the
usual story--the same essential facts as at Loudun--women shut up
against their will, dreams of Satan disguised as a young man, petty
jealousies, spites, quarrels, mysterious uproar, trickery, utensils
thrown about in a way not to be accounted for, hysterical shrieking and
convulsions, and, finally, the torture, confession, and execution of the
supposed culprit.(402)

(402) See Soldan, Scherr, Diefenbach, and others.

Various epidemics of this sort broke out from time to time in other
parts of the world, though happily, as modern scepticism prevailed, with
less cruel results.

In 176