ese pretended _Revenans_.) The
rumor spread and was bellowed in the street, and the noise seemed
likely to shake the vaulted roof of the chapel. Several present
affirmed that the blood of this wretched man was quite vermilion; the
butcher swore that the body was still quite warm; whence it was
concluded that the dead man was very wrong not to be quite dead, or,
to express myself better, to suffer himself to be reanimated by the
devil. This is precisely the idea of a vroucolaca; and they made this
name resound in an astonishing manner. At this time there entered a
crowd of people, who protested aloud that they clearly perceived this
body was not stiff when they brought it from the country to the church
to bury it, and that consequently it was a true vroucolaca; this was
the chorus.

"I have no doubt that they would have maintained it did not stink, if
we had not been present; so stupefied were these poor people with the
circumstance, and infatuated with the idea of the return of the dead.
For ourselves, who got next to the corpse in order to make our
observations exactly, we were ready to die from the offensive odor
which proceeded from it. When they asked us what we thought of this
dead man, we replied that we believed him thoroughly dead; but as we
wished to cure, or at least not to irritate their stricken fancy, we
represented to them that it was not surprising if the butcher had
perceived some heat in searching amidst entrails which were decaying;
neither was it extraordinary that some vapor had proceeded from them;
since such will issue from a dunghill that is stirred up; as for this
pretended red blood, it still might be seen on the butcher's hands
that it was only a very foetid mud.

"After all these arguments, they bethought themselves of going to the
marine, and burning the heart of the dead man, who in spite of this
execution was less docile, and made more noise than before. They
accused him of beating people by night, of breaking open the doors and
even terraces, of breaking windows, tearing clothes, and emptying jugs
and bottles. He was a very thirsty dead man; I believe he only spared
the consul's house, where I was lodged. In the mean time I never saw
anything so pitiable as the state of this island.

"Everybody seemed to have lost their senses. The most sensible people
appeared as phrenzied as the others; it was a veritable brain fever,
as dangerous as any mania or madness. Whole families were seen to