The first edition, consisting, however, of a single volume only, appeared in 1737, and was presented to the King in person at Versailles, by M. de Montgeron, on the twenty-ninth of July of that year.  The work was translated into German and Flemish; and besides several editions which appeared in France, one was published in Germany and two in Holland.  It is illustrated with costly engraving.

Though the King (Louis XV.) received M. de Montgeron in an apparently gracious manner, yet, the very night after his reception, as he had himself foreseen, he was arrested and cast into the Bastille.  Thence he was transferred from one place of confinement to another; and at the time he was preparing the second edition of his work, he was still (in 1744) a prisoner in the citadel of Valence. (See Advertisement to that edition, note to page vii.) He died in exile at Valence, in 1754.

[5] Voltaire, with his usual wit and irreverence, proposed that the notice, proclaiming the royal command, to be affixed to the gate of the church-yard should read as follows:—­

  “De part le Roi, defense a Dieu
   De faire miracle en ce lieu.”

[6] Hecker alleges that “the insanity of the Convusionnaires lasted, without interruption, until the year 1790,” that is, for fifty-nine years, and was only interrupted by the excitement of the French Revolution; also, that, in the year 1762, the “Grands Secours” were forbidden by act of the Parliament of Paris.—­Epidemics of the Middle Ages, from the German of I.F.C.  Hecker, M.D., translated by B.G.  Babington, M.D., F.R.S., London, 1846, p. 149.

There were published by Renault, parish, priest at Vaux near Ancerre, two pamphlets against the Succorists,—­one entitled “Le Secourisme detruit dans ses Fondemens,” in 1759, and the other, “Le Mystere d’Iniquite,” as late as 1788,—­an evidence that the controversy was kept up for at least half a century.

[7] “A peine l’entree du tombeau eut elle ete fermee, qu’on vit le nombre des Convulsionnaires s’accroitre extraordinairement.  Les convulsions commencerent a s’etendre jusqu’a, des personnes qui n’avaient ni maladie ni infirmite corporelle.”—­Oeuvres de Colbert, Tom.  II. p. 203. (This is Colbert, Bishop of Montpelier, and nephew of Louis XIV.’s minister.)

[8] Montgeron, work cited, Tom.  II. p. 36.  Calmeil, De la Folie, Tom.  II, pp. 315, 317.

[9] For particulars and certificates in this case, see Montgeron, Tom.  II. Troisieme Demonstration, pp. 1-58.

[10] Montgeron, work cited, Tom.  II. Pieces Justificatives de la Troisieme Demonstration, p. 4.

[11] Montgeron, Tom.  I. Seconde Demonstration, p. 6.

[12] “Un coup d’epee” is the expression employed by Montgeron; but the facts elsewhere reported by himself do not seem to bear out, in most cases, its accuracy.  It was not usually a thrust of a sword’s point, but only a pressure with the point of a sharp sword, often so strong, however, that the weapon was bent by its force.