An Electric Girl.
A curious natural phenomena was brought before the Paris Academy of Science at its sitting of Monday last – it is that of a girl, of but thirteen years of age, who possesses the peculiar property of electrically shocking everything she touches or approaches. Mlle. Cottin (such is her name) possesses, particularly in the left side, a peculiar electric tension, which enables her to attract at a distance light objects, such as a sheet of paper or a feather; when an electrometer, composed of two pith balls, suspended by two parallel threads, is attached to her arm, the balls spread out and the threads quit their vertical position.
So far these facts only reveal a state of electric tension, remarkable in an individual of the human species, but not constituting a morbid condition or infirmity; but this is not all; for instance, Mlle. Cottin is subject to attacks, during which she attracts aand repels not only sheets of paper and feathers, but even pieces of furniture, such as stools and chairs, and even tables and bedsteads! To such an extent has this reached, that Mlle. Cottin cannot even sit down; at the moment she is about to seat herself, the seat violently flies away, as if yielding to some unknown power, whose agent is invisible. To thus act on furniture she has no need to touch them directly, when she holds in her hand a needle threaded with silk, which frequently occurs in her business as a glover. If this thread, the nature of which, doubtless, assists the phenomena, happens to touch a table, the latter is immediately upset and dragged towards the girl, who, on her part, feels herself attracted, and cannot restrain herself from placing her hand on the table.
She has besides the property of distinguishing by the simple touch the two poles of a magnet, each causing in her a peculiar sensation. The poor child during these attacks is subject to n incessant restlessness.
If these extraordinary facts had been noticed in another age, they would, doubtless, have been attributed to sorcery or some demonical influence. They would, however, have been believed, and even exaggerated, but at the present day such phenomena are only believed with extreme reserve. It seems, however, that no doubt can be entertained of the reality of the phenomena observed in this girl; in fact, similar instances are not rare, the electric spark having even been drawn from some persons. The health of the young person, who is of ordinary intelligence, is pretty good. The academy has named a commision to examine the affair.
Morning Advertiser, 23rd February 1846.
The Electrical Girl.
At the Paris Academy of Sciences, on the 18th of February a communication was made respecting the “Electrical Girl”. Before we mention the almost incredible things related of her, we must say something of her history. Angelique Cotton is thirteen, a native of the department of the Finistere, where she was employed in a thread-glove manufactory as a winder. One day, whilst at work with her companions, the reel on which she was winding thread was suddenly projected from her. The circumstance excited surprise; the reel was replaced, when the same effect was renewed. It was then evident that Angelique herself was the cause. The affair made a noise in the village, and the curé was called in.
It was supposed by them that she was possessed, and an exorcism was had recourse to, but no devil came out. After the priest, the doctor was applied to, but he was as unable to effect a cure as the curé had been. Another doctor then visited her, and witnessed the same effects as the other had seen, but being a sensible man, he made no attempt to cure an affection which he did not understand. This gentleman induced the mother of Angélique to send her to Paris, and accompanied her. A few days ago, she was taken to the Observatory, where Messrs. Arago, Mathieu, Laugier, and Goujon, witnessed the following experiments: –
A piece of paper, placed upon the edge of a table, was immediately attracted by the left hand of the girl. She then, holding her apron in her hand, approached a guéridon [my note: a small circular table], which was pushed back, although the apron scarcely touched it. The next experiment was to place her in a chair with her feet on the ground. The chair was projected with violence against the wall, while the girl was thrown the other way. This experiment was repeated several times, and with the same results. M. Arago laid his hand upon the chair to prevent its moving, but the force was too great for his resistance, and M. Goujon, having seated himself on a part of the chair, was thrown off as soon as Angélique had also taken her seat. Such, said M. Arago, were the facts witnessed, and he had seen nothing to justify an opinion that any deception had been practised.
Since then, other experiments have been performed by Dr. Tauchon. This gentleman had the chair in which Angélique was seated held by two powerful men. In this instance it was not driven away, but broke in their hands. A table, a guéridon, and a heavy sofa were projected by the mere contact of the girl’s clothes. Dr. Tauchon ascertained that the chair in which she sits is first attracted, and next repulsed. When Angélique is isolated from the ground by a glass stool, oiled silk, or any other non-conductor of electricity, the projections do not tke place.
A loadstone being placed near the left hand, which alone is magnetic, she experienced different sensations, according as the north and south poles were applied, and could tell with which pole she was in contact. She is repulsed by the north pole. She experiences violent commotions, when the electric discharges take place, and suffers greatly from them. It is in the evening, between seven and nine, about an hour after she has dined, that her electrical power is most strongly developed. Her pulse then beats from 105 to 120 per minute. – Galignani.
Nonconformist, 4th March 1846.
The Electric Girl.
M. Arago, a day or two ago, communicated to the Academy of Sciences the result of the examination of the electric girl, made by the academical committee: “The committee declare that the fall of a table by the mere contact of a silken thread held by the young girl in question was not repeated before them, nor does the girl possess the faculty of distinguishing, by the touch, the direction of the compass.” The committee did not pursue the investigation of these abortive attempts any further. “The committee, under these circumstances, have come to the conclusion that the communications made to the Academy respecting Mdlle. Angelique Cottin must be regarded as unproved.”
Illustrated London News, 21st March 1846.
The Electric Girl of La Perriére.
Eighteen years ago there occurred in one of the provinces of France a case of an abnormal character, marked by extraordinary phenomena, – interesting to the scientific, and especially to the medical world. The authentic documents in this case are rare; and though the case itself is often alluded to, its details have never, so far as I know, been reproduced from these documents in an English dress, or presented in trustworthy form to the American public. It occurred in the Commune of La Perriére, situated in the Department of Orne, in January, 1846.
It was critically observed, at the time, by Dr. Verger, an intelligent physician of Bellesme, a neighbouring town. He details the result of his observations in two letters addressed to the “Journal du Magnétisme,” – one dated January 29, the other February 2, 1846. (Journal du Magnétisme, for 1846, pp. 80-84.) The editor of that journal, M. Hébert, (de Garny,) himself repaired to the spot, made the most minute researches into the matter, and gives us the result of his observations and inquiries in a report, also published in the “Journal du Magnétisme.” (Pp. 89-106).
A neighboring proprietor, M. Jules de Farémont, followed up the case with care, from its very commencement, and has left on record a detailed report of his observersations (In Dr. Tanchon’s pamphlet, pp. 46-53.) Finally, after the girl’s arrival in Paris, Dr. Tanchon carefully studied the phenomena, and has given the results in a pamphlet published at the time (Enquéte sur l’Authenticité des Phénomenes Electriques d’ Angélique Cottin, par le Dr.Tanchon. Bailliére, Paris, 1846.)
He it was, also, who addressed to M. Arago a note on the subject, which was laid before the Academy by that distinguished man, at their session of February 16, 1846. (See Minutes of the Academy, Session of Monday, February 16, 1846). Arago himself had then seen the girl only a few minutes, but even in that brief time had verified a portion of the phenomena.
Dr. Tanchon’s pamphlet contains fourteen letters, chiefly from medical men and persons holding official positions in Bellesme, Mortagne, and other neighbouring towns, given at length and signed by the writers, all of whom examined the girl, while yet in the country. Their testimony is so circumstantial, so strictly concurrent in regard to all the main phenomena, and so clearly indicative of the care and discrimination with which the various observations were made, that there seems no good reason, unless we find such in the nature of the phenomena themselves, for refusing to give it credence. Several of th writers expressly affirm the accuracy of M. Hébert’s narrative, and all of them, by the details they furnish, corroborate it. Mainly from that narrative, aided by some of the observations of M. de Farémont, I compile the following brief statement of the chief facts in this remarkable case.
Angélique Cottin, a peasant-girl fourteen years of age, robust and in good health, but very imperfectly educated and of limited intelligence, lived with her aunt, the widow Loisnard, in a cottage with an earthen floor, close to the Chateau of Monti-Mer, inhabited by its proprietor, already mentioned, M. de Farémont.
.jpg){kind=link}
The weather, for eight days previous to the fifteenth of January, 1846, had been heavy and tempestuous, with constantly recurring storm of thunder and lightning. The atmosphere was charged with electricity.
On the evening of that fifteenth of January, at eight o’clock, while Angélique, in company with three other young girls, was at work, as usual, in her aunt’s cottage, weaving ladies’ silk-net gloves, the frame, made of rough oak and weighing about twenty-five pounds, to which was attached the end of the warp, was upset, and the candlestick on it thrown to the ground. The girls, blaming each other as having caused the accident, replaced the frame, relighted the candle, and went to work again. A second time the frame was thrown down. Thereupon the children ran away, afraid of a thing so strange, and, with the superstition common to their class, dreaming of witchcraft. The neighbours, attracted by their cries, refused to credit their story. So, returning, but with fear and trembling, two of them at first, afterwards a third, resumed their occupation, without the recurrence of the alarming phenomenon. But as soon as the girl Cottin, imitating her companions, had touched her warp, the frame was agitated again, moved about, was upset, and then thrown violently back. The girl was drawn irresistably after it; but as soon as she touched it, it moved still farther away.
Upon this the aunt, thinking, like the children, that there must be sorcery in the case, took her niece to the parsonage of La Perriére, demanding exorcism. The curate, an enlightened man, at first laughed at her story; but the girl had brought her glove with her, and fixing it to kitchen-chair, the chair, like the frame, was repulsed and upset, without being touched by Angélique. The curate then sat down on the chair; but both chair and he were thrown to the ground in like manner. Thus practically convinced of the reality of a phenomenon which he could not explain, the good man reassured the terrified aunt by telling her it was some bodily disease, and, very sensibly, referred the matter to the physicians.
The next day the aunt related the above particulars to M. de Farémont; but for the time the effects had ceased. Three days later, at nine o’clock, that gentleman was summoned to the cottage, where he verified the fact that the frame was at intervals thrown back from Angélique with such force, that, when exerting his utmost strength and holding it with both hands, he was unable to prevent its motion. He observed that the motion was partly rotary, from left to right. He particularly noticed that the girl’s feet did not touch the frame, and that, when it was repulsed, she seemed drawn irresistably after it, stretching out her hands, as if instinctively, towards it. It was afterwards remarked, that, when piece of furniture or other object, thus acted upon by Angélique, was too heavy to be moved, she herself was thrown back, as if by the reaction of the force upon her person.
By this time the cry of witchcraft was raised in the neighbourhood, and public opinion had even designated by name the sorcerer who had cast the spell. On the twenty-first of January the phenomena increased in violence and in variety. A chair on which the girl attempted to sit down, though held by three strong men, was thrown off, in spite of their efforts, to several yards’ distance. Shovels, tongs, lighted firewood, brushes, books, were all set in motion when the girl approached them. A pair of scissors fastened to her girdle was detached, and thrown into the air.
On the twenty-fourth of January, M. de Farémont took the child and her aunt in his carriage to the small neighbouring town of Mamers. There, before two physicians and several ladies and gentlemen, articles of furniture moved about on her approach. And there, also, the following conclusive experiment was tried by M. de Farémont.
Into one end of a ponderous wooden block, weighing upwards of a hundred and fifty pounds, he caused a small hook to be driven. To this he made Angélique fix her silk. As soon as she sat down and her frock touched the block, the latter was instantly raised three or four inches from the ground; and this was repeated as much as forty times in a minute. Then, after suffering the girl to rest, M. de Farémont seated himself on the block, and was elevated in the same way. Then three men placed themselves upon it, and were raised also, only not quite so high. “It is certain,” says M. de Farémont, “that I and one of the most athletic porters of the Halle could not have lifted that block with the three persons seated on it.” (Enquete etc., p.49). [my note: The Halle is the central fresh food market of Paris].
Dr. Verger came to Mamers to see Angélique, whom, as well as her family, he had previously known. On the twenty-eighth of January, in the presence of the curate of Saint Martin and of the chaplain of the Bellesme hospital, the following incident occurred. As the child could not sew without pricking herself with the needle, nor use scissors without wounding her hands, they set her to shelling peas, placing a large basket before her. As soon as her dress touched the basket, and she reached her hand to begin work, the basket was violently repulsed, and the peas projected upwards and scattered over the room. This was twice repeated, under the same circumstances. Dr. Lemonnier, of Saint Maurice, testifies to the same phenomenon, as occuring in his presence and in that of the Procurator Royal of Mortagne (Ibid. p. 40); he noticed that the left hand produced the greater effect. He adds, that, he and another gentleman having endeavoured, with all their strength, to hold a chair on which Angélique sat down, it was violently forced from them, and one of its legs broken.
On the thirtieth of January, M. de Farémont tried the effect of isolation. When, by means of dry glass, he isolated the child’s feet and the chair on which she sat, the chair ceased to move, and she remained perfectly quiet. M. Olivier, government engineer, tried a similar experiment with the same results. (Ibid. p.42).
A week later, M. Hébert, repeating this experiment, discovered that isolation of the chair was unnecessary; it suffied to isolate the girl. (Ibid. p. 22.) Dr. Beaumont, viar of Pin-la-Garenne, noticed a fact, insignificant in appearance, yet quite as conclusive as were the more violent manifestations, as to the reality of the phenomena. Having moistened with saliva the scattered hairs on his own arm, so that they lay flattened, attached to the epidermis, when he approached his arm to the left arm of the girl, the hairs instantly erected themselves. M. Hébert repeated the same experiment several times, always with a similar result. (Enquete, etc., p.22.)
M. Olivier also tried the following. With a stick of sealing-wax, which he had subjected to friction, he touched the girl’s arm, and it gave her a considerable shock; but touching her with another similar stick, that had not been rubbed, she experienced no effect whatever. (Ibid. p. 43.) Yet when M. de Farémont, on the nineteenth of January, tried the same experiment with a stick of sealing-wax and a glass tube, well prepared by rubbing, he obtained no effect whatever. So also a pendulum of light pith, brought into close proximity to her person at various points, was neither attracted nor repulsed, in the slightest degree. (Ibid. p.47.)
Towards the beginning of February, Angélique was obliged, for several days, to eat standing; she could not sit down on a chair. This fact Dr. Verger repeatedly verified. Holding her by the arm to prevent accident, the moment she touched the chair it was projected from under her, and she would have fallen but for his support. At such times, to take rest, she had to seat herself on the floor, or on a stone provided for the purpose.
On one such occasion, “she approached,” says M. de Farémont, “one of those rough, heavy bedsteads used by the peasantry, weighing, with the coarse bed-clothes, some three hundred pounds, and sought to lie down on it. The bed shook and oscillated in an incredible manner; no force that I know of is capable of communicating to it such a movement. Then she went to another bed, which was raised from the ground on wooden rollers, six inches in diameter; and it was immediately thrown off the rollers.” All this M. de Farémont personally witnessed. (Ibid. p. 49.)
On the evening of the second of February, Dr. Verger received Angélique into his house. On that day and the next, upwards of one thousand persons came to see her. The constant experiments, which on that occasion were continued into the night, so fatigued the poor girl that the effects were sensibly diminished. Yet even then a small table brought near to her was thrown down so violently that it broke to pieces. It was of cherry-wood and varnished.
“In a general way,” says Dr. Beaumont-Chardon, “I think the effects were more marked with me than with others, because I never evinced suspicion, and spared her all suffering; and I thought I could observe, that, although her powers were not under the control of her will, yet they were greatest when her mind was at ease, and she was in good spirits.” (Enquete, etc., p. 35. They were greater, also, after meals than before; so Hébert observed. p. 22.) It appeared, also, that on waxed, or even tiled floors, but more especially on carpets, the effects were much less than on an earthen floor like that of the cottage where they originally showed themselves.
At first wooden furniture seemed exclusively affected; but at a later period metal also, as tongs and shovels, though in a less degree, appeared to be subjected to this extraordinary influence. When the child’s powers were the most active, actual contact was not necessary. Articles of furniture and other small objects moved, if she accidentally approached them.
Up to the sixth of February she had been visited by more than two thousand persons, including distinguished physicans from the towns of Bellesme and Mortagne, and from all the neighbourhood, magistrates, lawyers, ecclesiastics, and others. Some gave her money.
Then, in an evil hour, listening to mercenary suggestion, the parents conceived the idea that the poor girl might be made a source of pecuniary gain; and notwithstanding the advice and remonstrance of her true friends, M. de Farémont, Dr. Verger, M. Hébert, and others, her father resolved to exhibit her in Paris and elsewhere. On the road they were occasionally subjected to serious annoyances. The report of the marvels above narrated had spread far and wide; and the populace, by hundreds, followed the carriage, hooting and abusing the sorceress.
Arrived at the French metropolis, they put up at the Hotel de Rennes, No. 23, Rue des Deux-Ecus. There, on the evening of the twelfth of February, Dr. Tanchon saw Angélique for the first time. This gentleman soson verified, among other phenomena, the following. A chair, which he held firmly with both hands, was forced back as soon as she attempted to sit down; a middle-sized dining-table was displaced and repulsed by the touch of her dress; a large sofa, on which Dr. Tanchon was sitting, was pushed violently to the wall, as soon as the child sat down beside him. The Doctor remarked, that, when a chair was thrown back from under her, her clothes seemed attracted by it, and adhered to it, until it was repulsed beyond their reach; that the power was greater from the left hand than from the right, and that the former was warmer than the latter, and often trembled, agitated by unusual contractions; that the influence emanating from the girl was intermittent, not permanent, being usually most powerful from seven till nine o’clock in the evening, possibly influenced by the principal meal of the day, dinner, taken at six o’clock; that, if the girl was cut off from contact with the earth, either by placing her feet on a non-conductor or merely by keeping them raised from the ground, the power ceased, and she could remain seated quietly; that, during the paroxysm, if her left hand touched any object, she threw it from her as if it burned her, complaining tht it pricked her, especially on the wrist; that, happening one day to touch accidentally the nape of her neck, the girl ran from him, crying out with pain; and that repeated observation assured him of the fact that there was, in the region of the cerebellum, and at the point where the superior muscles of the neck are inserted in the cranium, point so acutely sensitive that the child would not suffer there the lightest touch; and, finally, that the girl’s pulse, often irregular, usually varied from one hundred and five to one hundred and twenty beats a minute.
A curious observation made by this physician was, that, at the moment of greatest action, a cool breeze, or gaseous current, seemed to flow from her person. This he felt on his hand, as distinctly as one feels the breath during an ordinary expiration. (Enquete, etc., p. 5.)
He remarked, also, that the intermittence of the child’s power seemed to depend in a measure on her state of mind. She was often in fear lest some one should touch her from behind; the phenomena themselves agitated her; in spite of a month’s experience, each time they occurred she drew back, as if alarmed. And all such agitations seemed to diminish her power. When she was careless, and her mind was diverted to something else, the demonstrations were always the most energetic.
From the north pole of a magnet, if it touched her finger, she received a sharp shock; while the contact of the south pole produced upon her no effect whatever. This effect was uniform; and the girl could always tell which pole touched her.
Dr. Tanchon ascertained from the mother that no indications of puberty had yet manifested themselves in her daughter’s case.
Such is a summary of the facts, embodied in a report drawn up by Dr. Tanchon on the fifteenth of February. He took it with him on the evening of the sixteenth to the Academy of Sciences, and asked M. Arago if he had seen the electric girl, and if he intended to bring her case that evening to the notice of the Academy. Arago replied to both questions in the affirmative, adding, – “If you have seen her, I shall receive from you with pleasure any communication you may have to make.” Dr Tanchon then read to him the report; and at the session of that evening, Arago presented it, stated what he himself had seen, and proposed that a committee hould be appointed to examine the case. His statement was received by his audience with many expressions of incredulity; but they acceded to his suggestion by naming, from the members of the Academy, a committee of six.
It appears that Arago had had but a single opportunity, and for the brief spce of less than half an hour, of witnessing the phenomena to which he referred. M. Cholet, the speculator who advanced to her parents the money necessary to bring Angélique to Paris, had taken the girl and her parents to the Observatory, where Arago then was, who, at the earnest insistence of Cholet, agreed to test the child’s powers at once. There were present on this occasion, besides Arago, MM. Mathieu and Laugier, and an astronomer of the Observatory, named M. Goujon.
The experiment of the chair perfectly succeeded. It was projected with great violence against the wall, while the girl was thrown on the other side. This experiment was repeated several times by Arago himself, and each time with the same result. He could not, with all his force, hinder the chair from being thrown back. Then MM. Goujon and Laugier attempted to hold it, but with as little success. Finally, M. Goujon seated himself first on half the chair, and at the moment when Angélique was taking her seat beside him the chair was thrown down.
When Angélique approached a small table, at the instant that her apron touched it, it was repulsed.
These particulars were given in all the medical journals of the day, (I extract them from the “Journal des Connaissances Médico-Chirurgicales,” No. 3.) as well as in the “Journal des Débats” of February 18, and the “Courrier Francais” of February 19, 1846. The minutes of the session of the Academy touch upon them in the most studiously brief and guarded manner. They say, the sitting lasted only some minutes. They admit, however, the main fact, namely, that the movements of the chair, occurring as soon as Angélique seated herself upon it, were most violent (“d’une extreme violence”). But as to the other experiment, they allege that M. Arago did not clearly perceive the movement of the table by the mere intervention of the girl’s apron, though the other observers did. (The words are, – “M. Arago n’a pas apercu nettement les agitations annoncées comme étant engendrées a distance, par l’intermédiaire d’un tablier, sur un guéridon en bois: d’autres observateurs ont trouvé que les agitations étaient sensibles.”) It is added, that the girl produced no effect on the magnetic needle.
Some accounts represent Arago as expressing himself much more decidedly. He may have done so, in addressing the Academy; but I find no official record of his remarks. He did not assist at the sittings of the committee that had been appointed at his suggestion; but he signed their report, having confidence, as he declared, in their judgment, and sharing their mistrust.
That report, made on the ninth of March, is to the effect, that they witnessed no repulsive agency on a table or similar object; that they saw no effect produced by the girl’s arm on a magnetic needle; that the girl did not possess the power to distinguish between the two poles of a magnet; and, finally, tht the only result they obtained was sudden and violent movements of chairs on which the child was seated. They add, “Serious suspicions having arisen as to the manner in which these movements were produced, the committee decided to submit them to a strict examination, declaring, in plain terms, that they would endeavor to discover what part certain adroit and concealed manoeuvres of the hands and feet had in their production. From that moment we were informed that the young girl had lost her attractive and repulsive powers, and that we should be notified when they reappeared. Many days have elapsed; no notice has been sent us; yet we learn that Mademoiselle Cottin daily exhibits her experiments in private circles.” And they conclude by recommending “that the communications addressed to them in her case be considered as not received” (“comme non avenues”). In a word, they officially branded the poor girl as an imposter.
That, without any inquiry into the antecedents of the patient, without the slightest attempt to obtain from those medical men who had followed up the case from its commencement what they had observed, and that, in advance of the strict examination which it was their duty to make, they should insult the unfortunate girl by declaring that they intended to find out the tricks with which she had been attempting to deceive them, – all this is not the less lamentable because it is common among those who sit in the high places of science.
If these Academicians had been moved by a simple love of truth, not urged by a self-complacent eagerness to display their own sagacity, they might have found a more probable explanation of the cessation, after their first session, of some of Angélique’s chief powers. Such an explanation is furnished to us by Dr. Tanchon, who was present, by invitation, at the sittings of the committee.
He informs us, that, at their first sitting, held at the Jardin des Plantes, on the seventeenth of February, after the committee had witnessed, twice repeated, the violent displacement of a chair held with all his strength by one of their number, (M. Rayet,) instead of following up similar experiments and patiently waiting to observe the phenomena as they presented themselves, they proceeded at once to satisfy their own preconceptions. They brought Angélique into contact with a voltaic battery. Then they placed on the bare arm of the child a dead frog, anatomically prepared after the manner of Matteucci, that is, the skin removed, and the animal dissected so as to expose the lumbar nerves. By a galvanic current, they caused this frog to move, apparently to revive, on the girl’s arm. The effect upon her may be imagined. The ignorant child, terrified out of her senses, spoke of nothing else the rest of the day, dreamed of dead frogs coming to life all night, and began to talk eagerly about it again the first thing the next morning. (Enquete, etc., p. 25.) From that time her attractive and repulsive powers gradually declined.
In addition to the privilege of much accumulated learning, in addition to the advantages of varied scientific research, we must have something else, if we would advance yet farther in true knowledge. We must be imbued with a simple, faithful spirit, not presuming, not preoccupied. We must be willing to sit down at the feet of Truth, humble, patient, docile, single-hearted. We must not be wise in our own conceit; else the fool’s chance is better than ours, to avoid error, and distinguish truth.
M. Cohu, a medical man of Mortagne, writing, in March, 1846, in reply to some inquiries of Dr. Tachon, after stating that the phenomenon of the chair, repeatedly observed by himself, had been witnessed also by more than a thousand persons, adds, – “It matters not what name we may give to this; the important point is, to verify the reality of a repulsive agency, and of one that is distinctly marked; the effects it is impossible to deny. We may assign to this agency what seat we please, in the cerebellum, in the pelvis, or elsewhere; the fact is material, visible, incontestable. Here in the Province, sir, we are not very learned, but we are often very mistrustful. In the present case we have examined, reexamined, taken every possible precaution against deception; and the more we have seen, the deeper has been our conviction of the reality of the phenomenon. Let the Academy decide as it will. We have seen; it has not seen. We are, therefore, in a condition to decide better than it can, I do not say what cause was operating, but what effects presented themselves, under circumstances that remove even the shadow of a doubt.” (Enquete, etc., p. 36).
M. Hébert, too, states a truth of great practical value, when he remarks, that, in the examination of phenomena of so fugitive and seemingly capricious a character, involving the element of vitality, and the production of which at any given moment depends not upon us, we “ought to accommodate ourselves to the nature of the fact, not insist that it should accommodate itself to us.”
For myself, I do not pretend to offer any positive opinion as to what was ultimately the real state of the case. I do not assume to determine whether the attractive and repulsive phenomena, after continuing for upwards of a month, happened to be about to cease at the very time the committee began to observe them, – or whether the harsh suspicions and terror-inspiring tests of these gentlemen so wrought on the nervous system of an easily daunted and superstitious girl, that some of her abnormal powers, already on the wane, presently disappeared, – or whether the poor child, it may be at the instigation of her parents, left without the means of support, really did at last simulate phenomena that once were real, manufacture a counterfeit of what was originally genuine. (M. Cholet, the individual who, in the hope of gain, furnished the funds to bring Angélique to Paris for exhibition, as soon as he perceived that the speculation was a failure, left the girl and her parents in that city, dependent on the charity of strangers for daily support, and for the means of returning to their humble home. – Enquete, etc., p. 24).
I do not take upon myself to decide between these various hypotheses. I but express my conviction, that, for the first few weeks at least, the phenomena actually occurred, – and that, had not the gentlemen of the Academy been very unfortunate or very injudicious, they could not have failed to perceive their reality. And I seek in vain some apology for the conduct of these learned Academicians, called upon to deal with a case so fraught with interest to science, when I find them, merely because they do not at once succeed in personally verifying sufficient to convince them of the existence of certain novel phenomena, not only neglecting to seek evidence elsewhere, but even rejecting that which a candid observer had placed within their reach.
This appears to have been the judgment of the medical public of Paris. The “Gazette des Hopitaux,” in its issue of March 17, 1846, protests against the committee’s mode of ignoring the matter, declaring that it satisfied nobody. “Not received!” said the editor (alluding to the words of the report); “that would be very convenient, if it were only possible!” (“Non avenues! ce serait commode, si c’etait possible!”)
And the “Gazette Médicale” very justly remarks, – “The non-appearance of the phenomena at such or such a given moment proves nothing in itself. It is but a negative fact, and, as such, cannot disprove the positive fact of their appearance at another moment, if that be otherwise satisfactorily attested.” And the “Gazette” goes on to argue, from the nature of the facts, that it is in the highest degree improbable that they should have been the result of premeditated imposture.
The course adopted by the Academy’s committee is the less defensible, because, though the attractive and repulsive phenomena ceased after their first session, other phenomena, sufficiently remarkable, still continued. As late as the tenth of March, the day after the committee made their report, Angélique being then at Dr. Tanchon’s house, a table touched by her apron, while her hands were behind her and her feet fifteen inches distant from it, was raised entirely from the ground, though no part of her body touched it. This was witnessed, besides Dr. Tanchon, by Dr. Charpentier-Méricourt, who had stationed himself so as to observe it from the side. He distinctly saw the table rise, with all four legs, from the floor, and he noticed that the two legs of the table farthest from the girl rose first. He declares, that, during the whole time, he perceived not the slightest movement either of her hands or her feet; and he regarded deception, under the circumstances, to be utterly impossible. (Enquete, etc., p. 30.)
On the twelfth of March, in presence of five physicians, Drs. Amédée Latour, Lachaise, Deleau, Pichard, and Soulé, the same phenomenon occurred twice.
And yet again on the fourteenth, four physicians being present, the table was raised a single time, but with startling force. It was of mahogany, with two drawers, and was four feet long by two feet and a half wide. We may suppose it to have weighed some fifty or sixty pounds; so that the girl’s power, in this particular, appears to have much decreased since that day, about the end of January, when M. de Farémont saw repeatedly raised from the ground a block of one hundred and fifty pounds’ weight, with three men seated on it, – in all, not less than five to six hundred pounds.
By the end of March the whole of the phenomena had almost totally ceased; and it does not appear that they have ever shown themselves since that time.
Dr. Tanchon considered them electrical. M. de Farémont seems to have doubted that they were strictly so. In a letter, dated Monti-Mer, November 1, 1846, and addressed to the Marquis de Mirville, that gentleman says, – “The electrical effects I have seen produced in this case varied so much, – since under certain circumstances good conductors operated, and then again, in others, no effect was observable, – that, if one follows the ordinary laws of electrical phenomena, one finds evidence both for and against. I am well convinced, that, in the case of this child, there is some power other than electricity.” (Des Esprits et de leurs Manifestations Fluidiques, par le Marquis de Mirville, pp. 379, 380.)
But as my object is to state facts, rather than to moot theories, I leave this debateable ground to others, and here close a narrative, compiled with much care, of this interesting and instructive case. I was the rather disposed to examine it critically and report it in detail, because it seems to suggest valuable hints, if it does not afford some clue, as to the character of subsequent manifestations in the United States and elsewhere.
This case is not an isolated one. My limits, however, prevent me from here reproducing, as I might, sundry other recent narratives more or less analogous to that of the girl Cottin. To one only shall I briefly advert: a case related in the Paris newspaper, the “Siécle,” of March 4, 1846, published when all Paris was talking of Arago’s statement in regard to the electric girl. It is there given on the authority of a principal professor in one of the Royal Colleges of Paris. The case, very similar to that of Angélique Cottin, occurred in the month of December previous, in the person of a young girl, not quite fourteen years old, apprenticed to a colorist, in the Rue Descartes. The occurrences were quite as marked as those in the Cottin case. The professor, seated one day near the girl, was raised from the floor, along with the chair on which he sat. There were occasional knockings. The phenomena commenced December 2, 1845, and lasted twelve days.
The Atlantic Monthly, volume 14, number 84, September 1864.
There is no author attached to this in the journal, but in a later article in the Atlantic Monthly (volume 22, number 130, August 1868), it says “This case in many respects resembles that of the French peasant-girl, Angelique Cottin, so well described by Robert Dale Owen in the Atlantic Monthly of September, 1864…”