Within recent times epidemics of dancing have been more local, less persistent, and of necessity not so public in their display, but nearly always their appearance has been in connection with displays of religious fervour. In most cases the dancing has tended more to a species of 'jumping,' and--although this may be due to more careful observation--has been accompanied by actions of a clearly epileptoid nature. One of the most famous of these outbreaks was that of the French Convulsionnaires, which lasted from 1727 to the Revolution. In 1727, a popular, but half-crazy priest, François de Paris, died. During his life Paris had fasted and scourged himself, lived in a hut that was seldom or never cleansed, showed the same lack of cleanliness in his person, and often went about half naked. Very shortly after his death, it was said that miracles began to take place at his grave in the cemetery of St. Médard. People gathered round the tomb day after day, and one young girl was seized with convulsions. (She is called a girl in the narrative, but she was a mature virgin of forty-two years of age.) Afterwards other miracles followed in rapid succession. Some fell in fits, others swallowed pieces of coal or flint, some were cured of diseases. From the description of the behaviour of some of these devotees there seems to have been a considerable amount of sexual feeling mixed up with the display. Sometimes, we are told, those seized "bounded from the ground like fish out of water; this was so frequently imitated at a later period that the women and girls, when they expected such violent contortions, not wishing to appear indecent, put on gowns made like sacks, closed at the feet. If they received any bruises by falling down, they were healed with earth taken from the grave of the uncanonised saint. They usually, however, showed great agility in this respect; and it is scarcely necessary to remark that the female sex especially was distinguished by all kinds of leaping, and almost inconceivable contortions of body. Some spun round on their feet with incredible rapidity, as is related of the dervishes. Others ran with their heads against walls, or curved their bodies like rope dancers, so that their heels touched their shoulders." Women figured very prominently among the Convulsionnaires, particularly when the epidemic passed from convulsive dancing to prophecy, and thence to various forms of self-torture. Women stretched themselves on the floor, while other women, and even men, jumped upon their bodies. Others were beaten with clubs and bars of iron. Some actually underwent crucifixion on repeated occasions. They were stretched on wooden crosses, and nails three inches long driven through hands and feet. Some of the occurrences remind one of what is now seen to take place under hypnotic influence. People labouring under strong excitement, it is known, become insensible to pain.