To the tomb of one whom they regarded as a martyr to their cause the Jansenist Appellants habitually resorted, in all the fervor of religious zeal, heated to enthusiasm by the persecution of the dominant party. And there, after a time, phenomena presented themselves, which caused for years, throughout the French capital and among the theologians of that age, a fever of excitement; and which, though they have been noticed by medical and other writers of our own century, have not yet, in my judgment, attracted, either from the medical profession or from the pneumatological inquirer, the attention they deserve. Of these phenomena a portion were physical, and a portion were mental or psychological. The former, first appearing in the early part of the year 1731, consisted (as alleged) partly of extraordinary cures, the apparent result of violent convulsive movements which overtook the patients soon after their bodies touched the marble of the tomb, sometimes even without approaching it, by swallowing, in wine or water, a small portion of the earth gathered from around it, the effect being heightened by strict fasting and prayer,--partly of what were called the "_Grands Secours_," literally "Great Succors," consisting of the most desperate, one might say _murderous_, remedies, applied, at their urgent request, to relieve the sufferings of the Convulsionists. These measures, called of relief, and carried to an incredible excess, were of such a character, that, during any normal state of the human system, they would have destroyed, not one, but a hundred lives, if the patient, or victim, had been endowed with so many. Those who regarded this marvellous immunity from what seemed certain immolation as a miraculous interposition of God were called _Succorists_; their opponents, ascribing such effects to the interference of the Devil in protection of his own, or (a somewhat rare opinion in those days) to natural agency, went by the name of _Anti-Succorists_. (_Secouristes_ and _Anti-Secouristes_.) Some of these alleged cures, but more especially some of these so-called _succors_, were of a nature so far passing belief, that one would be tempted to cast them aside as sheer impostures, were not the main facts vouched for by evidence, not from the Jansenists alone, but from their bitterest opponents, so direct, so overwhelmingly multiplied, so minutely circumstantial, that to reject it would amount to a virtual declaration, that, in proof of the extraordinary and the improbable, we will accept no testimony whatever, let its weight or character be what it may. Accordingly, we find dispassionate modern writers, medical and others, while reminding us, as well they may, that enlightened observers of these strange phenomena were lacking,[3] and while properly suggesting that we ought to make allowance for exaggeration in some of the details, yet admitting as incontestable realities the substantial facts related by the historians of St. Medard.