On the occurrence of a similar discord, the astronomer Lemonnier, of the Academy of Sciences, said one day to Lalande, his fellow-academician and former pupil, “I enjoin you not to put your foot again within my door during the semi-revolution of the lunar orbital nodes.”  Calculation shows this to be nine years.  Lalande submitted to the punishment with a truly astronomical punctuality; but the public, despite the scientific form of the sentence, thought it excessively severe.  What then will be said of that which was pronounced by Buffon?—­“We will never see each other more, Sir!” These words will appear at once both harsh and solemn, for they were occasioned by a difference of opinion on the comparative merits of Sedaine and the Abbe Maury.  Our friend resigned himself to this separation, nor ever allowed his just resentment to be perceived.  I may even remark, that after this brutal disruption he showed himself more attentive than ever to seize opportunities of paying a legitimate homage to the talents and eloquence of the French Pliny.

REPORT ON ANIMAL MAGNETISM.

We are now going to see the astronomer, the savant, the man of letters, struggling against passions of every kind, excited by the famous question of animal magnetism.

At the beginning of the year 1778, a German doctor established himself at Paris.  This physician could not fail of succeeding in what was then styled high society.  He was a stranger.  His government had expelled him; acts of the greatest effrontery and unexampled charlatanism were imputed to him.

His success, however, exceeded all expectations.  The Gluckists and the Piccinists themselves forgot their differences, to occupy themselves exclusively with the new comer.

Mesmer, since we must call him by his name, pretended to have discovered an agent till then totally unknown both in the arts and in physics; an universally distributed fluid, and serving thus as a means of communication and of influence among the celestial globes;—­a fluid capable of flux and reflux, which introduced itself more or less abundantly into the substance of the nerves, and acted on them in a useful manner,—­thence the name of animal magnetism given to this fluid.

Mesmer said:  “Animal magnetism may be accumulated, concentrated, transported, without the aid of any intermediate body.  It is reflected like light; musical sounds propagate and augment it.”

Properties so distinct, so precise, seemed as if they must be capable of experimental verification.  It was requisite, then, to be prepared for some instance of want of success, and Mesmer took good care not to neglect it.  The following was his declaration:  “Although the fluid be universal, all animated bodies do not equally assimilate it into themselves; there are some even, though very few in number, that by their very presence destroy the effects of this fluid in the surrounding bodies.”