In Bohemia with Du Maurier | Page 8

man
of the period above mentioned; so naturally we were bright stars in
Carry's firmament; she looked upon us as superior beings, and, granting
her points of comparison, not without cause; du Maurier could draw
and I could paint; he could sing and I could mesmerise, and couldn't we
just both talk beautifully! We neither of us encourage hero-worship
now, but then we were "bons princes," and graciously accepted Carry's
homage as due to our superior merits.
[Illustration: "BESHREW THEE, NOBLE SIR RAGGE! LET US TO
THE FAIR TOBACCONISTE!"]
There are two drawings illustrative of that chivalrous devotion of ours.

We are galloping along on our noble steeds, richly attired, as true
knights and good should be when they go to pay homage to beauty.
"Beshrew thee, noble Sir Ragge! let us to the fair tobacconiste!"
[Illustration: "SALUT À LA GENTE ET ACCORTE PUCELLE!"]
"Aye! Gentle Sir Bobtaile! By my halidome, she's passing fair."
The second drawing shows our "Salut à la Gente et accorte pucelle!"
and the winning smile with which Carry would receive us.
Mesmerism, or, as the fashion of to-day calls it, Hypnotism, formed so
frequent a topic of conversation and speculation between du Maurier
and myself, that it takes a very prominent place in my recollections.
In Paris I had had opportunities of attending some most interesting
séances, in consequence of which I soon proceeded to investigate the
mesmeric phenomena on my own account. Now I have not touched the
fluid for some thirty years; I swore off because it was taking too much
out of me; but I look back with pleasure on my earlier experiments,
successes I may say, for I was fortunate enough to come across several
exceptional subjects. Du Maurier was particularly interested in one of
these, Virginie Marsaudon, and had a way of putting puzzling questions
concerning her faculties and my mesmeric influence. Virginie was a
"femme de ménage" of the true Parisian type, a devoted elderly
creature, a sort of cross between a charwoman and a housekeeper. I was
not yet eighteen when I first went to Paris, to study under my cousin,
the eminent painter, Henri Lehmann. At his studio I found Virginie
installed as the presiding genius of the establishment, using in turn
broom or tub, needle, grill or frying-pan as the occasion might require;
the wide range of her powers I further extended by making a truly
remarkable mesmeric subject of her. My début in Paris was that of the
somewhat bewildered foreigner, speaking but very indifferent French,
and she had from the first done what she could to make me feel at home
in the strange city, treating me with truly motherly care and devotion.
How completely she took possession of me, is shown by a passage in a
letter she wrote when I was ill in Leipsic, where I had gone on a visit to
my parents. After expressing her anxiety and her regret at not being
there to nurse me, she emphatically says:--"Je rends Madame, votre
mère, responsable de votre santé" (I make Madame, your mother,
responsible for your health). It needed but little to lead her on from a
state of docile and genial dependence to one of unconscious mesmeric

subjection, and so, a few passes shaping her course, I willed her across
the boundary line that separates us from the unknown, a line which,
thanks to science, is daily being extended. Madame veuve Marsaudon
was herself an incorrigible disbeliever in the phenomena of mesmerism,
but as a subject her faculties were such as to surprise and convert many
a scoffer.
At the séances, to which I invited my friends and a few scientific
outsiders, I always courted the fullest investigation, taking it as the first
duty of the mesmerist to show cause why he should not be put down as
a charlatan. So we had tests and counter-tests, evidence and
counter-evidence; there were doctors to feel the pulse and to scrutinise
the rigidity of the muscles, experts to propound scientific ifs and buts,
and wiseacres generally to put spokes in the wheel of progress, as is
their playful way, wherever they find that wheel in motion. It was
doubly satisfactory, then, that the good faith of subject and mesmerist
could be conclusively proved.
One of these séances led to a rather amusing incident. One night I was
awakened from first slumbers by a sharp ring at my bell, and when,
after some parleying, I opened the door, I found myself confronted by
two individuals. One I recognised as an "inquirer" who had been
brought to my rooms some time previously; the other was a lad I had
not seen before. The inquirer, I ascertained, having carefully watched
my modus operandi on the occasion of his visit, had next tried
experiments of his own. In