prophecies of the Rector of Ars and Léon Sonrel are more curious and
worthy of a moment’s attention.
Father Jean-Baptiste Vianney, Rector of Ars, was, as everybody knows, a
very saintly priest, who appears to have been endowed with extraordinary
mediumistic faculties. The prophecy in question was made public in 1862,
three years after the miracle-worker’s death, and was confirmed by a
letter which Mgr. Perriet addressed to the Very Rev. Dom Gréa on the
24th of February 1908. Moreover it was printed, as far back as 1872, in
a collection entitled, _Voix prophétiques, ou signes, apparitions et
prédictions modernes_. It therefore has an incontestable date. I pass
over the part relating to the war of 1870, which does not offer the same
safeguards; but I give that which concerns the present war, quoting from
the 1872 text:
“The enemies will not go altogether; they will return again and destroy
everything upon their passage; we shall not resist them, but will allow
them to advance; and, after that, we shall cut off their provisions and
make them suffer great losses. They will retreat towards their country;
we shall follow them and there will be hardly any who return home. Then
we shall take back all that they took from us and much more.”
As for the date of the event, it is stated definitely and rather
strikingly in these words:
“They will want to canonize me, but there will not be time.”
Now the preliminaries to the canonization of the Rector of Ars were begun
in July 1914, but abandoned because of the war.
4
I now come to the Sonrel prediction. I will summarize it as briefly as
possible from the admirable article which M. de Vesme devoted to it in
the _Annales des Sciences Psychiques_.[29]
On the 3rd of June 1914—observe the date—Professor Charles Richet handed
M. de Vesme, from Dr. Amédée Tardieu, a manuscript of which the following
is the substance: on the 23rd or 24th of July 1869, Dr. Tardieu was
strolling in the gardens of the Luxembourg with his friend Léon Sonrel,
a former pupil of the Higher Normal School and teacher of natural
philosophy at the Paris Observatory, when the latter had a kind of vision
in the course of which he predicted various precise and actual episodes
of the war of 1870, such as the collection on behalf of the wounded
at the moment of departure and the amount of the sum collected in the
soldiers’ képis; incidents of the journey to the frontier; the battle of
Sedan, the rout of the French, the civil war, the siege of Paris, his own
death, the birth of a posthumous child, the doctor’s political career and
so on: predictions all of which were verified, as is attested by numerous
witnesses who are worthy of the fullest credence. But I will pass over
this part of the story and consider only that portion which refers to the
present war:
“I have been waiting for two years,” to quote the text of Dr. Tardieu’s
manuscript of the 3rd of June, “I have been waiting for two years for the
sequel of the prediction which you are about to read. I omit everything
that concerns my friend Léon’s family and my own private affairs. Yet
there is in my life at this moment a personal matter, which, as always
happens, agrees too closely with general occurrences for me to be able to
doubt what follows:
“‘O my God! My country is lost: France is dead!... What a disaster!...
Ah, see, she is saved! She extends to the Rhine! O France, O my beloved
country, you are triumphant; you are the queen of nations!... Your genius
shines forth over the world.... All the earth wonders at you....”
These are the words contained in the document written at the Mont-Dore on
the 3rd and handed to M. de Vesme on the 13th of June 1914, at a moment
when no one was thinking of the terrible war which to-day is ravaging
half the world.
When questioned, after the declaration of war, by M. de Vesme on the
subject of the prophetic phrase, “I have been waiting for two years for
the sequel of the prediction which you are about to read,” Dr. Tardieu
replied, on the 12th of August:
“I had been waiting for two years; and I will tell you why. My friend
Léon did not name the year, but the more general events are described
simultaneously with the events of my own life. Now the events which
concern me privately and which were doubtful two years ago became
certain in April or May last. My friends know that since May last I have
been announcing war as due before September, basing my prediction on
coincidences with events in my private life of which I do not speak.”
5
These, up to the present, are the only prophecies known to us that
deserve any particular attention. The prediction in both is timid and
laconic; but, in those regions where the least gleam of light assumes
extraordinary importance, it is not to be neglected. I admit, for the
rest, that there has so far been no time to carry out a serious enquiry
on this point, but I should be greatly surprised if any such enquiry
gave positive results and if it did not allow us to state that the
gigantic event, as a whole, as a general event, was neither foreseen
nor divined. On the other hand, we shall probably learn, when the
enquiry is completed, that hundreds of deaths, accidents, wounds and
cases of individual ruin and misfortune included in the great disaster
were predicted by clairvoyants, by mediums, by dreams and by every
other manner of premonition with a definiteness sufficient to eliminate
any kind of doubt. I have said elsewhere what I think of individual
predictions of this kind, which seem to be no more than the reading
of the presentiments which we carry within us, presentiments which
themselves, in the majority of cases, are but the perception, by the as
yet imperfectly known senses of our subconsciousness, of events in course
of formation or in process of realization which escape the attention
of our understanding. However, it would still remain to be explained
how a wholly accidental death or wound could be perceived by these
subliminal senses as an event in course of formation. In any case, it
would once more be confirmed, after this great test, that the knowledge
of the future, so soon as it ceases to refer to a strictly personal fact
and one, moreover, not at all remote, is always illusory, or rather
impossible.
Apart then from these strictly personal cases, which for the moment we
will agree to set aside, it appears more than ever certain that there is
no communication between ourselves and the vast store of events which
have not yet occurred and which nevertheless seem already to exist at
some place, where they await the hour to advance upon us, or rather
the moment when we shall pass before them. As for the exceptional and
precarious infiltrations which belong not merely to the present that is
still unknown, veiled or disguised, but really to the future, apart from
the two which we have just examined, which are inconclusive, I, for my
part, know of but four or five that appear to be rigorously verified;
and these I have discussed in the essay which I have already mentioned.
For that matter, they have no bearing upon the present war. They are,
when all is said, so exceptional that they do not prove much; at the
most, they seem to confirm the idea that a store exists filled with
future events as real, as distinct and as immutable as those of the past;
and they allow us to hope that there are paths leading thither which
as yet we do not know, but which it will not be for ever impossible to
discover.
XV
THE WILL OF EARTH
1
To-day’s conflict is but a revival of that which has not ceased to
drench the west of Europe in blood since the historical birth of the
continent. The two chief episodes in this conflict, as we all know,
are the invasion of Roman Gaul, including the north of Italy, by the
Franks and the successive conquests of England by the Anglo-Saxons and
the Normans. Without delaying to consider questions of race, which are
complex, uncertain and always open to discussion, we may, regarding
the matter from another aspect, perceive in the persistency and the
bitterness of this conflict the clash of two wills, of which one or the
other succumbs for a moment, only to rise up again with increased energy
and obstinacy. On the one hand is the will of earth or nature, which,
in the human species as in all others, openly favours brute or physical
force; and on the other hand is the will of humanity, or at least of a
portion of humanity, which seeks to establish the empire of other more
subtle and less animal forces. It is incontestable that hitherto the
former has always won the day. But it is equally incontestable that
its victory has always been only apparent and of brief duration. It
has regularly suffered defeat in its very triumph. Gaul, invaded and
overrun, presently absorbs her victor, even as England little by little
transforms her conquerors. On the morrow of victory, the instruments
of the will of earth turn upon her and arm the hand of the vanquished.
It is probable that the same phenomenon would recur once more to-day,
were events to follow the course prescribed by destiny. Germany, after
crushing and enslaving the greater part of Europe, after driving her back
and burdening her with innumerable woes, would end by turning against the
will which she represents; and that will, which until to-day had always
found in this race a docile tool and its favourite accomplices, would be
forced to seek these elsewhere, a task less easy than of old.
2
But now, to the amazement of all those who will one day consider them in
cold blood, events are suddenly ascending the irresistible current and,
for the first time since we have been in a position to observe it, the
adverse will is encountering an unexpected and insurmountable resistance.
If this resistance, as we can now no longer doubt, maintains itself
victoriously to the end, there will never perhaps have been such a sudden
change in the history of mankind; for man will have gained, over the will
of earth or nature or fatality, a triumph infinitely more significant,
more heavily fraught with consequences and perhaps more decisive than
all those which, in other provinces, appear to have crowned his efforts
more brilliantly.
Let us not then be surprised that this resistance should be stupendous,
or that it should be prolonged beyond anything that our experience of
wars has taught us to expect. It was our prompt and easy defeat that
was written in the annals of destiny. We had against us all the forces
accumulated since the birth of Europe. We have to set history revolving
in the reverse direction. We are on the point of succeeding; and, if it
be true that intelligent beings watch us from the vantage-point of other
worlds, they will assuredly witness the most curious spectacle that our
planet has offered them since they discovered it amid the dust of stars
that glitters in space around it. They must be telling themselves in
amazement that the ancient and fundamental laws of earth are suddenly
being transgressed.
3
Suddenly? That is going too far. This transgression of a lower law,
which was no longer of the stature of mankind, had been preparing for a
very long time; but it was within an ace of being hideously punished.
It succeeded only by the aid of a part of those who formerly swelled
the great wave which they are to-day resisting by our side, as though
something in the history of the world or the plans of destiny had
altered; or rather as though we ourselves had at last succeeded in
altering that something and in modifying laws to which until this day we
were wholly subject.
But it must not be thought that the conflict will end with the victory.
The deep-seated forces of earth will not be at once disarmed; for a
long time to come the invisible war will be waged under the reign of
peace. If we are not careful, victory may even be more disastrous to
us than defeat. For defeat, indeed, like previous defeats, would have
been merely a victory postponed. It would have absorbed, exhausted,
dispersed the enemy, by scattering him about the world, whereas our
victory will bring upon us a twofold peril. It will leave the enemy
in a state of savage isolation in which, thrown back upon himself,
cramped, purified by misfortune and poverty, he will secretly reinforce
his formidable virtues, while we, for our part, no longer held in check
by his unbearable but salutary menace, will give rein to failings and
vices which sooner or later will place us at his mercy. Before thinking
of peace, then, we must make sure of the future and render it powerless
to injure us. We cannot take too many precautions, for we are setting
ourselves against the manifest desire of the power that bears us.
This is why our efforts are difficult and worthy of praise. We are
setting ourselves—we cannot too often repeat it—against the will of
earth. Our enemies are urged forward by a force that drives us back.
They are marching with nature, whereas we are striving against the great
current that sweeps the globe. The earth has an idea, which is no longer
ours. She remains convinced that man is an animal in all things like
other animals. She has not yet observed that he is withdrawing himself
from the herd. She does not yet know that he has climbed her highest
mountain-peaks. She has not yet heard tell of justice, pity, loyalty
and honour; she does not realize what they are, or confounds them with
weakness, clumsiness, fear and stupidity. She has stopped short at
the original certitudes which were indispensable to the beginnings of
life. She is lagging behind us; and the interval that divides us is
rapidly increasing. She thinks less quickly; she has not yet had time
to understand us. Moreover, she does not reckon as we do; and for her
the centuries are less than our years. She is slow because she is almost
eternal, while we are prompt because we have not many hours before us.
It may be that one day her thought will overtake ours; in the meantime,
we have to vindicate our advance and to prove to ourselves, as we are
beginning to do, that it is lawful to be in the right as against her,
that our advance is not fatal and that it is possible to maintain it.
4
For it is becoming difficult to argue that earth or nature is always
right and that those who do not blindly follow earth’s impulses are
necessarily doomed to perish. We have learned to observe her more
attentively and we have won the right to judge her. We have discovered
that, far from being infallible, she is continually making mistakes.
She gropes and hesitates. She does not know precisely what she wants.
She begins by making stupendous blunders. She first peoples the world
with uncouth and incoherent monsters, not one of which is capable of
living; these all disappear. Gradually she acquires, at the cost of
the life which she creates, an experience that is the cruel fruit of
the immeasurable suffering which she unfeelingly inflicts. At last she
grows wiser, curbs and amends herself, corrects herself, returns upon
her footsteps, repairs her errors, expending her best energies and her
highest intelligence upon the correction. It is incontestable that she is
improving her methods, that she is more skilful, more prudent and less
extravagant than at the outset. And yet the fact remains that, in every
department of life, in every organism, down to our own bodies, there is a
survival of bad workmanship, of twofold functions, of oversights, changes
of intention, absurdities, useless complications and meaningless waste.
We therefore have no reason to believe that our enemies are in the right
because earth is with them. Earth does not possess the truth any more
than we do. She seeks it, as do we, and discovers it no more readily.
She seems to know no more than we whither she is going or whither she is
being led by that which leads all things.
We must not listen to her without enquiry; and we need not distress
ourselves or despair because we are not of her opinion. We are not
dealing with an infallible and unchangeable wisdom, to oppose which in
our thoughts would be madness. We are actually proving to her that it is
she who is in fault; that man’s reason for existence is loftier than that
which she provisionally assigned to him; that he is already outstripping
all that she foresaw; and that she does wrong to delay his advance.
She is, indeed, full of goodwill, is able on occasion to recognize
her mistakes and to obviate their disastrous results and by no means
takes refuge in majestic and inflexible self-conceit. If we are able to
persevere, we shall be able to convince her. Much time will be needed,
for, I repeat, she is slow, though in no wise obstinate. Much time will
be needed because a very long future is in question, a very great change
and the most important victory that man has ever hoped to win.
XVI
WHEN THE WAR IS OVER
1
Before closing this book, I wish to weigh for the last time in my
conscience the words of hatred and malediction which the war has made me
utter in spite of myself. We have to do with the strangest of enemies.
He has knowingly and deliberately, while in the full possession of his
faculties and without necessity or excuse, revived all the crimes which
we supposed to be for ever buried in the barbarous past. He has trampled
under foot all the precepts which man had so painfully won from the cruel
darkness of his beginnings; he has violated all the laws of justice,
humanity, loyalty and honour, from the highest, which are almost godlike,
to the simplest, the most elementary, which still belong to the lower
worlds. There is no longer any doubt on this point: it has been proved
over and over again until we have attained a final certitude.
2
On the other hand, it is no less certain that he has displayed virtues
which it would be unworthy of us to deny; for we honour ourselves in
recognizing the valour of those whom we are fighting. He has gone to
his death in deep, compact, disciplined masses, with a blind, hopeless,
obstinate heroism, of which no such lurid example had ever yet been
known and which has many times compelled our admiration and our pity.
He has known how to sacrifice himself, with unprecedented and perhaps
unequalled abnegation, to an idea which we know to be false, inhuman and
even somewhat mean, but which he believes to be just and lofty; and a
sacrifice of this kind, whatever its object, is always the proof of a
force which survives those who devote themselves to making it and must
command respect.
I know very well that this heroism is not like the heroism which we love.
For us, heroism must before all be voluntary, free from any constraint,
active, ardent, eager and spontaneous; whereas with our enemies it has
mingled with it a great deal of servility, passiveness, sadness, gloomy,
ignorant, massive submission and rather base fears. It is nevertheless
the fact that, in the moment of supreme peril, little remains of all
these distinctions, and that no force in the world can drive to its death
a people which does not bear within itself the strength to confront it.
Our soldiers make no mistake upon this point. Question the men returning
from the trenches: they detest the enemy, they abhor the aggressor, the
unjust and arrogant aggressor, uncouth, too often cruel and treacherous;
but they do not hate the man: they do him justice; they pity him; and,
after the battle, in the defenceless wounded soldier or disarmed prisoner
they recognize, with astonishment, a brother in misfortune who, like
themselves, is submitting to duties and laws which, like themselves, he
too believes lofty and necessary. Under the insufferable enemy they see
an unhappy man who likewise is bearing the burden of life. They forget
the things that divide them to recall only those which unite them in a
common destiny; and they teach us a great lesson. Better than ourselves,
who are far from danger, at the contact of profound and fearful verities
and realities they are already beginning to discern something that we
cannot yet perceive; and their obscure instinct is probably anticipating
the judgment of history and our own judgment, when we see more clearly.
Let us learn from them to be just and to distinguish that which we
are bound to despise and loathe from that which we may pity, love and
respect. Setting aside the unpardonable aggression and the inexpiable
violation of treaties, this war, despite its insanity, has come near
to being a bloody but magnificent proof of greatness, heroism and the
spirit of sacrifice. Humanity was ready to rise above itself, to surpass
all that it had hitherto accomplished. It has surpassed it. Never before
had nations been seen capable, for months on end, perhaps for years, of
renouncing their repose, their security, their wealth, their comfort,
all that they possessed and loved, down to their very life, in order
to do what they believed to be their duty. Never before had nations
been seen that were able as a whole to understand and admit that the
happiness of each of those who live in this time of trial is of no
consequence compared with the honour of those who live no more or the
happiness of those who are not yet alive. We stand on heights that had
not been attained before. And, if, on the enemies’ side, this unexampled
renunciation had not been poisoned at its source; if the war which
they are waging against us had been as fine, as loyal, as generous, as
chivalrous as that which we are waging against them, we may well believe
that it would have been the last and that it would have ended, not in
a battle, but, like the awakening from an evil dream, in a noble and
fraternal amazement. They have made that impossible; and this, we may be
sure, is the disappointment which the future will find it most difficult
to forgive them.
3
What are we to do now? Must we hate the enemy to the end of time? The
burden of hatred? is the heaviest that man can bear upon this earth; and
we should faint under the weight of it. On the other hand, we do not
wish once more to be the dupes and victims of confidence and love. Here
again our soldiers, in their simplicity, which is so clear-seeing and
so close to the truth, anticipate the future and teach us what to admit
and what to avoid. We have seen that they do not hate the man; but they
do not trust him at all. They discover the human being in him only when
he is unarmed. They know, from bitter experience, that, so long as he
possesses weapons, he cannot resist the frenzy of destruction, treachery
and slaughter; and that he does not become kindly until he is rendered
powerless.
Is he thus by nature, or has he been perverted by those who lead him?
Have the rulers dragged the whole nation after them, or has the whole
nation driven its rulers on? Did the rulers make the nation like unto
themselves, or did the nation select and support them because they
resembled itself? Did the evil come from above or below, or was it
everywhere? Here we have the great obscure point of this terrible
adventure. It is not easy to throw light upon it and still less easy to
find excuses for it. If our enemies prove that they were deceived and
corrupted by their masters, they prove, at the same time, that they are
less intelligent, less firmly attached to justice, honour and humanity,
less civilized, in a word, than those whom they claimed the right to
enslave in the name of a superiority which they themselves have proved
not to exist; and, unless they can establish that their errors, perfidies
and cruelties, which can no longer be denied, should be imputed only to
those masters, then they themselves must bear the pitiless weight. I do
not know how they will escape from this predicament, nor what the future
will decide, that future which is wiser than the past, even as, in the
words of an old Slav proverb, the dawn is wiser than the eve. In the
meanwhile, let us copy the prudence of our soldiers, who know what to
believe far better than we do.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Marie Lenéru, _Les Affranchis_, Act III., sc. iv.
[2] Those who take up the study of these supernormal manifestations
usually ask themselves:
“Why mediums? Why make use of these often questionable and always
inadequate intermediaries?”