OTHER INSTANCES OF HIDDEN TREASURES WHICH WERE GUARDED BY GOOD OR BAD
SPIRITS.
We read in a new work that a man, Honore Mirable, having found in a
garden near Marseilles a treasure consisting of several Portuguese
pieces of gold, from the indication given him by a spectre, which
appeared to him at eleven o'clock at night, near the _Bastide_, or
country house called _du Paret_, he made the discovery of it in
presence of the woman who farmed the land of this _Bastide_, and the
farm-servant named Bernard. When he first perceived the treasure
buried in the earth, and wrapt up in a bundle of old linen, he was
afraid to touch it, for fear it should be poisoned and cause his
death. He raised it by means of a hook made of a branch of the almond
tree, and carried it into his room, where he undid it without any
witness, and found in it a great deal of gold; to satisfy the wishes
of the spirit who had appeared to him, he caused some masses to be
said for him. He revealed his good fortune to a countryman of his,
named Anquier, who lent him forty livres, and gave him a note by which
he acknowledged he owed him twenty thousand livres and receipted the
payment of the forty livres lent; this note bore date the 27th
September, 1726.
Some time after, Mirable asked Anquier to pay the note. Anquier denied
everything. A great lawsuit ensued; informations were taken and
perquisitions held in Anquier's house; sentence was given on the 10th
of September, 1727, importing that Anquier should be arrested, and
have the question applied to him. An appeal was made to the Parliament
of Aix. Anquier's note was declared a forgery. Bernard, who was said
to have been present at the discovery of the treasure, was not cited
at all; the other witnesses only deposed from hearsay; Magdalen
Caillot alone, who was present, acknowledged having seen the packet
wrapped round with linen, and had heard a ringing as of pieces of gold
or silver, and had seen one of them, a piece about as large as a piece
of two liards.
The Parliament of Aix issued its decree the 17th of February, 1728, by
which it ordained that Bernard, farming servant at the _Bastide du
Paret_, should be heard; he was heard on different days, and deposed
that he had seen neither treasure, nor rags, nor gold pieces. Then
came another decree of the 2d of June, 1728, which ordered that the
attorney-general should proceed by way of ecclesiastical censures on
the facts resulting from these proceedings.
The indictment was published, fifty-three witnesses were heard;
another sentence of the 18th of February, 1729, discharged Anquier
from the courts and the lawsuit; condemned Mirable to the galleys to
perpetuity after having previously undergone the question; and Caillot
was to pay a fine of ten francs. Such was the end of this grand
lawsuit. If we examine narrowly these stories of spectres who watch
over treasures, we shall doubtless find, as here, a great deal of
superstition, deception, and fancy.
Delrio relates some instances of people who have been put to death, or
who have perished miserably as they searched for hidden treasures. In
all this we may perceive the spirit of lying and seduction on the part
of the demon, bounds set to his power, and his malice arrested by the
will of God; the impiety of man, his avarice, his idle curiosity, the
confidence which he places in the angel of darkness, by the loss of
his wealth, his life, and his soul.
John Wierus, in his work entitled "_De Praestigiis Daemonum_," printed
at Basle in 1577, relates that in his time, 1430, the demon revealed
to a certain priest at Nuremberg some treasures hidden in a cavern
near the town, and enclosed in a crystal vase. The priest took one of
his friends with him as a companion; they began to dig up the ground
in the spot designated, and they discovered in a subterranean cavern a
kind of chest, near which a black dog was lying; the priest eagerly
advanced to seize the treasure, but hardly had he entered the cavern,
than it fell in, crushed the priest, and was filled up with earth as
before.
The following is extracted from a letter, written from Kirchheim,
January 1st, 1747, to M. Schopfflein, Professor of History and
Eloquence at Strasburg. "It is now more than a year ago that M.
Cavallari, first musician of my serene master, and by birth a
Venetian, desired to have the ground dug up at Rothenkirchen, a league
from hence, and which was formerly a renowned abbey, and was destroyed
in the time of the Reformation. The opportunity was afforded him by an
apparition, which showed itself more than once at noonday to the wife
of the Censier of Rothenkirchen, and above all, on the 7th of May for
two succeeding years. She swears, and can make oath, that she has seen
a venerable priest in pontifical garments embroidered with gold, who
threw before her a great heap of stones; and although she is a
Lutheran, and consequently not very credulous in things of that kind,
she thinks nevertheless that if she had had the presence of mind to
put down a handkerchief or an apron, all the stones would have become
money.
"M. Cavallari then asked leave to dig there, which was the more
readily granted, because the tithe or tenth part of the treasure is
due to the sovereign. He was treated as a visionary, and the matter of
treasure was regarded as an unheard-of thing. In the mean time, he
laughed at the anticipated ridicule, and asked me if I would go halves
with him. I did not hesitate a moment to accept this offer; but I was
much surprised to find there were some little earthen pots full of
gold pieces, all these pieces finer than the ducats of the fourteenth
and fifteenth century generally are. I have had for my share 666,
found at three different times. There are some of the Archbishops of
Mayence, Treves, and Cologne, of the towns of Oppenheim, Baccarat,
Bingen, and Coblentz; there are some also of the Palatine Rupert, of
Frederic, Burgrave of Nuremberg, some few of Wenceslaus, and one of
the Emperor Charles IV., &c."
This shows that not only the demons, but also the saints, are
sometimes guardians of treasure; unless you will say that the devil
had taken the shape of the prelate. But what could it avail the demon
to give the treasure to these gentlemen, who did not ask him for it,
and scarcely troubled themselves about him? I have seen two of these
pieces in the hands of M. Schopfflein.
The story we have just related is repeated, with a little difference,
in a printed paper, announcing a lottery of pieces found at
Rothenkirchen, in the province of Nassau, not far from Donnersberg.
They say in this, that the value of these pieces is twelve livres ten
sols, French money. The lottery was to be publicly drawn the first of
February, 1750. Every ticket cost six livres of French money. I repeat
these details only to prove the truth of the circumstance.
We may add to the preceding what is related by Bartholinus in his book
on the cause of the contempt of death shown by the ancient Danes,
(lib. ii. c. 2.) He relates that the riches concealed in the tombs of
the great men of that country were guarded by the shades of those to
whom they belonged, and that these shades or these demons spread
terror in the souls of those who wished to take away those treasures,
either by pouring forth a deluge of water, or by flames which they
caused to appear around the monuments which enclosed those bodies and
those treasures.