The Strange Case Of M Bezuel
Categories: GHOST STORIES FROM LOCAL RECORDS, FOLK LORE AND LEGENDScary Books: The Haunters & The Haunted
: CHRISTMAS' "Phantom World"
"In 1695," said M. Bezuel, "being a schoolboy of about fifteen years of
age, I became acquainted with the two children of M. Abaquene, attorney,
schoolboys like myself. The eldest was of my own age, the second was
eighteen months younger; he was named Desfontaines; we took all our
walks and all our parties of pleasure together, and whether it was that
Desfontaines had more affection for me, or that he was more gay,
obl
"In 1696, we were walking both of us in the cloister of the Capuchins.
He told me that he had lately read a story of two friends who had
promised each other that the first of them who died should come and
bring news of his condition to the one still living; that the one who
died came back to earth, and told his friend surprising things. Upon
that, Desfontaines told me that he had a favour to ask me; that he
begged me to grant it instantly; it was to make him a similar promise,
and on his part he would do the same. I told him that I would not. For
several months he talked to me of it, often and seriously; I always
resisted his wish. At last, towards the month of August 1696, as he was
to leave to go and study at Caen, he pressed me so much with tears in
his eyes, that I consented to it. He drew out at that moment two little
papers which he had ready written; one was signed with his blood, in
which he promised me that in case of his death he would come and bring
me news of his condition; in the other, I promised him the same thing. I
pricked my finger; a drop of blood came with which I signed my name. He
was delighted to have my billet, and embracing me, thanked me a thousand
times.
"Some time after, he set off with his tutor. Our separation caused us
much grief, but we wrote to each other now and then, and it was but six
weeks since I had had a letter from him, when what I am going to relate
to you happened to me.
"The 31st of July, 1697, one Thursday,--I shall remember it all my
life,--the late M. Sorteville, with whom I lodged, and who had been very
kind to me, begged of me to go to a meadow near the Cordeliers, and help
his people, who were making hay, and to make haste. I had not been there
a quarter of an hour, when, about half-past two, I all of a sudden felt
giddy and weak. In vain I lent upon my hay-fork; I was obliged to place
myself on a little hay, where I was nearly half an hour recovering my
senses. That passed off; but as nothing of the kind had ever occurred to
me before, I was surprised at it, and I feared it might be the
commencement of an illness. Nevertheless, it did not make much
impression upon me during the remainder of the day. It is true, I did
not sleep that night so well as usual.
"The next day, at the same hour, as I was conducting to the meadow M. de
St Simon, the grandson of M. de Sorteville, who was then ten years old,
I felt myself seized on the way with a similar faintness, and I sat down
on a stone in the shade. That passed off, and we continued our way;
nothing more happened to me that day, and at night I had hardly any
sleep.
"At last, on the morrow, the second day of August, being in the loft
where they laid up the hay they brought from the meadow, I was taken
with a similar giddiness and a similar faintness, but still more violent
than the other. I fainted away completely; one of the men perceived it.
I have been told that I was asked what was the matter with me, and that
I replied, 'I have seen what I never should have believed'; but I have
no recollection of either the question or the answer. That, however,
accords with what I do remember to have seen just then; as it were
someone naked to the middle, but whom, however, I did not recognise.
They helped me down from the ladder. The faintness seized me again; my
head swam as I was between two rounds of the ladder, and again I
fainted. They took me down and placed me on a beam which served for a
seat in the large square of the Capuchins. I sat down on it, and then I
no longer saw M. de Sorteville nor his domestics, although present; but
perceiving Desfontaines near the foot of the ladder, who made me a sign
to come to him, I moved on my seat as if to make room for him; and those
who saw me and whom I did not see, although my eyes were open, remarked
this movement.
"As he did not come, I rose to go to him. He advanced towards me, took
my left arm with his right arm, and led me about thirty paces from
thence into a retired street, holding me still under the arm. The
domestics, supposing that my giddiness had passed off, and that I had
purposely retired, went everyone to their work, except a little servant
who went and told M. de Sorteville that I was talking all alone. M. de
Sorteville thought I was tipsy; he drew near, and heard me ask some
questions, and make some answers, which he has told me since.
"I was there nearly three-quarters of an hour, conversing with
Desfontaines. 'I promised you,' said he to me, 'that if I died before
you I would come and tell you of it. I was drowned the day before
yesterday in the river of Caen, at nearly this same hour. I was out
walking with such and such a one. It was very warm, and we had a wish to
bathe; a faintness seized me in the water, and I fell to the bottom.
The Abbe de Menil-Jean, my comrade, dived to bring me up. I seized hold
of his foot; but whether he was afraid it might be a salmon, because I
held him so fast, or that he wished to remount promptly to the surface
of the water, he shook his legs so roughly, that he gave me a violent
kick on the breast, which sent me to the bottom of the river, which is
there very deep.'
"Desfontaines related to me afterwards all that had occurred to them in
their walk, and the subjects they had conversed upon. It was in vain for
me to ask him questions--whether he was saved, whether he was damned, if
he was in purgatory, if I was in a state of grace, and if I should soon
follow him; he continued to discourse as if he had not heard me, and as
if he would not hear me.
"I approached him several times to embrace him, but it seemed to me that
I embraced nothing, and yet I felt very sensibly that he held me tightly
by the arm, and that when I tried to turn away my head that I might not
see him, because I could not look at him without feeling afflicted, he
shook my arm as if to oblige me to look at and listen to him.
"He always appeared to me taller than I had seen him, and taller even
than he was at the time of his death, although he had grown during the
eighteen months in which we had not met. I beheld him always naked to
the middle of his body, his head uncovered, with his fine hair, and a
white scroll twisted in his hair over his forehead, on which there was
some writing, but I could only make out the word _In_....
"It was his usual tone of voice. He appeared to me neither gay nor sad,
but in a calm and tranquil state. He begged of me, when his brother
returned, to tell him certain things to say to his father and mother. He
begged me to say the Seven Psalms which had been given him as a penance
the preceding Sunday, which he had not yet recited; again he recommended
me to speak to his brother, and then he bade me adieu, saying, as he
left me, '_Jusques, jusques_' (_till, till_), which was the usual term
he made use of when at the end of our walk we bade each other good-bye,
to go home.
"He told me that at the time he was drowned, his brother, who was
writing a translation, regretted having let him go without accompanying
him, fearing some accident. He described to me so well where he was
drowned, and the tree in the avenue of Louvigni on which he had written
a few words, that two years afterwards, being there with the late
Chevalier de Getel, one of these who were with him at the time he was
drowned, I pointed out to him the very spot; and by counting the trees
in a particular direction which Desfontaines had specified to me, I went
straight up to the tree, and I found his writing. He (the Chevalier)
told me also that the article of the Seven Psalms was true, and that on
coming from confession that they had told each other their penance; and
since then his brother has told me that it was quite true that at that
hour he was writing his exercise, and he reproached himself for not
having accompanied his brother. As nearly a month passed by without my
being able to do what Desfontaines had told me in regard to his brother,
he appeared to me again twice before dinner at a country house whither I
had gone to dine a league from hence. I was very faint. I told them not
to mind me, that it was nothing, and that I should soon recover myself;
and I went to a corner of the garden. Desfontaines having appeared to
me, reproached me for not having yet spoken to his brother, and again
conversed with me for a quarter of an hour without answering any of my
questions.
"As I was going in the morning to Notre-Dame de la Victoire, he appeared
to me again, but for a shorter time, and pressed me always to speak to
his brother, and left me, saying still, '_Jusques, jusques_,' without
choosing to reply to my questions.
"It is a remarkable thing that I always felt a pain in that part of my
arm which he had held me by the first time, until I had spoken to his
brother. I was three days without being able to sleep, from the
astonishment and agitation I felt. At the end of the first conversation,
I told M. de Varonville, my neighbour and schoolfellow, that
Desfontaines had been drowned; that he himself had just appeared to me
and told me so. He went away and ran to the parents' house to know if it
was true; they had just received the news, but by a mistake he
understood that it was the eldest. He assured me that he had read the
letter of Desfontaines, and he believed it; but I maintained always that
it could not be, and that Desfontaines himself had appeared to me. He
returned, came back, and told me in tears that it was but too true."
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