the monaster}' of Port-Royal-des-Champs. From this he removed — driven away, it is said, by fear of the wolves which infested the neighborhood — and became sub-vicar at Saint-Etienne-du-Mont. He finally set- tled in Paris, where he died, Oct. 17, 1718. He pub- lished several works, among others, De V Usage des sa- crements de penitence ei d'eucharistie (Paris, 1673, 1674, 12mo), in which he is said to have been assisted by his friends Arnauld and Nicole : — Lcs Psaumes en forme de prieres (ibid. 1690, 12mo) ; this work has reached more than ten editions : — Explication des commande- ments de Dieu (ibid. 1693, 2 vols. 12mo) : — Martyi-ologe, ou idee de la vie des saints (ibid. 1694, 12mo) : — L'Evan- gite explique (ibid. 1693-1698, 4 vols. 8vo) : — a good translation of the Imitation (ibid. 1706, 1728, 12mo). See Moreri, Grand Diet. Hist. — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generate, xxxi.x, 205.
Paris, Francois de (2), commonly known as the Abbe Paris, was born at Paris June 30, 1690. His father, being an eminent counsellor of the Parliament, designed him, as his oldest son, to succeed him in his office, and consequently bade him study law. But the son, determining to be an ecclesiastic, was admit- ted into holy orders, and in the disputes occasioned by the bull Unigenitus, he attached himself vehemently to the Jansenist party. From that time, his conscience not permitting him to adhere to the rules necessary to occupy a curacy, he resolved to devote himself to re- tirement. Having made trial of different solitudes, he at length fixed upon a house in the suburb of St. Marceau, where he spent his time in prayer and the most rigorous acts of penance. His father having left him by will only one fourth of his wealth, Francois devoted himself to manual labor in order to increase the funds for charity which he distributed among the poor. He died in consequence of the severity of the discipline which he observed. May 1, 1727. He is chiefly celebrated for what occurred after his death. The Jansenists canonized him, and pretended that mir- acles were wrought at his tomb. One of the contem- poraries of Erancois de Paris writes as follows regard- ing these strange occurrences at the grave of this departed ecclesiastic: "Several miracles have taken place, very opportunely, in cases of paralysis. The people sing of their own accord, and intone the Te Deum. This gives great pleasure to the Jansenists. A begging friar, the other day, having thought proper to pass jests upon the assembled crowd, the people drove him away, and in consequence no one in the neighborhood will bestow any alms upon him for the future. The portrait of the bienheureux Paris has been engraved, and is cried about the streets. The people will make a saint of him without the help of the court of Rome if this goes on.'' One of the earliest of the supernatural phenomena attributed to his agency was the cure of a young female named Anne Lefranc, who seems to have been in the last stage of consumption. No sooner was she laid upon the wonder-working tomb than the most distressing symptoms disappeared in- stantaneously, and within a few days her recovery was pronounced complete. As the event became a subject of loud and boastful exultation among the en- emies of the Constitution, archbishop de Vintimille instituted an inquiry into the facts. One hundred and twenty witnesses came forward to verify the prodigy ; forty were examined — among them the mother, the brother, and the sister of the patient, and the surgeons who had attended her— and their evidence proved by no means satisftictory upon several points of essential importance. The archbishop decided that, in the face of so many inconsistencies and contradictions, the tale was unworthy of credit. On July 24, 1731, he pub- lished a mandement to that effect; he condemned a dissertation which had been circulated in defence of the miracles, and prohibited all marks of special ven- eration at the tomb of ]\L Paris for the future. " Not- withstanding this," says Barbier, "such a crowd collect-
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ed on the morrow, St. James's day, that by four o'clock in the morninj^ it was not possible to get into the church of St. Medard, or into the little cemetery which contains the tomb." Mademoiselle Lefranc appealed to tlie Parliament against the archbishop's decision ; and by way of challenging further investigation, twen- ty-three cures of the capital laid before their diocesan reports of fresh marvels of the same kind, which now multiplied so rapidly that their very number became an argument of no small weiglit against them. It ap- pears that those who resorted to the tomb were mostly females suffering under various forms of nervous dis- ease, partially paralyzed, or subject to hj'sterical af- fections. These poor creatures were seized with spasms or convulsions, which led to a state of delirious frenzj- ; and not unfrequently, whether from abnormal tension of the imagination, or from tlie action of some occult physiological cause, such paroxysms were followed bj' an abatement of the morbid symptoms. The nervous system was relieved ; the crippled limb resumed its functions ; a healthy reaction set in, and infirmit}' for the time took flight. Such phenomena are, and al- ■waj'S will be, popularly classed as supernatural ; but it is evident that they are so designated in a relative sense— relatively, that is, to our own feeble ideas and apprehensions of the organic economj- of nature. The terras natural and supernatural serve, in fact, onlj^ to express the limitations and imperfections of human knowledge. The noted case of the abbe Becheran, though it was so confidently appealed to by the Jan- senist agitators, will not stand the test of sober and rational criticism. Throughout the j'ear 1731 the fer- ment continued to increase. One case produced an extraordinary sensation : that of a woman who, being in sound health, pretended to be paralytic, and pro- ceeded to St. Medard in a spirit of mocking incredu- Vity. Her folly was promptly punished; she was struck with real paralysis of the whole of the right side, and was carried away on a litter to the Hotel Dieu, in the midst of an exc.trd crowd, who proclaimed this novel portent through the streets. The proces- verbal recording tlie c^•cnt was signed by twentj'-six persons of established credit in various sections of so- ciety, including magistrates of the Parliament and can- ons of Notre Dame. Individuals of high rank were to be seen from time to time among the throng of de- vout suppliants at the shrine of the Jansenist saint — the princess-dowager of Conti, the marquis de Legale, the vicomte de Nesmond. the chevalier Folard (a lit- erary writer of considerable reputation), the historian Eollin, and a councillor of the Parliament named Carre de Montgeron. The last-named personage received, according to his own account, a most memorable rec- ompense for his assiduous pilgrimages to St. Medard. He was converted, by an inscrutable and irresistible impulse, from the extreme of scepticism to a profound acceptance of the whole cj'cle of Catholic belief. Mont- geron recorded his own experience, together with his convictions of the truth of the miracles, and the grounds on which he formed tiiem, in a quarto volume, entitled Lo vevite des miracles operes par V intercession de M. de Paris. He was imprudent enough to present this work to Louis XV, whereupon a letlre de cachet con- signed him to the Bastile ; and, after being transferred from one place of confinement to another, he ended bis days a prisoner in the citadel of Valence. The con- vulsionist movement tints ran its course through va- rious stages, until it readied an ultimate development of undisguised indecency, ininiorality, and impietJ^ At this point it was obviously impossible that it could be any longer defended or countenanced bv men of respectable character ; and the leading Jansenists were accordingly compelled to repudiate all connection with it, both for themselves and for their cause. Bishops Colbert, Cavlus, and Soanen had declared in favor of the earlier manifestations ; l)ut with regard to the ab- surdities and excesses which followed they used the