Death of Joseph Méry
A man of talent, rare intelligence, poet and distinct scholar, Mr. Joseph Méry died in Paris on June 17th, 1866, at the age of 67 ½. Although he was not a confess follower of Spiritism, he belonged to the large class of those that may be called unconscious Spiritists, that is, who intuitively carry the fundamental ideas of Spiritism. Given that, we can, without veering off from our specialty, dedicate a few lines that will not be useless to our instruction.
It would be superfluous to repeat here the information that most newspaper published on the occasion of his death, about his life and his work. We will only reproduce the following passage from the Siècle (June 19th), because it is a fair tribute to the character of the man. After having enumerated his literary pieces of work, the author of the article paints him like this:
“Joseph Méry was prodigal in conversation; brilliant talker, improvisor of stances and rhymes, he sowed witty and paradoxical phrases, with a tireless vein; and a particularity that honors him, he had never deprived anyone from a smart comment, a joke, and was always benevolent with everybody. It is one of the most beautiful praises that can be done to a writer.”
We said that Mr. Méry was a Spiritist by intuition. He not only believed in the soul and its survival, in the spiritual world that surrounds us, but also in the plurality of the existences, and such a belief to him was the result of memories. He was persuaded to have lived in Rome, under Augustus, in Germany, in India, etc. Certain details were so much present in his memory that he described accurately places that he had never seen. That is the faculty that is mentioned by the article above when the author says: “His inexhaustible imagination created regions that he had not seen, guessed the social mores, describing the inhabitants with a fidelity all the more marvelous for he possessed it without knowing it.”
We cited the most important facts about him in the Spiritist Review, November 1864, with the title Memories of previous existences, reproducing the biographic article published by Mr. Dangeau, in the Literary Journal, on September 25th, 1864, followed by some of our thoughts. Such a faculty was perfectly known to his comrades in literature. What did they think about it? To some, it was just a singular effect of imagination, but since Mr. Méry was a well-liked man, of a simple and righteous character, that was knowingly incapable of an imposture (the accuracy of certain local descriptions, as a matter of fact, had been acknowledged), and they could not rationally call him insane, many said that there could be something truthful in all that. Thus, these events were remembered in one of the speeches given in his funeral. Now, if they had considered it as an aberration of his mind, they would have remained quiet about it. It is therefore, in the presence of an immense crowd of colleagues of the elite of literature and press, in a serious and solemn ceremony, one of those that demand much respect, that it was said that Mr. Méry remembered having lived in other times, and proved it by facts. This must give food for thought, particularly considering that it is outside Spiritism, and many people adopt the idea of the plurality of the existences as the most rational. Facts of such a nature, with respect to Mr. Méry, and being of the most remarkable particularities of his life, and having repercussion on the occasion of his death, can only accredit him.
Well, what are the consequences of such a belief, abstraction made of Spiritism? If we admit that he has already lived once, we can and must even have lived several times, and may live again after this life. If we lived many times, it cannot be with the same body, therefore, there is an intelligent principle in us that is independent of matter, that keeps its individuality. It is, as it can be seen, the denial of the materialistic and pantheistic doctrines. Considering that this principle, this soul, by re-living on Earth, may keep the intuition of its past, it must not lose itself in the infinity, after death, as it is commonly believed; he must, in the interval of his corporeal existences, remain in the environment where men live; having to retake new existences in this same humanity, he must not lose sight of that; must continue his experiences. Here we then have acknowledged the spiritual world that surrounds us and amidst which we live.
In this world live, naturally, our relatives and friends who must continue to have an interest in us, as we are interested in them, and that are not lost to us since they exist and may be near us. That is what is forcibly believed and that must be the consequences for those that admit the principle of the plurality of the existences, and that is what Mr. Méry believed. What does Spiritism do more? It calls those same invisible beings Spirits, and says that, since they are around us, they can manifest their presence and communicate with the incarnate. When the rest was admitted, is this so senseless?
As we see, the distance that separates Spiritism from the innermost believe of several people is very small. The fact of manifestations is just an accessory and a practical confirmation of the fundamental principle, admitted in theory. Why then some that admit the basis, reject what must serve as proof? For the false idea that they make of it. But those that take the burden of studying it in depth, soon recognize that they are closer to Spiritism than they thought, and that their majority are Spiritists without knowing; they only need the name. That is why one can see so many Spiritist ideas everywhere by the same ones that impugn the name and why those very ideas are so easily accepted by certain persons. When it is only about a matter of words, one is very close to an understanding.
Spiritism enters the world through an infinite number of doors, by touching everything. Some are brought to it by the fact of manifestations; others by the misfortune that strikes them, and against which they find in this doctrine the only consolation; others by the philosophical and religious idea; others, finally, by the principle of the plurality of the existences. Méry, contributing to give credibility to this principle in a certain environment, perhaps do more for the propagation of Spiritism than if he were a an openly confess Spiritist.
It is precisely at the time when this great law of humanity is affirmed through the facts and by the testimony of an honorable man, that the Court of Rome, in turn, has just deauthorized it, putting the Plurality of the Existences of the Soul in the index, by Pezzani (Journal le Monde, June 22nd, 1866). Such a measure will inevitably have the effect of drawing attention to the issue, provoking its analysis. The plurality of the existences is not a simple philosophical opinion; it is a law of nature that no anathema can preclude from existing, and with which, sooner or later, theology will have to agree with. It is a certain excess to hasten to condemn a law, in the name of the Divinity, a law that like every other that rule the world, is the work of the Divinity.
We are afraid that it will soon happen to this condemnation the same that happened to the ones that were cast upon the movement of Earth and its periods of formation. The following communication was obtained in the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, on June 22nd, 1866 by the medium Mr. Desliens.
Question – Mr. Méry, we did not have the privilege of knowing you but knew your reputation; your talents and the deserved esteem that surrounded you lead us to the expectation of finding, in the conversations we are going to have with you, one instruction that we will happily take advantage of, every time you want to come to us. The questions that today we would like to address you with, if the short time after your death allows you to respond, are these:
1st – How did your passage take place from this life to the other, and what were your impression when entering the spiritual world?
2nd – Did you know Spiritism when alive? What did you think about it?
3rd – Is what they say about your previous existences correct? Which influence those memories had on your earthly life and your writings? We believe to be superfluous to ask if you are happy in your new position. The goodness of your character and your honorability allow us to expect that.
Answer: Gentlemen, I am extremely touched by the testimony of sympathy that you have just give me, contained in the words of your honorable President. I am happy to attend your call, because my current condition assures me of the reality of a teaching whose intuition I carried from birth, and also because you think about what is left of Méry, the novelist, and in the future of my living and intimate part, in my soul finally, whereas my many friends, when they left me, they thought, above all, in the personality that had just abandoned them. They said their last good-bye, wishing that earth was light to me! What is left of Méry to them? A little bit of dust, and books whose merit I am not called to pronounce about… Not a word about my new life!
They remembered by theories like one of the singularities of my character; the imposition of my convictions like a magnetic effect, an enchantment that would disappear with my absence; but the Méry that survived the body, this intelligent being that today is conscious of his life of yesterday, and that who thinks about his life of tomorrow, what have they said?... Nothing!... He did not even think… The joyful novelist, sometimes so happy, sometimes so sad, departed; they gave him a teardrop, a memory! Eight days from now and they will no longer think of him, and the experiences of war will make them forget the return of the poor exile to his homeland.
Insensible! Long ago they said: “Méry is sick; he is weaking; he is getting old.” How mistaken!... I was moving towards youth, believe me; it is the child that cries when entering life that advances to the old age; the mature man that dies meets again with the eternal youth beyond the grave!
Death was an ineffable sweetness to me! My poor body, worn out by the disease, had a few final convulsions and nothing else, but my Spirit bit by bit left its diapers and floated, still prisoner, already aspiring for the infinity!... I was freed without trouble, disturbance; I had no surprises because the tomb no longer had any veil to me. I got to a known place; I knew that devoted friends were waiting for me in that shore, for it was not the first time that I had travelled that path.
As I used to tell my surprised audience, I knew the Rome of the Caesars; I commanded, as a subordinate conqueror, in this Gaul that I recently inhabited as a citizen; I helped to conquer your country, to enslave your proud predecessors, then I left to recharge my forces in the source of intellectual life, to choose new trials and new means of progress. I have seen the riverbanks of Ganges, and those of the rivers in China; I have assimilated those civilizations, so different from yours, and yet so great, so advanced in their kind. I lived in the scorching hot zone and in the temperate climates, I studied habits here and there, warrior, poet, writer, and philosopher in turn, a dreamer always…
This last life to me was like a summary of all the preceding ones. I recently acquired; just yesterday I was spending the treasures of observations and studies, accumulated over a series of existences. Yes, I was a Spiritist by heart and mind, if not by reason. Pre-existence was a fact to me, reincarnation a law, Spiritism a truth. As for the matters of detail, I confess in good faith to have not cared about much. I believed in the survival of the soul, in the plurality of the existences, but never tried to investigate it the soul could, after having left the mortal body, free, maintain relationships with those that are still bonded to the chain. Ah Victor Hugo said it right: “Earth is nothing other than the galleys of the sky!” We sometimes break our chains, but to take it back. We only get out of here, of course, by leaving it up to our guards to untie the links that bond us to the trial, when the time is right.
I am happy, very happy, because I have the conscience of having lived well!
Forgive me, gentlemen, it is still Méry, the dreamer, speaking with you, and allow me to come back to a meeting in which I feel at ease. There must be something to learn from you, and if you wish to receive me among your invisible listeners, I will be gladly among you, listening, learning, and speaking if the occasion presents itself.
