It was of no avail that, in the year 1762, the
Grand Secours was forbidden by act of parliament; for thenceforth
this work was carried on in secrecy, and with greater zeal than
ever; it was in vain, too, that some physicians, and among the
rest the austere, pious Hecquet, and after him Lorry, attributed
the conduct of the Convulsionnaires to natural causes. Men of
distinction among the upper classes, as, for instance, Montgeron
the deputy, and Lambert an ecclesiastic (obt. 1813), stood forth
as the defenders of this sect; and the numerous writings which
were exchanged on the subject served, by the importance which they
thus attached to it, to give it stability. The revolution finally
shook the structure of this pernicious mysticism. It was not,
however, destroyed; for even during the period of the greatest
excitement the secret meetings were still kept up; prophetic
books, by Convulsionnaires of various denominations, have appeared
even in the most recent times, and only a few years ago (in 1828)
this once celebrated sect still existed, although without the
convulsions and the extraordinarily rude aid of the brethren of
the faith, which, amidst the boasted pre-eminence of French
intellectual advancement, remind us most forcibly of the dark ages
of the St.
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