Incomprehensible adventure

There is not one hundred years were still in several places in France, the weakness to believe that it was only to give his soul to the devil, with certain ceremonies such cruel and fanatical, to obtain the what we wanted from this infernal spirit, and there is not another century that the adventure we'll tell about it, arrived in one of our southern provinces, where it is still evidenced today on records of two cities and covered most of the testimonies made to convince the doubters. The reader may think we are talking about after checking, we certainly do not guarantee it does, but we will certify more than one hundred thousand people have believed, and that more than fifty thousand may still testify today ' Today the authenticity with which it is recorded in registers safe. - We disguise the province and the names, we will allow.

The Baron Vaujour mingled from his earliest youth, the most unbridled licentiousness, the taste of all the sciences, and especially those that often result in human error, and lost him in dreams and fantasies that precious time it could be used in a way much better: he was an alchemist, astrologer, sorcerer, necromancer, and pretty good astronomer yet mediocre physicist, at age twenty-five years, Baron, master of his property and his actions , who, he claimed, found in his books that sacrificing a child to the devil, using certain words, certain contortions during this awful ceremony, there did seem that the devil and got him all that we wanted, provided he promised his soul, determined to this horror, as the only clauses of living happily until his twelfth luster, never run out of money and keep you up to this age also the most distinguished faculties prolific amount of force.

These infamous and made these arrangements, here is what happened. Until the age of sixty years, the baron, who was only fifteen thousand a year, has steadily eaten two hundred, and never made a ground of debt. Relation to his prowess voluptuous, even until he could see a woman age fifteen or twenty times in one night, he won a hundred louis challenge to forty-five years with a few friends who parièrent he would not meet twenty- five women seen quickly one after the other, he did and left a hundred pounds for women. In another dinner after which he moved a game of chance, Baron said he could not enter to the game, because he had no ground. They offered him money, he refused, he made two or three turns in the room while we were playing, came back to make room for him and took him ten thousand pounds on a map, drawn in rolls of ten or twelve times his pockets did not hold it, the Baron asked why one of his friends joked that the card was not charged enough, and Baron charging ten thousand pounds. - All these things are reflected in two hotels in town respectable and we played.

At the age of fifty years, the baron had wanted to marry, he had married a charming girl of his province, with whom he has always lived very well, despite infidelities too similar to his temperament that could make him quarrel he had seven children of this woman, and for some time the amenities of his wife kept him much more sedentary, they commonly lived with his family in the castle where his youth, he had the horrible wish we talked, receiving letters from people, loving to cultivate and maintain them. But as he neared the end of sixty years, recollecting his unfortunate pact, ignoring if the devil would be satisfied at the time, or to withdraw his gifts, or take his life, his mood changed completely, He became pensive and sad, and almost never left his home.

On the day fixed in advance, on the hour when the Baron took his sixty years of age, a servant announced to him a stranger who, having heard of his talents, application to have the honor to interview him the baron not reflecting in that moment that still occupied incessantly the last few years, said they took him into his office. He goes and sees a stranger who, so to speak, seemed to be in Paris, a well-dressed man, a very beautiful figure, which turns on the spot to reason with him on high science the Baron replied at all, the conversation begins. M. Vaujour offers his guest a walk, it accepts and the two philosophers outside the castle, we were working in a season where all the peasants in the countryside, and some, seeing M. de Vaujour struggling alone, imagine that his head was turned, and will warn madam, but no one answering the castle, these good people back on their feet and continue to examine their lord, thinking cause of action with someone, gesticulating as is usual in such cases, the two scientists finally earn a kind of walk a cul-de-sac, which could not escape only retracing his steps. Farmers could see thirty, thirty were interviewed and thirty replied that Mr. de Vaujour was entered alone, gesticulating in this kind of cradle.

After one hour, the person with whom he believes, he said:

- Why, Baron, you do not recognize me, forget you then the hope of your youth, you forget how I done?

The baron shuddered.

- Fear not, "said the spirit with which he speaks, I am not master of your life, but I know you withdraw and my gifts, and all that is dear to you; returned to your house you will see in what state it is, you would see the just punishment of your crimes and your recklessness ... I love them, crimes, Baron, I wish, and my fate forced me to punish them go home, I tell you, and become a true believer, you still have a chandelier to live, you die in five years but without the hope of one day God will be pleased if you change your driving ... Goodbye.

Baron and then finding himself alone without having seen anyone get rid of him, promptly return his steps, he asks everyone he meets farmers, if we had not seen him come under the arbor with a man of such and so, each replied that he entered it alone, frightened to see him gesticulating so, it was even warn ma'am, but there's nobody in the castle.

- Nobody cries the Baron deeply moved, I left home six, seven children and my wife.

- No one, sir, "came the answer.

Increasingly alarmed it flies to his house, he hits, it does not answer, he presses a door, he enters, blood flooding degrees tells him the misfortune which will destroy it, it opens a large room, there sees his wife, seven children and six servants, all slaughtered and littered the ground in different attitudes, amid waves of blood. He fainted, some farmers whose depositions are come and see the same show, they succor their master, who is slowly returning to him who begs them to go to this unfortunate family last respects, and that not even wins off the Grande Chartreuse, where he died after five years in the exercises of the highest piety.

We forbid any reflection on what is incomprehensible; there, he can not revoke, but it is inexplicable. Avoid believe in dreams, no doubt, but when something is universally attested, and is the kind of singularity it must head down, close your eyes and say: I do not understand how worlds floating in space, so there may also have things on earth that I would not hear.