Divining the Enlightenment: Public Opinion and Popular Science in Old Regime France Author(s): Michael R.

Lynn Reviewed work(s): Source: Isis, Vol. 92, No. 1 (Mar., 2001), pp. 34-54 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/237326 . Accessed: 29/12/2011 18:20
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The University of Chicago Press and The History of Science Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Isis.

http://www.jstor.org

Divining

the

Enlightenment

Public Opinion and PopularScience in Old Regime France

By Michael R. Lynn*

ABSTRACT

This essay exploresthe interconnections between the use of diviningrods,a practiceknown as dowsing or rabdomancy,and the Enlightenmentin France.The use of divining rods to find underground waters and mineralsunderwentconsiderablescrutinyin the 1690s after Jacques Aymar claimed that he could also track murderersand thieves. The subsequent debate, which engaged astrologers,doctors, theologians, and savants,reveals the tensions in French culture at the dawn of the Enlightenmentand outlines the public forums used to addressthose tensions. Another dowser, BarthelemyBleton, provoked anotherdebate in the 1780s, this time with more emphasis on good versus bad science than on demons or stars. The varying argumentsconcerning dowsing illustratethe changing relationship between science and the Enlightenment. Also, the shifting location of the debateuncovers a growing public sphere of scientific activity and a broad range of individuals who participated. 10:00 P.M. ON 5 JULY 1692 thieves broke into the Lyonnais wine shop owned by Antoine Boubon Savetier and his wife, bludgeoned them to death with a billhook, and escaped with approximately five hundred livres.1 When the local authorities made no progress on the case a wine dealer from Dauphine stepped forward and recommended the services of Jacques Aymar, a peasant known to have solved an equally difficult murder case. Having little choice, the authorities called on Aymar's help. He arrived in Lyon, inspected the site of the murder, and immediately started off on the trail of the culprits. Aymar first led police out of Lyon and down the Rhone River, where he tracked the killers to the home of a gardener. Once there, Aymar confidently announced that three people had committed the crime; he indicated the table where they had sat and pointed out the
* Departmentof History, Agnes Scott College, Decatur,Georgia 30030. For their questions, comments, and help, I would like to thank Bill Beik, ChristineBlondel, Tom Broman, Denise Davidson, SuzanneDesan, Roger Hahn,JudithMiller, GregMonahan,Stacy Schmitt,J. B. Shank,Sharon Strocchia,Peggy Thompson,the membersof the Vann Seminarin PremodemHistory at EmoryUniversity,and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Departmentof Special Collections. I A billhook is a tool with a curved blade attachedto a handle, used especially for clearing brush and for rough pruning. Isis, 2001, 92:34-54 ?) 2001 by The History of Science Society. All rights reserved. 0021-1753/01/9201-0002$02.00 34

AT

MICHAELR. LYNN

35

wine bottle they had used, informationcorroborated the gardener'schildren.2Aymar by then led the police to the town of Beaucaire,where he followed the trail to the local jail and directly to one of the inmates, who had been arrestedfor petty larcenyjust an hour earlier. This man, Joseph Arnoul, a nineteen-year-oldfrom Toulon and easily identified because of a hunchback,denied the accusations.Nonetheless, the guardsarrestedhim and took him back to Lyon, where witnesses identifiedhim. At that point Amoul confessed and named his two accomplices, one called Thomas and the other Andre Pese, both notorious criminalsbased in Toulon. Aymar went back to work:he followed the trail firstto Toulon, where he led the police to the very inn where the suspects had recently dined, and then to the sea, where they had boarded a ship. Undeterred,Aymar obtained his own vessel and trackedthem along the coast until it became clear that they were heading toward Genoa. Since he and his police escort lacked the authority make an arrestin a foreign city, they decided to returnhome. to For his part,JosephArnoulclaimedthathis accompliceshad committedthe actualmurder. Nonetheless, he was tried, found guilty, and executed by being broken on the wheel on 30 August 1692.3 JacquesAymar's spectacularfeat of detection made him an instantcelebrity-and immediately sparkeda huge controversy.The reason for the disputecenteredon the fact that Aymar had tracked down the killers with a divining rod, a forked stick usually used to find underground springs and ores. By itself, the debate launchedby Aymar's solution to this case providesa uniqueperspectiveon the creationof a public climate of criticaldebate in the early years of the Enlightenment.The controversysurrounding Aymar's methods ultimately involved doctors, theologians, naturalphilosophers, and even astrologers,resulting in a mixture of ideas and notions that clearly illustratethe range of culturaland intellectual tools available to people at the end of the seventeenth century and at the beginning of the Enlightenment.The contention over dowsing, however, offers an even more revealingportraitof the Enlightenmentwhenjuxtaposedwith a similardebatein the 1770s and 1780s over the capabilitiesof BarthelemyBleton, anotherDauphinoisepeasant whose talent with a divining rod capturedthe imaginationof the French.In this case the quarreltook place among a variety of savants, academicians,and membersof the general public, with more amateurs falling on the pro-dowsingside andmore academicians coming down against it. The battle developed over the properlocation of scientific authorityand the utility of natural philosophyin everydaylife. Justas the Aymarcase corresponds neatly with the origins of the Enlightenment,the Bleton case fits well with the end, or at least the culmination,of the Enlightenmentin the 1780s.4
2 Throughout the time Aymartrackedthe culprits,he repeatedlyamazedhis police escort and other spectators with his ability to identify the beds, chairs, plates, knives, bottles, and glasses used by the suspects. See the accountby the abbe de Lagarde,"Histoiredu fait," in PierreGamier,Histoire de la baguettede Jacques Aymar (Paris:Jean-BaptisteLanglois, 1693), pp. 80-83; and PierreViollet, Traiteenforme de lettre contre la nouvelle rhabdomancie(Lyons: H. Baritel, 1694), p. 12. 3 See the eyewitness accountsin Jean-Baptiste Panthot,Lettrede M. Panthot (Grenoble,1692); Panthot,Traite de la baguette, 3rd ed. (Lyon: Thomas Amaulri & Jacques Guerrier,1693); Gamier, Histoire de la baguette; de and [Jean] Vagini, "Recit de ce que Jacques Aymar a fait pour la decouvertedu meurtrier Lyon," in Pierre de le Lorrainde Vallemont, La physique occulte; ou, Traite' la baguette divinatoire,2 vols. (The Hague: Moetgens, 1747), Vol. 1, pp. 29-49. For modem synopses see Alphonse Gilardin,"Un proces a Lyon en 1692, ou Aymar, l'homme a la baguette,"Revue du Lyonnais, 1837, pp. 81-99; Louis Figuier, Histoire du merveilleux dans les temps modernes, 4 vols. (Paris: Hachette, 1860), Vol. 2, pp. 59-70; William Barrettand Theodore Besterman,The Divining Rod (Toronto:Coles, 1979), pp. 27-31; and Paul J. Morman,"Rationalismand the Occult:The 1692 Case of JacquesAymar, Dowser Par Excellence,"Journal of Popular Culture,1986, 19:119129. 4 RobertDarnton,Mesmerismand the End of the Enlightenment France (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. in Press, 1968), pp. 31, 96.

36

DIVINING THE ENLIGHTENMENT

This essay will follow the transitionin the debate over rabdomancy(the official, and somewhat scientific, name for the art of dowsing) from the beginning to the end of the age of Enlightenmentin France.sDuring that period the form, the forum, and the players in the controversy all shifted to accommodatethe growing public interest in scientific mattersand the appropriation naturalphilosophy into popularculture.This shift illusof tratesthe evolution of a scientifically aware public duringthe eighteenthcentury,an evolution characterized both by the plethoraof social and culturalarenasin which discussions of dowsing took place and by the incredible growth of the audience that contributedto those discussions. The changing natureof the participantsstemmed in partfrom shifting attitudestowardnaturalphilosophy, the growth in public participation popularscience in (throughlecture courses, demonstrations, clubs, books, and periodicals),and the ongoing Enlightenmentstress on the interconnectionsbetween science and utility. As membersof the general public appropriated tools and language of the Enlightenment,they also the came to take on and alter its purpose.Throughoutthe eighteenthcenturymore and more people placed more and more emphasis on reason and utility; but they frequentlyheld a singularly personal version of these ideas, one that could easily ignore the wishes and desires of the intellectual and culturalelite. The public, it turns out, had the courage to makeuse of its own reason-much to the chagrinof those who composedthe anti-dowsing brigade. For many of the participants the dowsing debate, and especially for the amateursand in those who were not full-time savants, the Enlightenment-particularly enlightened science-met a fairly simple set of criteria.First, it was useful; second, it seemed to make rational sense and appearedreasonable. Supportersof dowsing tended to focus on the apparentability of its practitionersactually to find water and springs (and to solve the occasionalcriminalinvestigation).This was a popularscience supported publicopinion, by even if, as was ultimately the case, such a point of view ran contraryto that of many savants.The case of dowsing enters into Frenchhistory alongside the developmentof the concept of public opinion. During this period, an increasinglylarge portionof the general public began to keep itself informedof currentevents and did not shy away from offering judgmenton what was happening.At the same time, public opinion came to be something to which one appealed for support and for which one worked, whether as a writer, a philosopher,a social critic, or a naturalphilosopher.Thus, the size and the scope of the group involved in the dowsing debate altered considerablybetween the late seventeenth and the late eighteenthcentury,even as enlightenedpublic opinion also grew and developed. Public interest in science in particular,already a mainstay on the other side of the English Channel,grew alongside the developmentof the Enlightenmentand its insistence that naturalphilosophy could be applied to all aspects of human existence.6The size of the group discussing and judging the utility of the divining rod expanded as more and
5 "Rabdomancy," science of dowsing, should not be confused with "rhabdomancy," art of divination the the with sticks, althoughopponentsoften conflatedthe two practices. 6 On public opinion in France see Arlette Farge, Subversive Words:Public Opinion in Eighteenth-Century France, trans. Rosemary Morris (University Park: Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 1994); and Mona Ozouf, "'Public Opinion' at the End of the Old Regime,"Journal of Modern History, Sept. 1988, 60(suppl.):Sl-S21. On public science in Englandsee LarryStewart,TheRise of Public Science: Rhetoric, Technology,and Natural CambridgeUniv. Press, 1992); Jan Golinski,Science Philosophy in NewtonianBritain, 1660-1750 (Cambridge: as Public Culture: Chemistryand Enlightenmentin Britain, 1760-1820 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniv. Press, 1992); PatriciaFara,Sympathetic Attractions:MagneticPractices, Beliefs, and Symbolismin Eighteenth-Century Events: English BroadEngland (Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniv. Press, 1996); and Alice Walters, "Ephemeral sides of Early Eighteenth-Century Solar Eclipses," History of Science, 1999, 37:1-43.

MICHAELR. LYNN

37

more people became capable of expressing their opinions on this subject and had access to the basic understanding science necessaryto have a point of view. of
JACQUES AYMAR, DOWSING DETECTIVE

The art of dowsing has existed since ancient times. Proponentsof dowsing often point to Jacob'srod, as well as thatof Moses, as early examplesof diviningrods.Its firstappearance in early modem Europecame in the fifteenthand sixteenthcenturies,when Germanminers apparentlypracticeddowsing in order to locate appropriate places to dig. The next two centuries saw several studies of dowsing, both for and against. Georg Agricola, for example, came out againstit for any purpose.Jacquesle Royer, on the other hand, claimed that the divining rod could be used to unearthall sorts of hidden things, a view he shared with GaspardSchott. Pierre Gassendi and RobertBoyle believed that practitioners could use dowsing to find water and metal deposits but that they should avoid it for other purposes.Duringthis period dowsing also underwentits firstextendedsystematicanalysis at the hands of Martinede Bertereau,the baronessde Beausoleil, in the Veritabledeclaration de la decouvertedes mines et minieres de France and La restitutionde Pluton.7By the end of the seventeenth century some people, like Pierre Bayle in his Dictionnaire historiqueet critique,noted that diviners claimed to use their talents for a wide varietyof purposes.They describeddowsers capableof trackingthieves and murderers, discovering forgotten land boundaries,finding buried treasures,identifying the fathers of abandoned children, and determiningif a person had committed adulteryor, alternatively,retained his or her virginity. The utility of the divining rod could surely have been quite profound, if only people could have agreedon how it worked. JacquesAymar was bornjust after midnight in Saint-Marcellinon 8 September1662. It is not known how he came to find that he possessed dowsing capabilities,but Dauphine had a reputationfor producing dowsers and it is likely that he initially learned of his abilities while imitatingothers. (See Figure 1.) He first came to realize that he could use his talent to solve crimes in 1688 when, while out searchingfor water,he felt his divining rod turn so sharplythat he believed he had found a majorspring.When the workmendug down, however, they found not waterbut the body of a local woman, missing for the last four months, buried inside a barrel. That she had been murderedwas certain, since the cord used to strangleher was found with her body.9Aymar went to the former home of the murderedwoman and directedhis rod at each person there;it moved only towardone of them-the widower-who immediately fled, thus establishingboth his guilt and Aymar's ability to track criminals.From that time on, people occasionally asked Aymar to use his divining rod to solve crimes. Thus Aymar had an establishedreputationwhen the authoritiesin Lyon called on his help. It should be noted, however, that these men were
7Jacques le Royer, Traite du bdton universel (Rouen, 1674); Lynn Thorndike,A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols. (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1923-1958), Vol. 7, pp. 256 (Agricola), 605 (Schott), Vol. 8, p. 495 (Gassendi and Boyle); Martinede Bertereau,baroness de Beausoleil, Writable dcclaration de la decouvertedes mines et minie'res France (1632); and Bertereau,La restitutionde Pluton (Paris: de H. du Mesnil, 1640). A descriptionof the baroness's works can be found in Figuier, Histoire de merveilleux (cit. n. 3), pp. 276-311. Beausoleil, however, was accused of practicingmagic and-thanks in additionto the bad political choices of her husband-was imprisoned. 8 Pierre Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique, 16 vols. (Geneva: Slatkine, 1969), Vol. 1, p. 9. See also Viollet, Traiteenforme de lettre (cit. n. 2), pp. 4 (adultery),163 (virginity);MercureGalant, Sept. 1693, p. 235 (virginity);and Affichesde Dauphine, 6 Nov. 1778, p. 111 (abandonedchildren). 9 Claude Comiers,La baguettejustifee, et ses effets demontreznaturels (1693), pp. 26-27.

38
i.. .- .. t.. .... ........

DIVINING THE ENLIGHTENMENT

!MO

Figure 1. A dowser at work. From Pierre le Brun, Histoire critique des pratiques superstitieuses,2nd ed. (Amsterdam: Jean-Frederic Bemard, 17331736) Vol 4 plate. (Photograph courtesy of the

of of University Wisconsin-Madison, Department Special Collections.)

not overly credulousor gullible; they firstput Aymar's talentsto the test in orderto satisfy themselves as to his legitimacy. They buied the murderweapon along with several similar tools and asked Aymar to determinenot only where it lay hidden but also which of the several tools was the true weapon. Aymar accomplishedthis task twice the second time while blindfolded.With his abilities expenmentallyproven to the satisfactionof the local state representatives,including the head of the police, the local judge, and the intendant, Pierre de Be'rulle,the authoritiesgave Aymar temporarylegal powers and a numberof guardsto accompanyhim. He then went after the three men responsiblefor the murders. The range of models put forwardto explain Aymar's success representsan astounding array of ideas and practices. Interestingly,the account of his activities remained fairly

MICHAELR. LYNN

39

constant.The debate did not center on whetheror not he had managedto solve the crime, of for it was agreedthat he had. At stake was the interpretation the events. Some scholars, for example, undertookhistorical studies and collected stories, citations, and anecdotes designed to legitimize, or discredit, rabdomancythrough an elaborationof its antiquity Anothertheorycenteredon the and its associationwith either Christianor paganrituals.'0 astralinfluences behind dowsing. Astrologers concentratedtheir attentionon the confluence of stars and planets at the birthsof dowsers. As a result, various nativities were cast for Aymar and other dowsers to see if any correlationcould be discovered. (See Figure 2.) Astrologersalso believed thatthe position of the heavenlybodies influencedthe powers of the divining rod itself. Iron, for example, should be sought using a rod cut under the influence of Mars, while diamondswere underthe sway of the moon." This theoryrested of on the idea thatthe arrangement the planetscaused certainindividuals,born at the right time, to be particularlyin tune with the ebb and flow of ether on top of and under the earth's crust. In this way, dowsers could literally sense the movement of water, the placecut and,with the aid of an appropriately divining ment of ores, or the passing of a murderer however, rod, tracethe movementof thatenergy flow. A problemarosefor the astrologers, when they discoveredthatAymarwas not an Aquarius,as they had supposed,but a Virgo and that others who exercised the power of dowsing were born at all times of the day and night, in all seasons, and under every possible configurationof the planets. JacquesAymar's brother,for example, born of the same parents,in the same month, underthe same zodiacal sign, and in the same place two years after Jacques,had no dowsing capabilities
whatsoever.'2

Some doctors, such as Jean-BaptistePanthot, head of the medical college in Lyon, offered a physiological explanation for dowsing, based largely on Aristotelian natural philosophy.They proposedthatdowsers were akinto humanmagnetsandthatthe divining rod itself acted like the needle of a compass. In effect, the dowser could focus on the vapors left behind after an individual passed by. This would cause a physical, and frequentlyvisible, reactionin the dowser. Physiciansfelt confidentthatthis theoryexplained the violent headachesand fatigue Aymaroccasionally suffered.He reportedlyenteredinto increased;he experienced a feverish state while practicinghis art:his body temperature muscle spasms and a quickening pulse rate; and on occasion he even vomited blood. Medically speaking, dowsers tracedindividualsthrougha trail spreadin their wakes with every breaththey took. As a result, Aymar could not even walk near the ill-fated Joseph Arnoul without suffering severe heart spasms. Panthotand other doctors could not quite explain how Aymar could focus on one such individual,nor could they determinewhy he could not trace noncriminalsin a similar manner.It seemed that immoral behavior left
10 Generally, those in favor of dowsing cited more biblical examples, while those against it cited classical examples. For a pro-dowsingexample see Comiers, Baguettejustifee, pp. 51-53; for an anti-dowsingexample see Pierrele Brun, Histoire critique des pratiques superstitieuses(Paris:Jean de Nully, 1702), pp. 73-173. 11 nativity is a horoscope based on the date of a person's birth. See the astrologicalchart cast for Aymar A in reprinted Vallemont,Physiqueocculte (1747) (cit. n. 3), Vol. 2, p. 165. For the astrologicalinfluencesinvolved in the cutting of the divining rod see Pierrele Lorrainde Vallemont, La physique occulte (Amsterdam:Adrian Braakman,1693), pp. 386-394; see also Jean Nicoles, La baguette divinatoire;ou, Verge de Jacob (1693), ed. as Paul Chacornac(Paris:Diffusion Scientifique,1959), pp. 117-118. Nicoles's book has been translated Jacob's Rod, trans.Thomas Welton (London:Thomas Welton, 1870). 12 Claude-Francois M6nestrier,"Des indicationsde la baguette,"in La philosophie des images e'nigmatiques (Lyon: HilaireBaritel, 1694), pp. 442-443. On Aymar's brothersee Comiers,Baguettejustife'e(cit. n. 9), p. 25. Clearly, not all astrologerswere in accord, as some emphasizedthe individual's birth while others focused on the rod itself. The formerheld that only certainpeople could be dowsers, while the latterbelieved that anyone cut with an appropriately rod could dowse.

40

DIVINING THE ENLIGHTENMENT

Figure

. Jacques Aymar's astrological chart (nativity). Astrologers begin the day at noon rather than

at midnight; thus, althoughAymarwas bornon 8 September 1662, the horoscope shows his birthon La de 7 September.FromPierrele Lorrain Vallemont, physiqueocculte;ou, Trait6de la baguette Chez AdrianBraakman,1693),p. 462. (Photograph divinatoire courtesyof the (Amsterdam: of of Department Special Collections.) University Wisconsin-Madison,

MICHAELR. LYNN

41

traces that could be followed, but nobody could invent a very good medical explanation as to why that might be. There were also various levels of intensity involved: Aymar claimed that he fell violently ill only when on the trail of particularlyviolent criminals and not when merely trackingthieves or finding springs and ores."3 Naturalphilosophersmodified this physical explanationin orderto incorporate methe chanical philosophy into their theories. Savants such as Pierre Garnier,Pierre le Lorrain de Vallemont, and Pierre Chauvin adopted a Cartesianpoint of view and suggested that people left small but very strongly constitutedcorpuscles behind them as they passed.14 We might take Cartesianexplanationsof light and heat to help us understandhow the dowser could make use of these corpuscles. From the Cartesianpoint of view, matter completely fills the world. The eye sees objects because they radiatecorpusclesthatbump into the matterbetween an object and the eye until the eye registers it. We can picturea long, solid line of matterfrom the object to the eye, an instrumentdesigned specifically to filter such information.This sort of explanationcan also be utilized to show how heat can be transferred, example, from a candle flame to a hand. Cartesiannaturalphilosfor ophers expanded these examples to suggest that a dowser could "read"the matter left behindby certainindividualsjust as one's handremainswarmfor a time afterit is removed from a source of heat. Diviners used a tool-the divining rod-to focus these corpuscles, just as the eye focused and interpreted light emanatingfrom an object. the The initial attackagainst dowsing came most strongly from the religious sector. Theologians, as we might expect, had much to say on the topic of divining rods andthe practice of divinationin general.Apparentlysome individualstook the term"diviningrod"literally and claimed that Aymar accomplishedhis feats throughdivine assistance. But most religious explanations concentratedinstead on an assumed diabolical interventioninto the affairs of people on earth. The Oratorianpriest Pierre le Brun, for example, arguedthat Aymar succeeded in his work thanks entirely to demonic assistance. Like Gassendi and Boyle, Le Brun did not dispute the fact that Aymar could find water, precious metals, or other material objects. But he felt that Aymar's forays into the world of the soul, his seeming ability to follow immoralactivity througha divining rod, clearly crossed the line between the realms of naturalphilosophy and demonic magic. Le Brun assumed that the devil had somehow duped Aymar into accepting demonic help and thus had transformed the diviningrod into a magic wand. In an age still repletewith witches and sorcerers,these argumentswere certainlypersuasive,if not particularly original.15
EXPERIMENTS, TESTS, AND TRICKS

While some createdtheoriesto explain dowsing, othersdevelopedtests anddemonstrations to help understand Aymar's abilities. In additionto the minimal trials performedinitially by the authoritiesin Lyon, Aymar underwentseveral other experimentsin an effort to
13 Panthot,Lettrede M. Panthot (cit. n. 3), pp. 8-10. On the response of the medical communityto Aymar's abilities see Come Ferran,"Les m6decins de Lyon et la baguette divinatoire au XVII siecle," Bulletin de la Societe Fran,aise d'Histoire de la Medecine, 1936, 30:225-243. Of course, some doctors came out against Aymar, but usually for theological, and not medical, reasons. 14 Gamier,Histoire de la baguette(cit. n. 2); Vallemont,Physiqueocculte (1747) (cit. n. 3); andPierreChauvin, Lettre a Madame le marquisde Senozan (Lyon: J.-B. de Ville, 1693). See also Claude Comiers, Factumpour la baguette divinatoire(1693). 15 On assumptions about divine assistance see Lagarde, "Histoire du fait" (cit. n. 2), p. 88; on diabolical interventionsee Le Brun, Histoire critique des pratiques superstiteuses(1702) (cit. n. 10), pp. 173-183. See en also Viollet, Traite' forme de lettre (cit. n. 2), pp. 4-5.

42

DIVINING THE ENLIGHTENMENT

verify and explain his abilities. In one such experiment,the lieutenant-general Lyon, in Matthieude Seve, hid three e'cusunder one of several hats on a table in his libraryand asked Aymar to find the money, a task Aymar accomplishedeasily. He also asked Aymar to determinewhere, in his library,twenty-five ecus had been stolen some seven or eight months earlier. Aymar first indicated the cabinet in which de Seve had kept the money and then proceeded to trace the thief back to the servants' quartersand to his very bed (even indicatingthe side of it on which he had usually slept, informationcorroborated by his former bedmate).The wife of the lieutenant-general devised anothertest of Aymar's abilities. Calling him into her drawing room, she asked Aymar to determine who had stolen money from a certainMonsieurPuget, one of the witnesses present.It was a trick question, however: she had taken the money herself. Aymar searchedthe room and announced that he did not believe a theft had occurred.She asked him to look again and he gave the same response as before but added, apparentlyrathercoldly, that if there had been a theft it had been committed as a joke and in an innocent manner;his talent, he claimed, worked only when he trackedreal criminals.16 These early experimentswere supplementedin 1693 when Henri-Jules,the prince de Conde, invited Aymar to come to Paris and submit himself to a series of tests. Conde assigned a member of his entourage,MonsieurRobert,to undertakethis task, and he, in turn,solicited the assistanceof severalmembersof the Academie Royale des Sciences and some nobles who expressed an interestin the proceedings.In one experiment,Aymarhad to determinethe amountand type of various metals buriedin a garden.(See Figure 3.) In anothercase, the academicianJean Gallois asked Aymarto find a gold louis hidden in the gardenof the Bibliothequede Roi; Aymar failed-but only because Gallois had, in fact, hidden the coin in his pocket. At Chantilly, the site of Conde's country estate, Aymar successfully identifiedthe man who had stolen and eaten several troutfrom a basin in the prince's gardens,but he also badly misidentifieda boy as the man's accomplice. One of Aymar's detractorslied, telling Aymar that the boy was the son of the guilty man when in reality the boy was not relatedto him at all and had been absent from Chantillyat the time of the theft. Guided by misinformation,Aymar's divining rod had twitched in the presence of the boy. Back in Paris, the experimentersled Aymar to the rue Saint-Denis, the site of a recent and especially brutalmurderof one of the king's archerswho had come out short in an argumentwith some Musketeers.The man, reportedlystabbedfifteen or sixteen times, had bled profusely on the street.Aymar's divining rod did not move at all, even though he passed over the exact spot of the murderseveral times. This test was had flawed, Aymar claimed, both because the murderers alreadybeen caught and because his talent allowed him only to detect premeditated crimes, not crimes of passion.Throughout all of these experiments,both fair and foul, Aymar performedfar below the expectations of Conde and the other witnesses. He returnedto Dauphine a humiliatedman, and reportsindicate that some time elapsed before he recoveredall of his dowsing skills.17 in Aymar clearly had trouble demonstrating experimentalsettings that his talents were Part of his problemin this regard, real and not the productof some sort of charlatanism. however, stemmed from the natureof the experimentscreatedto test his abilities. Aymar set performedadmirably,and satisfactorily,before the officials in Lyon, who, apparently,
Gamier,Histoire de la baguette (cit. n. 2), pp. 101-102. For a summaryof some of these experiments see Figuier, Histoire du merveilleux(cit. n. 3), Vol. 2, pp. 79-88. On the tests given by Cond6 see Paul Bussiere, Lettre a M. I'abbe D. L.*** (Paris:Louis Lucas, 1694), pp. 18-23 (for the trout),39-40 (for the archer).Unfortunately,Cond6gives no reason why he decided to invite Aymar to Paris and test his abilities.
16

17

MICHAELR. LYNN

43

metals or treasurebunied FromPierrele Brun,Histoire Figure 3. A dowser finding underground. des pratiquessuperstitieuses,2nd ed. (Amsterdam. Jean-Frederic critique Bernard,1733-1736), Vol.4, plate. (Photograph of of courtesyof the University Wisconsin-Madison, Department Special Collections.)

fairly straightforward experiments. Such, however, was not always the case. In the later
attempts to determine the truth of Aymar's dowsing abilities, the tests frequenty involved some element of trickery. Some individuals simply assumed that Aymar was a fraud; as

such, they felt, it was appropriatesimply to place him in an impossible situation-such

as providing him with false information-and then wait for him to slip up. These dem-

onstrationsseemed also to focus on Aymar's lack of learing and status.As an uneducated peasantfrom the provinces, Aymar did not have a very high standingin the eyes of nobles such as Conde'or academicians like Gallois. As with other phenomena-for example, reportsof meteors-savants were sometimesunwillingto acceptthe scientificobservations
or experiments of amateurs, especially the common folk. The ability to determine truth

and judge the work of Aymar clearly fell outside his own purview and into the hands of the social and intellectual elite, who felt no compunctionto treathim as an equal in any
sense of the word. j8 Several published statements appeared as a result of these experiments in an effort to

"I On the case of meteors in eighteenth-century France see Ron Westrum, "Science and Social Intelligence about Anomalies:The Case of Meteorites,"Social Studies of Science, 1978, 8:461-493. On the subjectof trust, testing, and the evaluation of truthsee, e.g., Steven Shapin,A Social History of Truth:Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1994).

44

DIVININGTHE ENLIGHTENMENT

warn the public of what Conde had discovered. Robert wrote a letter, published in the Mercure Galant and the Journal des Savants, that describedAymar's supposed talent as nothing more than an illusion and a trick. A few years later, the Academie Royale des Sciences put forwardits official opinion in the form of a judgment passed on Le Brun's book against Aymar. This decision, writtenby Bernardle Bovier de Fontenelle and published in 1701, came out strongly against dowsing.'9Despite these attacks,many people still stood behind Aymar, at least when it came to discovering water and ore deposits. Some even retainedtheir belief in the moral utility of dowsing. During the Revolt of the Camisards(1702-1705), for example, Aymar helped the Catholic side hunt down some Huguenots accused of murder.He successfully completed this task, and at his word a numberof rebels were executed. As late as 1706 Aymar appearedin Lyon to help local officials with a difficult criminalcase.20 This intellectualand culturaldebate took place in several distinct public arenas.It was waged first, and most heatedly, in the pages of the Mercure Galant and the Journal des Savants. Oftentimes,several articleson dowsing appearedin a single issue. The argument continued into the next centuryin the pages of the Memoires de Tre'voux, which offered judgments in the form of book reviews and general opinion pieces. Many of these early commentatorsalso publishedversions of their argumentsin book form, several of which went throughmultiple editions.2'The debate did not occur merely in an abstractform, however. The experimentsperformedboth in Lyon and at the behest of the prince de Conde took place in noble homes, in privateand public gardens,and in the streetsof Paris. Participants these trials included both men and women; cases such as that of the murin dered archertook the observersfrom the stately hotels of the rich and famous down onto the bloodstained streets of Paris. The observers also varied in terms of their education: some savantstook an active role, but othercases also involved keen amateurswith a ready interestbut no real specializationor skill thatgave them knowledge of the subjectat hand. Thus, while most of the participants this debatewere scholarsof some kind, with official in status, a few amateurswere able to join in, even if only in a passive manneras witnesses or as the victims of the crimes that Aymar struggledto solve. The range of theories put forwardto explain dowsing seems to fit rathernicely with Paul Hazard'stheory that a crisis of consciousness occurredat the end of the seventeenth century. Hazardeven mentioned the story of Aymar, amidst the thousandsof other anecdotes cited. He claimed that the ultimaterejectionof Aymar's abilitiesby the state, after the turmoil of the critical debate, reflected the general move in France toward a rational outlook that culminated in the age of Enlightenment.The broad mix of cultural tools brought to this debate certainly lends credence to the notion of a crisis. But the debate surrounding Aymar did not actually lead to such a firm conclusion as Hazardsuggested.
19Fontenelle's decision is reprintedin Pierrele Brun, Histoire critique des pratiques superstiteuses,2nd ed., 4 vols. in 2 tomes (Amsterdam: Jean-Frederic Bernard,1733), Vol. 1, p. lx. 20 The intendant in Burgundy,for example, reportedin 1707 thata dowser had discovereda mine in the nearby mountains:"M. Pinon, intendanten Bourgogne, a M. Desmaretz,"21 July 1707, 24 Nov. 1707, in Correspondance des Controleursgeneraux des finances avec les intendantsdes provinces, 3 vols. (Paris:ImprimerieNationale, 1883), Vol. 2, p. 423. On the Camisardssee Jean-BaptisteLouvreleuil,Le fanatisme renouvelh6 (1704), 3rd ed., 3 vols. in 1 tome (Avignon: Seguin, 1868), Vol. 2, pp. 51-52; and Antoine Court,Histoire des troubles des Cevennes; ou, De la guerre des Camisards,3 vols. (Alais: J. Martin, 1819), Vol. 1, pp. 353-356. On the 1706 case in Lyon see Nicolas Boileau-Despr6aux,Correspondanceentre Boileau-Despre'aux Brosette (Paris: et Techener, 1858), p. 267. 21 The two most popularbooks on the case of Aymar, those of Le Brun and Le Lorrainde Vallemont, each went throughhalf a dozen editions appearingas late as the 1750s and 1760s.

MICHAELR. LYNN

45

While the use of dowsing in legal proceedingsclearly had limits, the question of whether dowsers could use divining rods to find waterand mineralsremainedopen. In otherwords, while the authoritiescould not prove or disprove the legitimacy of dowsing, the reality was thatit workedoften enough thatpeople continuedto use it. As a result,Hazard'scrisis of consciousness evaporates.It is perhapsmore useful to see this dispute as a prototype philosophers, for a public spheredebate,one in which a limited numberof doctors,natural astrologers,theologians, nobles, and amateursall engaged in a discussion on dowsing. In this case, burgeoningrationalitywas ignored, and public opinion, which fell on the side of utility, triumphedover the opinions of diverse scholarswho, whetherthey supportedor attackeddowsing, could nevercompletelyjustify theirpositions.Accordingto this account, had its origins not with the victory of rationalityover superstition then, the Enlightenment but with the creation of a public forum in which the relative positions of rationalityand superstitioncould undergoopen debate and discussion.22
BLETON AND THE UTILITY OF DIVINING RODS

It was not until the 1770s, and the appearanceof BarthelemyBleton, Dauphine's other famed dowser, that rabdomancyonce again became a source of controversy.Born sometime duringthe 1740s into a peasant family, Bleton discovered his abilities at the age of seven. While carryingdinnerto some workmen, Bleton took a break and sat down on a large rock. A sudden fit came over him; he was faint and feverish and did not feel any better until he was moved from that spot. Every time he went anywhere near the stone, however, his illness returned.After witnessing Bleton go into his fit, the local priorconcluded that there must be something about that specific location that caused the sickness and so orderedsome men to dig up the ground aroundthe big rock. There they found a spring that, according to one source, was still in use at the beginning of the twentieth Since the region of Dauphinehad alreadyproduceda numberof famousdowsers, century.23 Aymar among them, the people there were always on the lookout for such occurrences. This time the debate focused largely on issues of scientific authorityand legitimacy. The chief question centered on who had the right to verify something as scientific. The pro-dowsingfaction received backing from a few savantsand from severalnobles-most notably the tacit supportof Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette,who used Bleton's talents both to find springsat Versailles and for the generalbenefitof France.But Bleton received his most powerful supportfrom the general public itself. It was the Frenchpopulationat large who continuedto hire him, witness his feats, and write testimonialsconcerninghis of success. Amateurs,keen to apply their understanding Enlightenmentreason and conthe laws of nature, began to take sides and offer vinced of their ability to understand opinions. Savants and academicians,who made up the bulk of the anti-dowsing camp, were unhappywith this trendand declaredthatthe Parisianpublic shouldnot involve itself in scientific debates. The streetswere not a place, they claimed, for the testing of theories. Many perceived popular credulity as a growing problem in late eighteenth-century France, in part because of the success of scientific popularizationin reaching a growing portion of the urban population. In the decades before the French Revolution, a wide
Univ. Press, 22 Paul Hazard,The EuropeanMind: The Critical Years,1680-1715 (1935; New York:Fordham 1990), pp. 177-179 (on Aymar).See also JoanDeJean,Ancientsagainst Moderns:CultureWarsand the Making of a Fin de Siecle (Chicago:Univ. Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 39-41. 23 For a summaryof Bleton's early life see Figuier, Histoire du merveilleux(cit. n. 3), Vol. 2, pp. 104-105.

46

DIVININGTHE ENLIGHTENMENT

variety of activities disseminated scientific ideas to willing Parisians. Public lecture courses, such as those offered by Jean-AntoineNollet, along with populardemonstrations and scientific clubs, all spreadscience to an eager and increasinglylarge audience.In this science into the general urbanculture.As a environment,Parisiansrapidly appropriated in result,some people began to feel confidentin theirabilityto participate currentscientific discussions, and savants themselves occasionally turnedto the public for support.In the last decades of the eighteenth century several scientific battles were being waged in the public sphere. Two controversiesin particular,over medical electricity and FranzAnton Mesmer's use of animalmagnetism,were closely tied to the case of Bleton andhis divining
rod.24

Among savants, Bleton received his most active supportfrom PierreThouvenel. Born in 1747, Thouvenel received a medical degree and establishedhimself in Paris, where he as soon became identifiedwith questionsof water supply and received an appointment the royal inspectorof mineralwaters in France.It was throughhis work in this capacitythat he came into contact with Bleton. He publishedhis firstbook on the subject,the Memoire physique et medicinal, in 1781. Thouvenel tried to present a clear account of Bleton's abilities in orderto bring the new science of rabdomancyto the centralposition within the In scientific world that he felt it deserved.25 the first section of the book, Thouvenelestabscientifically lished many generalphysical propositionsthathe thoughtwould demonstrate how dowsing operated.Specifically,Thouvenelbased the artof dowsing on a combination of electricityand magnetism.He claimed thatcertainindividuals,more sensitive thanmost and to changesin the fluidsthatsurround flow throughus all, could sense minutealterations flow of electricity and magnetism.The changes in electric fluids acin the underground counted for the appearanceof seizures akin to epilepsy. The fits, like the medical crises associatedwith mesmerism,also suggested a connectionbetween magnetismand the ability to discover ore deposits. Unfortunately,Thouvenel could not prove any of the connections he suggested. This meant that he had to supplementhis physical and medical conjectures with additionalmaterials. Thouvenel provided this furtherproof in the second section of the book, where he described,in copious detail, the observationshe had made on Bleton. Here we get a minute descriptionof the spasms and convulsions that shook Bleton while he worked.Thouvenel also examinedthe motion of the diviningrod, which, when nearwateror a mineraldeposit, would begin spinning at an estimated speed of thirtyto eighty rotationsper minute. Notably, Bleton did not utilize the traditionalforked branchbut, instead, a single, slightly curved piece of wood. (See Figure 4.) In addition, he claimed that he used the divining rod only for the benefit of observers;he himself could actuallyfeel the presence of water beneathhis feet and did not need the twitching or rotatingrod to help him. In this section,
24 The literaturehere is vast, but on medical electricity see John Heilbron,Electricity in the Seventeenthand EighteenthCenturies:A Study of Early Modern Physics (Berkeley: Univ. CaliforniaPress, 1979). On Mesmer see Damton, Mesmerism(cit. n. 4); and CharlesC. Gillispie, Science and Polity in France at the End of the Old Regime (Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniv. Press, 1980), pp. 261-289. On both of these topics see Colin Jones and L. W. B. Brockliss, The Medical Worldof Early ModernFrance (Oxford:Clarendon,1997), pp. 574-576, 794-802. On the connections between science and the public sphere see Jones, "The Great Chain of Buying: Medical Advertisement,the Bourgeois Public Sphere, and the Origins of the French Revolution,"American Historical Review, 1996, 101:13-40; and Thomas Broman, "The HabermasianPublic Sphere and 'Science in the Enlightenment,'" History of Science, 1998, 36:123-150. More generally see SarahMaza, Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes Celebres of PrerevolutionaryFrance (Berkeley: Univ. CaliforniaPress, 1993). On of in popularscience see Michael R. Lynn, "Enlightenment the Republicof Science: The Popularization Natural Paris"(Ph.D. diss., Univ. Wisconsin-Madison, 1997). Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century 25 PierreThouvenel, Memoirephysique et medicinal (Paris:Didot, 1781).

MICHAELR. LYNN
i

47

........ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.
.. .
... ...

...

..

-Ko. F,

4AL .,p~v ilWlZRtZNcJFSllo

-........Mi;t;w aS... .......

dI;IL40

>

i ';

M A s

;,.

rod. FromPierrele Brun,Histoire Figure 4. Some of the different des ways to holda divining critique pratiquessuperstitieuses,2nd ed. (Amsterdam: Jean-Frederic Bemard, 1733 1736), Vol.4, plate. of of (Photograph courtesyof the University Wisconsin-Madison, Department Special Collections.)

then, ThouveneldescnibedBle'tonand the practiceof dowsing as witnessedthroughcountless demonstrations.In grand fashion, Thouvenel did not want to feign any hypotheses. in However, while he presentedhis observationsas expenimental nature,they were really just descrptions of Bleton at work and as such not easily disprovedby those who sought

48

DIVINING THE ENLIGHTENMENT

to attackdowsing. Simply put, there was no concrete experimentalprocedureto examine and refute. The thirdand last partof Thouvenel's book neatly took the debateaway from the realm of science and savants and put the question instead into the hands of the general public. This section reproduced numerousnotarizeddocuments,reports,andaffidavitsthatattested to the success Bleton had enjoyed throughoutFrance. For the most part, these were testimonialsfrom satisfiedclients, includingclergymen,nobles, town councils, and members of the professionaland middle classes. The goal of such evidence was to overwhelmcritics of dowsing with massive numbersof crediblewitnesses. If these individualshad social or intellectual status, then their opinion in the matter would help supportdowsing. At the same time, it was much harderto refute these documentsthan it was to disprove Thouvenel's theories or observations, even though they did not actually have any scientific value. They were, afterall, merely testimonialsfrom amateurobserversand as such carried only social, not scientific, weight. They simply represented vast numberof individuals the who claimed to have watched Bleton successfully find springs. The problem lay in the observers' status as witnesses-were they, even though they might have an education,or be of noble or clerical status, able to be good witnesses? Or were they too credulous of things they did not fully understand?26
DOWSING AND PUBLIC OPINION

Thouvenel's book was greeted by a cacophony of opinions, voiced by members of the Academie Royale des Sciences and amateursalike, as everyone debatedthe acceptability of dowsing. The reviewer of Thouvenel's book for the Journal des Savants recognized the ambiguousposition of dowsing and tried his best to find a middle ground:he wanted to "holdhimself equally distantfrom the blind credulityof many of the ignorantand from the oftentimes too presumptuous incredulityof certainsavants."The resultingreview was necessarily vague-scientific proof was clearly lacking in Thouvenel's book, but the obvious utility of dowsing and Bleton's incredible success rate were difficult to deny. The problemfor this reviewer, as for many opponentsof the practice,lay in the fact thatwhile Thouvenel claimed scientific status for dowsing, the best supportfor his theories came through public acclamationratherthan mathematicalor experimentalproof. Several saof vants, such as the famous demonstrator experimentalphysics JosephAignan Sigaud de la Fond, spoke in favor of dowsing. He explicitly praised the utility of the divining rod: it could be used, he claimed, to discover "springs,mines, and the hidden treasuresof the earth." he who took advantageof "publiccredulity"could Unfortunately, added,charlatans also abuse the tool. As an example, he pointed back to the case of JacquesAymar, who, he insisted, could never have used the scientifically sound divining rod to solve a murder
case.27

Dowsing's opponentsdid not mince wordsin theirattacks:they labeledBleton a sorcerer [sorcier], a play on the French word for "dowser,""sourcier."The astronomerand aca26 On the use of credible witnesses in the creationof scientific truthsee Shapin, Social History of Truth(cit. n. 18). Mesmeristsalso utilized the tactic of collecting affidavitsand testimonialsin orderto supporttheirclaims, and, like Bleton, Mesmer often took his appeals directly to the generalpublic. See LindsayWilson, Womenand Medicine in the French Enlightenment:The Debate over "Maladies des Femmes" (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1993), p. 113. 27 Journal des Savants, Sept. 1781, p. 628; and Joseph Aignan Sigaud de la Fond, Dictionnaire des merveilles de la nature, 2 vols. (Paris:Chardon,1781), Vol. 1, pp. 75, 76.

MICHAELR. LYNN

49

Lalandefocused his attentionon the motion of the divining rod, demician Joseph-Jerome or what the pro-dowsing group had termed the hydroscope. He published a letter in the to Journal des Savants that purported prove how Bleton managedto make it move. Henri Decremps devised an experimentusing the divining rod and then gave detailed, step-bystep instructionson how any competentcharlatancould reproduceit. Louis BernardGuyton de MorveaucriticizedThouvenelfor, among otherthings, not includingthe full names of those who had testified to Bleton's talents. He insinuatedthat perhapsThouvenel had written all of the documentshimself. The mathematicianGabrielAntoine de Lorthe critiquedThouvenelon a more basic level. He noted that Thouvenelhad forgottento include any physics and medicine in his book and suggested that the tome had been misnamed; Lortherecommendeda new title: the "Storyof the CelebratedBleton."28 Unfortunatelyfor Lalande, Decremps, and the other individuals opposed to dowsing, showing how someone could purposefullycause a divining rod to rotate and vibratedid not prove anything.No one had ascertainedthat Bleton practicedsuch false methods. In fact, as noted earlier,Bleton claimed that he did not even need the divining rod, since his springs.Nor could they explain entirebody gave evidence of the existence of underground Bleton's amazing success rate in finding springs.Clearly, in orderto sway public opinion in the opposition needed to debunkBleton in such a way that the public could participate the experimentalprocess and actually witness his failure or, betteryet, see his fraudulent methods unmasked. To achieve this end, they invited Bleton to visit Paris in order to performexperimentsin front of a larger,more general audience,a plan designed to prove once and for all that dowsing was not scientifically sound. Thouvenel and Bleton did indeed come to Paris, but the first roundof experimentsdid not go exactly as the anti-dowsingfaction would have liked. Early in May 1782 Bleton went to the Jardinde Luxembourgand submittedhimself to severaldays of public scrutiny. du of Charles-Alexandre Guillaumot,the intendant-general the B'atiments Roi, presided over the experiments, accompaniedby numerous doctors, academicians,men of letters, artisans,and distinguishedamateurs;in all, an estimatedtwelve hundredpeople attended these demonstrations.The main part of the experimentcalled for Bleton to trace an undergroundaqueduct,the plan of which was in the sole possession of Guillaumot.Bleton met with nothingbut success. In fact, Guillaumotclaimed thatBleton's pathabove ground so accuratelymapped the undergroundflow of water that if the plans for the aqueduct were ever lost they could easily use Bleton to determineits exact location. He could even estimate how deep the aqueduct ran and the diameter of the pipe being used. Bleton performedthis feat not once but twice, on two differentdays, and, to add insult to injury, did it blindfoldedboth times. The Journal de Paris announcedthatthe science of dowsing for could now be appropriated the benefit of "physics and for the economic utility of his Once again, Bleton had publicly demonstrated talents,and the anti-dowsing society."29
28 Memoiressecrets pour servir a i'histoire de la Republiquedes Lettres en France depuis 1762 jusqu'a nos jours, 36 vols. (London:John Adamson, 1784-1789), Vol. 20 (1782), pp. 248-250 (sorcierlsourcier);Journal des Savants, Aug. 1782, pp. 558-564 (Lalande);Henri Decremps, La magie blanche devoilee (Paris:Langlois, 1784-1785), pp. 72-73; Louis BernardGuytonde Morveau,in Journal de Nancy, 1780, 3:244-272, 327-337, 1781, 4:87-107, 125-156; and Gabriel-Antoinede Lorthe, "Lettrea M. Thouvenel,"in Melange d'opuscules mathematiques,6 vols. (Paris:l'Auteur, Hotel d'Orl6ans,rue Dauphine;J. P. Duplain, Libraire,Cour du Commerce, 1782-1785), Vol. 5, p. 7. See also J. P. Battelier,Nouvelles de la Republiquedes Lettres et des Arts, 12 June 1782, p. 169. 29 Joumal de Paris, 13 May 1782, p. 531. See also Journal Encyclope'dique, July 1782, pp. 142-144. Guilobjects himself; at about the same time that he put Bleton laumot had extensive experience with underground to the test, he also supervisedthe constructionof the Catacombs.

50

DIVINING THE ENLIGHTENMENT

side was left wonderingwhere they had gone wrong. Clearly,their effort to debunkdowsing was going to require more rigorous experiments along with a larger appeal to the sensibilities of the generalpublic. The initial effort to refute dowsing, however, was reminiscent of those employed by Aymar's critics;the chief differencein Bleton's case seems to be his examiners'unwillingnessto resortto trickery.Just as the theoriesused to explain rabdomancyhad undergonea transformation duringthe age of the Enlightenment,so too had the tools utilized to test it. While the anti-dowsing group scurried to create a new set of experiments, the prodowsing faction used the victory to strengthentheir case. Bleton kept himself busy in and clergyaroundParis, amazing and astoundingroyal ministersand officials, ambassadors, men, and countlessotheramateursas he continuedto find springs.While visiting the Jardin de Pharmacie,ostensibly to attend a public lecture, he agreed to submit himself to an experiment at the hands of some of the professors. The Journal de Paris reportedthat from 1:00 P.M. until 6:00 P.M. Bleton enduredconsiderablepain in orderto determinethe connectionbetween his powers and electricity.Essentially,the membersof the College de Pharmaciewanted to know if Bleton could distinguishthe rate of flow of electricityjust as he could determinethe rate of flow of water. Their answer, after submittingBleton to five hours of electric shocks, was yes, and nine membersof the College, along with two Bleton acquiredconvertsalmostas rapidly visiting physicists, signed a letterto thateffect.30 as he found springs. By the end of May, the anti-dowsingfaction was ready to try again. On 29 May Bleton showed up at the gardenof the Abbaye de Sainte-Genevieveto undergo testing before a huge audience. In additionto the large numberof amateurs,the tests were witnessed by Pelletier,J.-A.-N. Caritat, membersof the Royal Academy of Sciences, includingBertrand marquisde Condorcet,and CharlesBossut; other scientific luminaries,such as Benjamin Franklinand Denis Diderot;severalnobles and state dignitaries;and a numberof midlevel scientific popularizerssuch as Nicolas-Philippe Ledru. This set of experimentscertainly made a pretenseat being more rigorouslydeveloped and more closely watched. The garin den, alreadyrepletewith fountainsandrunningwater,was prepared advancewith hunks of mineralsand ores buriedunderground differentdepths and in variousamountsbased at on Bleton's previous discoveries. Bleton, with his eyes covered, zigzagged back and forth across the gardenfor eight hours before his blindfold was removed. Throughoutthe day he found many ores and water sources, but he also missed many. (See Figure 5.) A week later Bleton returnedto the garden. This time the anti-dowsing side wanted to see if he would indicatethe same spots he had found the week before. Also, they wantedto examine the movementof the divining rod more closely. Bleton arrivedin the morning,blindfolded as before, and again roamedthe gardensindicatingspringsand ore deposits until half past noon; but he had not been able to duplicatehis feat. Nor could any correlationbetween water or ores be the rotationof the divining rod and his proximity to either underground identified. These results, printedin full in the Journal de Physique, were also published in summaryform in the Journal de Paris in orderto reach the widest possible audience.31 This, of course, was not the end of the matter. Within two weeks Thouvenel, who
30Journal de Paris, 21 May 1782, p. 564; 26 May 1782, pp. 583-584. 31 The full account,published in the Journal de Physique, came complete with a diagramof the gardenswith Bl6ton's route mappedout point by point:Journal de Physique, 1782, 20:58-72, and plate. See also Journal de Paris, 16 June 1782, pp. 675-677.

MICHAELR. LYNN
.> .A{. .. ., . . , . j ., > .f i... ^ ., . .,.

51

. '\A l , .

I U

5e

4;.

Figure 5. Chartdetailingthe routetakenby Blton dunnghis test at the garden of the Abbayede 29 Sainte-Genevibve, May 1782. Fromthe Joumalde Physique, 1782, 20, plate. (Photograph of of courtesyof the University Wisconsin-Madison, Department Special Collections.)

claimed that the tests performedby the anti-dowsing faction were invalid, took Bleton back to the gardens to perform some tests of his own. Thouvenel published his results, along with some additionalaffidavits,in a lengthy supplementto the Journal de Paris. He also continued to solicit support from savants such as Pierre-IsaacPoissonnier, PierreJoseph Macquer,Jean Darcet, and Joseph-IgnaceGuillotin.At the same time, Bl6ton continued to find springs in and aroundParis itself, often at the request of the intendantof Paris or other royal officials32 The anti-dowsingfaction had succeeded in demonstrating before a crowd of savants, academicians,and amateursthat Bleton was inconsistent at best, but they still were unable to explain how Bl6ton seemed to find more springs than anyone else did. Nonetheless, public opinion began to falter a bit; Bleton's failure to live set up to the standards by the academicians,at least when he failed to meet those standards in a public forum, did have some negative impact on his reputation. At this time the popularizerJ.-A.-C. Charles,soon to be a famous aeronaut,enteredthe debate on the side of the anti-dowsinggroup.Bl6ton agreedto undergosome experiments designed by Charles, who wished to examine the connections between electricity and dowsing. Bleton stood over an aqueductwhere, of course, his divining rod began to move. Then he stood up on an insulated stool, at which point the rod stopped moving. This was
32 For Thouvenel's reaction to the experiments see Journal de Paris, 2 June 1782, pp. 612-613; Monthly Review, 1782, 67:553-556; and Journal des Savants, 1782, 20:70. For the new results see Journal de Paris, 26 June 1782, pp. 719-726. Interestingly, Guillotin spoke in favor of dowsing but had earlier worked on the commission that condemned animal magnetism.

52

DIVINING THE ENLIGHTENMENT

repeatedseveral times, but in the final experimentCharlessecretly connected a wire from the ground to Bleton. The divining rod, however, did not rotate. This led Charles, and many others,to conclude thatthe rotationof the rod was entirelyBleton's doing.33 Charles enjoyed a solid reputationamong the general public, and his experimentsadded to the damage done to Bleton's image by the academicians. Thouvenel and Bleton were now on the defensive, and popularopinion was beginning to waver. At aboutthis time, Mesmerwas also coming underattack.Independently, Bleton could probablyhave survived for as long as he kept finding springs. But with the attacks against animal magnetism coming fast and furious, and given the obvious connections between mesmerismand dowsing, the pro-dowsingside faced serious problems.It did not help theircause any thatthe mesmeriststhemselvesexplicitly associatedanimalmagnetism with dowsing. On the other hand, the ballooning craze, beginning in 1783, worked in Thouvenel's favorby makingthe impossible and seemingly inexplicableappearreasonable and commonplace. After the Montgolfierbrothersand their imitatorstook to the skies, Thouvenel wrote that Bleton was to the subterranean world what the aeronautswere to the heavens.34 The issue ultimatelyremainedunresolved,however, as can be seen from the numberof nineteenth-and twentieth-century books that either explore the public benefits of dowsing or attack it as a fraud.35 their part, Bleton and Thouvenel could never prove their For theories. On the other hand, the anti-dowsingside had shown how a charlatancould turn the divining rod but could never explain how Bleton continuedto find springs and mines with remarkablefrequency.When the second volume of Thouvenel's Memoirephysique et medicinal was published in 1784 it received the same sort of ambiguous attentionas his first book. The reviewer for the Journal des Savants merely noted that this volume containedthe same kind of informationthatThouvenelhad been publishingin the Journal de Paris but that the marvels were even more multipliedin the book. He did not directly criticize Thouvenel, Bleton, or the practice of dowsing, although he did mention that Thouvenel's theories remainedunproven.His reluctanceto attackdowsing may be attributable to Bleton's discovery of a particularlylarge and lucrative coalfield at about that time. Public opinion, charmedonce again by this concrete evidence of utility, had temporarily resumed its active supportof Bleton. Whatever the reason, Bleton temporarily managedto maintainhis somewhatbatteredreputationand continuedto work with Thouvenel finding springs and ore deposits for the state. In the first six months of 1785 he In discovered forty-one coalfields in ten differentprovinces throughoutFrance.36 the end,
33 For a description of this experimentsee Journaldes Savants, Aug. 1782, p. 561; and Barrettand Besterman, Divining Rod (cit. n. 3), p. 45. Barrettand Bestermanpoint out that Charles's experimentwas flawed, albeit in a way not understoodat the time. 34 Journal de Paris, 4 Jan. 1784, p. 14 (Thouvenel on aeronauts).For the use of dowsing by mesmerists see Joseph-JacquesGardane,Eclaircissemens sur le magnetisme animal (London, 1784), pp. 6-7; Jean Jacques Paulet, Reponse a l'auteur des doutes d'un provincial (London, 1785), p. 19; Journal de Paris, 22 Feb. 1784, pp. 242-243; and Joseph Phillippe Fran,ais Deleuze, Histoire critique du magnetismeanimal, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Paris: Belin-Leprieur, 1819), Vol. 2, pp. 277-280. For a combined attack on mesmerism and dowsing see Journal de Nancy, 1784, 14:112-129. 35 See the articles on the baguette divinatoireand the hydroscopein GaspardMonge, Comte de P6luse, JeanDominique Cassini, Pierre Bertholon, et al., Dictionnaire de physique, 4 vols. (Paris: HWtelde Thou, 17931822), Vol. 1, pp. 2-9, Vol. 3, p. 500. For modem dowsing see the bibliographyin Barrettand Besterman, Divining Rod (cit. n. 3). 36 For the review of Thouvenel see Journal des Savants, 1784, 25:314-315; cf. the review in the Gazette de Sant, 1784, 47:185-187. On the large coalfield see Memoires secrets (cit. n. 28), Vol. 26 (1784), pp. 91-92; on the fields discovered in the first half of 1785 see Journal de Paris, 17 June 1785, p. 695.

MICHAELR. LYNN

53

however, Thouvenelsuffereddisgracewithinthe elite scientificcommunity,andno amount of public supportcould help him sway more thana few academiciansand savantsto accept his suppositionsas facts. He eventuallymoved to Italy, where he lived out his days trying to prove his theories. The rangeof the debateover Bleton covered much more groundthanthe one concerning Aymar. First, the sites of the debate were more numerousand accessible to more people. In such forums as the Journal de Paris, the Journal Encyclopedique,and the more scholarly Journal de Physique, the struggle to prove dowsing's legitimacy reached a much largergroupof people thanpreviouslyhadbeen possible. In addition,the growthin literacy and the greatercirculationof these journals, especially the Journal de Paris, ensuredthat a much larger portion of the populationcould follow the currentsof the debate. But the debate over Bleton did not occur exclusively in print. Bleton performedcountless demonstrations,all attestedto and verified by members of the general public. These demonstrationsof his abilities were made all the more potent thanksto Thouvenel's decision to publish the affidavits in his books and in the Journal de Paris. In this way, dozens of nonspecialistscould asserttheir authorityas witnesses and vouch for Bleton's skills. Similarly, the very open and very large public demonstrations occurredaroundParisdrew that huge crowds of people. Authority,in this case, lay with the public and those few savants who supportedtheir cause. Public opinion had initially, in the case of dowsing, fallen on the side of utility and accepted the credibility of Thouvenel's witnesses. Much to their chagrin, the anti-dowsing side found that in order to sway public opinion they had to abandontheirtheories and ideas and focus insteadon the visual, the observable,the amusing, and the useful. High science had to meet the popularpractice of dowsing on its own ground.
CONCLUSION

The inability of anyone to prove definitively, in either the Aymar or the Bleton case, that dowsing did or did not have scientific merit leaves the historianin a bit of a quandary. What relationshipexisted between science and pseudo-science, naturalphilosophy and magic, when the terms themselves clearly lacked concrete and absolutedefinitions?What can be divined aboutthe natureof the Enlightenmentand its relationshipto reason,utility, in amusement, and instruction?During this period, a transformation this aspect of the Enlightenment occurredin severalways. Most obviously, the natureof the arguments used for and against dowsing had altered. Gone, in the case of Bleton, were the appeals to astrology and theology that appearedat the time of Aymar. Guytonde Morveauclaimed, for example, that Bleton should be accused not of practicingmagic but of being a swindler.37 The question was now one of good use of reason versus popularcredulity rather than one of demonic or astralinfluences battlingCartesiancorpuscles. In this respect,we can clearly see the influx of rationalthinking and the attemptto apply reason to various aspects of life. The natureof the people involved in the debate over dowsing also altered over time. The change is partly numerical;the numberof people who could and did participatein the debate had increased dramaticallyby the end of the eighteenth century. In Aymar's case, a small group,distinctivefor the level of theireducation,debatedamongstthemselves and sought to influencetheir intellectualpeers. By the time Bleton appearedon the scene,
37

Guyton de Morveau,in Journal de Nancy, 1781, 6:91.

54

DIVINING THE ENLIGHTENMENT

to little or no controlremainedover who could readabout,discuss, or contribute the debate. More important,the natureof the public had changed. A growing and shifting group of academicians,amateurs,and popularizersall spoke their minds and sought to influence the outcome of events. In particular,membersof the general public seemed confidentin their ability to participatein scientific discussions. A half-century spent appropriating various types of science and obtaininga substantiallevel of scientific culturalcapitalleft many membersof the public with the conviction that they were able to make decisions in scientific affairs.The popularization science had sharplyincreasedthe numberof people of willing to asserttheir own scientific opinions. The problem,from the elite perspective,lay in the fact that not all popularscience was equal and that while many felt ready to face the challenge of deciding scientific debates, not everyone enjoyed the same level of preparation.In giving people an awareness of science, popularizerssometimes imbued them with a greatersense of knowledge than they actuallypossessed. Popularscientificknowledge, then, could be used for purposesfar beyond its originalintent and the level at which it had been appropriated. At the same time, differing views as to the nature of the Enlightenmententerprise, especially with regardto who could judge somethingas useful and rational,emergedfrom the muddle of the dowsing debate. Reason held a vital place for both the pro- and antidowsing camps, but it meant different things to the two groups. The definition of what was rational and reasonable was not static but changed depending on the angle of the viewer. For some, "reasonable" meant "theoretically justifiable,"and althoughthey recognized the importanceof utility it could never prevailover a sound scientificexplanation. For others-that is, for those who appropriated Enlightenmentat a more popular the level-reason and rationalityhad a differentstatus.They understoodthe terminologybut chose to judge reasonablenessaccording to visual criteriaor utility. The general public, then, decided to create its own public opinion; and they were certainlynot the ones that the scientific elite would have picked to performthat task. The tools used by people to addressthe efficacy of dowsing and the criteriaby which they judged it altered even as in they participated the process of appropriating Enlightenmentnotions and ideas. In the end, individualsacross a broad spectrumjoined the debate. The Enlightenment, of course, was neithermonolithicnor uniformin its goals, personnel,beliefs, or processes. Many elements of the old regime tried to implement a certain degree of Enlightenment rationalityin their programs.The state-another entity that could not pretendto be monolithic undereitherLouis XIV or Louis XVI-occupied several differentpositions within the spectrumof the Enlightenment.In the case of dowsing, some of the state's represeneven as othermembersof the tatives-the academicians-largely denouncedrabdomancy state bureaucracy-such as the provincialintendants-took advantageof dowsers' abiliitself occupied a wide range of positions vis-a-vis ties in their regions. The Enlightenment dowsing: people defended, attacked,qualified,tested, and questionedthe use of divining rods, all from an enlightenedposition. Clearly,the Enlightenment-as least that partof it appropriated the public interestedin dowsing-was out of the control of the few and by in the hands of the many. Usurping scientific authority,the public took over the task of divining the reasonableness,rationality,and utility of rabdomancyand of the Enlightenment more generally.