In vain did such great authorities in medical science as Hecquet and Lorry attribute the whole to natural causes: the theologians on both sides declared them supernatural--the Jansenists attributing them to God, the Jesuits to Satan.
Of late years such cases have been treated in France with much shrewdness.

When, about the middle of the present century, the Arab priests in Algiers tried to arouse fanaticism against the French Christians by performing miracles, the French Government, instead of persecuting the priests, sent Robert-Houdin, the most renowned juggler of his time, to the scene of action, and for every Arab miracle Houdin performed two: did an Arab marabout turn a rod into a serpent, Houdin turned his rod into two serpents; and afterward showed the people how he did it.
So, too, at the last International Exposition, the French Government, observing the evil effects produced by the mania for table turning and tipping, took occasion, when a great number of French schoolmasters and teachers were visiting the exposition, to have public lectures given in which all the business of dark closets, hand-tying, materialization of spirits, presenting the faces of the departed, and ghostly portraiture was fully performed by professional mountebanks, and afterward as fully explained.
So in this case.

The Government simply ordered the gate of the cemetery to be locked, and when the crowd could no longer approach the tomb the miracles ceased.

A little Parisian ridicule helped to end the matter.

A wag wrote up over the gate of the cemetery.
"De par le Roi, defense a Dieu De faire des miracles dans ce lieu"-- which, being translated from doggerel French into doggerel English, is-- "By order of the king, the Lord must forbear To work any more of his miracles here." But the theological spirit remained powerful.