Letters to Moreau, 9/18-1/19

To Mr.  Moreau, Physician, etc.

Paris, September 16, 1818. 

Dear sir:

I feel I must inform you that Mr. Chaix, your friend, having paid me a visit on April 1, promised me on your behalf that you would be completely terminating your relationship with me as soon as you had received the response you were expecting from the gentlemen who make up your Avignon Seeing no change in my position, I had to remind your friend of the promise he had made to me on your behalf; he urged me to be patient until the time of his departure from Carpentras, and warned me against writing to him if I did not obtain what I was to expect from you.

Seeing no end to my troubles, I have not let him ignore me, as he had suggested that I do, and I have not received any  response 

I’m sure that he has made known to you and to your colleagues in Avignon my very reasonable complaints. However, your agents still torment me day and night without cease; please, I beg you, order them to end their persecutions. As you have often promised me and and have not yet done

Nevertheless, I have responded to all the invitations that you have been kind enough to make to me; I have answered all the various questions that my circumstances obliged you tp  ask me at the time; you even seemed to be informed of everything by your colleagues, the Physicists of Avignon, who had instructed you to do me all manner of harm, a task you performed quite well. . But why not act on all the good that you had promised me? Why not give me back the freedom that you had also promised me, with the express condition of not leaving you, if I did not want to be pursued by the elves, wherever I might go? Finally you have broken your word, and here I am fallen into the hands of Vandeval, then into those of Jacques Prieur, and then after into those of  Etienne Prieur, whose services he has nothing to be proud of.

I am, as I await your answer, which I beg you to be good enough to give me,

Your servant, M.B.

To Mr.  Moreau, Physician, etc.

Paris, September 23, 1818.

Dear sir,

I had the honor of writing to you, on the 16th of this month, regarding the torments that I have been suffering for many years. Mr. Chaix had assured me, before leaving Paris, that you and Mr. Pinel, doctor of medicine at the Salpêtrière in that city, would be more than happy to satisfy the just demands that I have so often made to you; but that the members of the Avignon Society could not agree with you on this. For this reason our friend Chaix, upon his arrival in Carpentras, would take steps in their city to encourage them to complete this matter, through your mediation and that of your friend, the doctor. 

As I have not received any news from you, and as I am continually the target of persecution, please, sir, reply my to letters, so that I finally know what to expect.

I have the honor to be, 

M.B.

To Mr. Moreau:

November 10, 1818. 

Dear Sir,

I have done myself the honor of writing you two letters, one dated the 16th, the other dated the 19th of last September, and both have remained unanswered. This silence on your part astonishes me all the more, since my reasons for writing them must have deserved your attention. I do not know why several letters which I have also addressed to Dr. Pinel and to Mr Chaix, our mutual friend, to be presented to the members of your society in Avignon, have similarly received no response; I am convinced that these gentlemen will have written to you to convey their decisions, and that you will not delay any longer in carrying them out, since this delay is very detrimental to my peace of mind, as you know perfectly well

You are also aware of the  perfidy of the Vandeval woman and several others. And you do not seem to remember also all the fine promises that you had made me in this regard: I am tormented day and night by these scoundrels, and the suffering that I endure is unbearable. Decency does not allow me to detail them to you here, they are of a nature that can only be explained in private. 

I cannot fathom the reasons that would prevent you from making a decision in my favor. 

Since replying to me seems to be too difficult,  why not address yourself to Prince Belphegor, ambassador of hell, in charge of French affairs? This would all be smoothed over with your simple request. [1]

You must also come to an agreement with Leonard, grand master of the Sabbath, knight of the Fly, so that his rogue agents no longer come to harass me, they magnetize me to make me sleep and then commit the most terrible atrocities.

I have the honor to be,
M.B.

P.S. I must not let you be unaware that I have already written several letters to Mr. Charles Prieur,  a doctor in Moulins, all relating to the conduct of his sons towards me.

I am writing to Mr. Pinel so that you can come to a final agreement on my case. After twenty-three years of trials and suffering, it would be time to see an end to my torments.

To Mr.  Moreau, Physician, etc.

Paris, 16 November 1818.

Sir,

You must have received a letter from me, dated the 10th of this month, in which I complained of the ills you have made me suffer for so many years. Why do you keep silent about it? It is because you doubtless are pleased to torment me night and day without cease. I know that I am not the only one you exercise all your magical operations on, that you make thousands of victims experience your infernal furies; but as you, Mr. Pinel and our Gentlemen of Avignon, are the principal leaders of this horrible society, I believe that you do not conform to all the orders of your president Leonard, and that you put a lot of your own into it; this seems quite likely,  when I think that instead of finding some relief from my pain, I’ve suffered even more since my last letter Tell me, since I’ve been under your domination for twenty-three years: is it your intention is to keep me thus eternally? Tell me what pleasure you can find in making me so unhappy! Can only evil satisfy you? I ask you, Sir, should I hope for an end to it?

What! When it comes to your cruel maneuvers against me, you don’t even respect the places where I am, you dare attack me in church, where I often go! 

So I must suffer thus all my life? Yes, it is distressing, no doubt, but religion will soften my pain, and the time of your punishment will come.

Nevertheless, I have a consolation that tempers my suffering: God has made known to me your works and the means of avoiding even greater evils. Etienne has not left me ignorant of them. He told me that you could poison me, and even assassinate me; but God will preserve me from this side of your execrable projects.

I am sending a copy of this letter to Mr. Pinel, doctor at the Salpetrière.

I have the honor to be, 

M.B.

To Mr.  Moreau, Physician, etc.

Paris, December 4, 1818. 

Dear Sir,

I received with pleasure the verbal reply you made to the bearer of my letter last November 16. Although I would have liked a written reply from you, I am no less sensitive to your honest actions; I believe I deserve them, and I would like to have a conversation with you to convince you of this. Please come and see me, as you have given me hope. I do not doubt your good intentions toward me, and I rely on the account that I have just been given.

I therefore ask you, sir, to please indicate the day and time you would like to grant me a visit, visible or invisible, whichever you’re more comfortable with; you will make the first visit as pleasant to me as the second will be painful. In the first case, I will always regard you as a friend; but in the second, as the most cruel of my enemies.

I have the honor to be,
M.B.

To Mr. Moreau.

Paris, December 9, 1818

Sir:

I should have expected, as per the promise you made to the bearer of my letters, that I would receive from you either a visit or a written reply. I have not yet enjoyed one of these two advantages, however. I am still risking the latter again, perhaps with happier results.

I still take pleasure in the confidence that, you Mr. Etienne Prieur and Mr. Papon Lomini, his cousin, have inspired in me, despite the fact that I consider you all as the principal authors of my woes, because I believe that you will, eventually, take pity on me .

I will not attempt, Sir, to give you knowledge in a subject which you are certainly better informed than I, but I am very pleased to let you know that although I am not affiliated with your diabolical society, I know the strength and composition of the infernal government, the names of some of the great men who compose this astonishing empire. I will name them for you.

(Here follows the nomenclature that I gave in my first volume, pages 3 and 4) [2]

All these Gentlemen compose the court of the government of hell; we do not know if there are any other princesses alongside Proserpine, which may lead us to believe that she is perhaps alone among all the goblins, and that she is the diamond of this brilliant court. If this is so, she must enjoy being so unique among demonkind.

I have the honor to be,

M.B.

Mr. Moreau, rue de la Planche-Mibray, n. 13.

Paris, January 18, 1818.

Sir,

The bearer of my last letter informed me of your intent to come visit me on the morning of the 17th of this month.  I waited for you in vain until three o’clock in the afternoon. I congratulated myself in advance on the double advantage that I believed I would gain from it; on the one hand, the honor of your visit, and on the other, seeing an end to my troubles soon. 

Perhaps it is your busy schedule that has prevented you from fulfilling this promise, as you had expressed was your desire.

You would oblige me, Sir, if you would write a reply to the bearer of this letter, or else let me know verbally the day and hour that I could have the honor of your visit, without uselessly waiting for it.

I have the honor to be,

M.B.

P.S. Tell me, Sir, I pray you, you to whom so much wisdom is granted, what I should think of all that happens to me. Do the evils that I experience day and night come from you, or from the different heads of the diabolical authority that I mentioned previously?  In the latter case, could you, as one of the principal officers of that authority, give them a report of my sad situation and try to obtain for me the means to alleviate it? In the former case, you could, according to the report of one of your subordinates (of whom I have already spoken), stop tormenting me, since he says that it is up to you alone. Tell me, please, if I need a police officer everywhere I go. Are these not dreadful procedures? Is this not horrible conduct? I hope, Sir, that you will put an end to it, because I must definitely not be your slave. 

Mr. Moreau, rue de la Planche-Mibray, n. 13.

January 6, 1819. 

Sir,

The precepts of my religion, from which I will never deviate, ask that I return good for evil; this is why I come to wish you a happy and prosperous New Year, perfect health and the fulfillment of all you could desire.

I await with resignation, according to the promise you made me, the pleasure of seeing you, and I await it with all the more impatience as I begin to fear that you will break your word to me, and I no longer believe you will even reply to my letter.  I nevertheless have a great interest in knowing if your colleagues in Avignon have written to you anything about what concerns me. For my part, I also await one from Mr. Chaix, your friend.

I thought that my troubles would end with the year 1818, and that my tranquility would date from January 1, 1819, a time when everyone appeared under the guise of friendship, and showed themselves to be truly generous; my hopes were in vain, and since then you and your associates have tormented me more than ever. 

Please tell me, Sir, to which of your colleagues can I address myself to obtain the relief I very much deserve, after twenty-three years of waiting. Such courage and patience on my part would merit at least some lessening of my troubles.  Where does this stubbornness come from, in not responding to my letters, so that I must  constantly ask for an answer, without you deigning to do what honesty requires, since every letter deserves an answer?

Please then, I beg you, I repeat it again, come to me see, or write to me; write me as much as you would like, I would not regret the delivery of your letters; my desire to receive some word from you must show you, to the contrary, how much pleasure it would give me.

I have had the honor of addressing this same letter to Dr. Pinel.

I have the honor of greeting you,

M.B.

[1] This seems to be around the time M.B. acquired and read the Dictionairre Infernal, as he suddenly goes wild with demonic name-dropping…

[2] This is a somewhat reduced version of the infernal hierarchy of de Plancy’s Dictionairre Infernal. M.B. takes a great deal of pride here in having copied an encyclopedia entry…