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Two months later I saw Guy de Maupassant in
the garden of Maison Blanche in Passy, the well
known asylum. He was walking about on the
arm of his faithful François, throwing small
pebbles on the flower beds with the geste of
Millais’ Semeur. “Look, look,” he said, “they
will all come up as little Maupassants in the
spring if only it will rain.”
* * *
To me who for years had been devoting my
spare time to study hypnotism these stage
performances of the Salpêtrière before the public of
Tout Paris were nothing but an absurd farce, a
hopeless muddle of truth and cheating. Some
of these subjects were no doubt real
somnambulists faithfully carrying out in a waking state
the various suggestions made to them during
sleep—post-hypnotic suggestions. Many of them
were mere frauds, knowing quite well what they
were expected to do, delighted to perform their
various tricks in public, cheating both doctors
and audience with the amazing cunning of the
hystériques. They were always ready to ‘piquer
une attaque’ of Charcot’s classical grande hystérie,
arc-en-ciel and all, or to exhibit his famous three
stages of hypnotism: lethargy, catalepsy,
somnambulism, all invented by the Master and
hardly ever observed outside the Salpêtrière.
Some of them smelt with delight a bottle of
ammonia when told it was rose water, others
would eat a piece of charcoal when presented to
them as chocolate. Another would crawl on all
fours on the floor, barking furiously, when told
she was a dog, flap her arms as if trying to fly
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