Note 1375 — Chapter XVIII · REPRESSIVE SECULAR LEGISLATION.

When, in 1692, Jacques Aymar attracted public attention to the miracles of the diving-rod, he was called to Lyons to assist the police in discovering the perpetrators of a mysterious murder, which had completely baffled the agents of justice. Aided by his rod, he traced the criminals, by land and water, from Lyons to Beaucaire, where he found in prison a man whom he declared to be a participant, and who finally confessed the crime. In 1703 Marshal Montrevel and the intendant Baville made use of Aymar to discover Calvinists, of whom numbers were condemned on the strength of his revelations (Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 33). Aymar was at length proved to be merely a clever charlatan, but the mania to which he gave rise lasted through the eighteenth century, and nearly at its close his wonders were rivalled by a brother sharper, Campetti. The belief in the powers of the divining-rod has not yet died out, and it is frequently used to discover oil wells, springs, mines, etc.

A good account of Aymar’s career and the discussion to which it gave rise may be found in Prof. Rubio y Diaz’s “Estudios sobre la Evocacion de los Espiritus,” Cadiz, 1860, pp. 116-28.