Among the small number of believers were a few physicians.
They were persecuted by their brethren as long as they lived. The
respectable body of Parisian doctors displayed all the bitterness of
religious warfare against the Mesmerists, and were as cruel in their
hatred as it was possible to be in those days of Voltairean tolerance.
The orthodox physician refused to consult with those who adopted the
Mesmerian heresy. In 1820 these heretics were still proscribed. The
miseries and sorrows of the Revolution had not quenched the scientific
hatred. It is only priests, magistrates, and physicians who can hate
in that way. The official robe is terrible! But ideas are even more
implacable than things.
Doctor Bouvard, one of Minoret's friends, believed in the new faith,
and persevered to the day of his death in studying a science to which
he sacrificed the peace of his life, for he was one of the chief
"betes noires" of the Parisian faculty. Minoret, a valiant supporter
of the Encyclopedists, and a formidable adversary of Desion, Mesmer's
assistant, whose pen had great weight in the controversy, quarreled
with his old friend, and not only that, but he persecuted him.
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