The Devil in Love

That dealing with devils and occultism is never a good idea, the best example was the French writer Jacques Cazotte, an unusual character for his time, probably the first science fiction writer in the world (he wrote about submarines sailing through the Mediterranean) and one of the early romantics, one could say something like a typical Trendsetter person of his time. His most famous novel was the romantic adventure `Le Diable Amoreux` (The Devil in Love) where the main character fell in love with a woman who was actually Lucifer...

As an original person, he was often invited to the parties of the aristocracy of the time, and one day in 1788 he was invited to the very cream of the French society of the time, including the king and queen (the one with the cakes). Since rumors often appeared that Cazotte had the ability to see the future, those present joked and told jokes about him, which after a while angered Jacques. And then he asked to address the audience with a few predictions...

First he announced that very soon (he did not specify an exact date) major riots, unprecedented in France, would begin. The audience was not impressed, as there had always been riots and rebellions...but then Cazotte announced that the king and queen would end up beheaded!

A tense and uncomfortable silence ensued, the classic conversational `bomb`, to put it into perspective, the same effect would have if a guy came to a big party, took off his clothes and shitted in the middle of the room/podium/bar/whatever. But that was just the beginning, as his fellow writer Nicolas Chamfort tried to downplay the impact of Jacques' statement...only to provoke him even more, with Jacques telling him that in a few years Chamfort would die in agony after 22 failed suicide attempts

That already seemed excessive, come on, the king and queen, but 22 suicide attempts!?

Next was the Marquis Condorcet, for whom the prediction was the same - that he would die by his own hand, but less dramatically (by poisoning) and shortly before he was to be tried...Finally, a certain Jean-François Delarpe, a hardened skeptic and atheist, joined the conversation, who tried to ridicule Cazotte, but in vain, and the final prediction followed - that Delarpe would become a fanatical Christian... Obviously upset and before answering the questions about his own future, Jacques Cazotte left the party.

No one knows whether the present cadres took it seriously, as they continued to joke about it after Cazotte's departure...but later in their lives, that evening must have come back to them vividly, purely to torment them in the last days of their stay in this world. The French Revolution began a year after the aforementioned party, just as Jacques had predicted. The king and queen ended up beheaded, Chamfort in an attempt to avoid arrest attempted suicide but discovered that the blade of the knife was quite dull and needed 22 cuts around the veins to finally 'succeed' (he died of blood loss a few days later), the Marquis Condorcet became a prominent figure in the revolution but after voting against the death penalty for the king - he fell out of favor with the Jacobins and was arrested and in the spirit of the situation, knowing that the guillotine was working 24/7 - in a fit of paranoia he poisoned himself to avoid trial.

Delarpe also participated in the revolution and witnessed the Reign of Terror and all the "beauty" that happened, only to repent a few years later and become a fanatical Christian. Jacques Cazotte did not mention his own future for a reason, because he himself ended up on the guillotine in the whirlwind of the revolution, leaving this sad reality before all his predictions came true.

(Roger Mortis, 064)