Des sorciers au mesmérisme: L'abbé Jean-Baptiste Fiard (1736-1818) et la théorie du complot

Starting in 1775 the ex Jesuit J.-B. Fiard (1736-1818) denounced in his writings the existence in France of a witches sect. At the end of the century he finds evidence backing his obsession about the conjuration of « demonolaters » in Mesmer and in the magnetic somnambulists' prodigies as well as in the vicissitudes of the French Revolution. His apparently untimely claim regarding the reality of witchcraft thus finds its place in the context of a demoniac current in the interpretation of the revolution as an antireligious conspiracy . At the same main time, it highlights the continuity between the prophetic and eschatological interpretations of history which flourished around the suppression of the Company of Jesus and in the revolutionary era.