Pierre-Michel-Eugène Vintras, known as Pierre-Michel-Élie,born in Bayeux on April 7, 1807 and died in Lyon on December 7, 1875, is a cardboard worker from Tilly-sur-Seulles,who claimed to be the reincarnation of the prophet Elijah and was the creator of a sect.

Biography[modifying | change the code]

The scammer[change | change the code]

He was the illegitimate child of Marie Vintras, who raised him until he was about ten years old, before placing him in the general hospital of the found children of the town of Bayeux. After leaving Bayeux and working for three months in Trévières as a tailoring labourer, he married a laundress named Vimard. He was then a peddler, but was unable to live on it. In January 1833 he was sentenced to 15 days in prison by the Bayeux Correctional Court for attempting to escape the effects of a seizure of his property requested by one of his creditors.

Upon his release from prison, he opened a café in Bayeux, rue des Cuisiniers, where, it seems, he was also a pimp. He then left Bayeux for Paris, with plans to join the police force. He is housed there by a saddler, Le Masson, whom he had known in prison. Vintras, however, left the premises without warning, taking money stolen from Le Masson, which he eventually returned to the intervention of his host’s wife.

Back in Caen,he worked for a wine merchant named Guilbert to pay off a debt. However, he is kicked out after Guilbert discovers that Vintras is stealing him. Employed as a servant in a hotel, he is again dismissed for theft. He was then a servant in the service of an Englishman in Lion-sur-Mer.

He then teamed up with a former notary named Geoffroy, who was convicted in 1824 or 1825 of breach of trust. In this context, he became director of a paper mill in Tilly-sur-Seullesin 1839; but the installation, dilapidated, needs urgent repairs that are not done, and the business is not lucrative.

The Prophet[modifying | change the code]

Vintras declared in November 1839 that St. Joseph had appeared to him in the church of Tilly. The saint would have asked him to take note of the statements he had made to her. Shortly afterwards, Geoffroy announces that he was visited by St. Michael in the person of an old beggar. Later, Vintras said he frequently visited himself, in Tilly, Caen, in St. Peter’s Church and in many other places by St. Joseph,who would put him in contact with the Virgin Mary,Jesus and the archangel St. Michael. Geoffroy, who now calls himself “Brother John”, hired a former client, Baron de Razac, for whom he had bought the land and the Château de Fosse near Saint-Sylvain, to follow them. Some local priests join Vintras, who also find other supporters and defenders further afield.

These revelations and interviews with St. Joseph de Vintras, however, bear uncanny similarities to texts by various ecclesiastical authors, such as Massillon.

The “Work of Mercy”[modifying | change the code]

The doctrine of Vintras affirms that God first ruled the world, it is mosaicism; then came God the son, it is Christianity; the time of the reign of the Holy Spirit,known as the “freedom of the children of God,” now upon arrival, Vintras is the messiah and the prophet.

In this reign of the Holy Ghost,placed under the sign of liberation, the movements of concupiscence are neither good nor bad, and one can therefore surrender to it without crime, a freedom which Vintras uses widely. The sect, which gives itself the “Work of Mercy,” is organized in “seventys,” centers of action composed of seven people each, corresponding with each other, and working together to propagate the new doctrine. All the followers have angel names, with the Hebrew ending in “aêl,” revealed by St. Joseph, which also indicates the names of those who died in grace, as well as the order in which they are placed in the other world: “legions, thrones, dominations,” etc.

The “Sacred Seventy,” which outs his premium to all others and was headquartered in Tilly-sur-Seulles, has a larger number of members. Its purpose is to maintain unity of action and to prevent any schism in the work, it has the effect of infallibility; her decisions become acts of faith and she controls the actions of the other sevens. Despite the proclamation by these groups of their membership in the Catholic Church, the Holy See and the bishops condemn this doctrine.

The Baron of Razac joined this sect and his castle, called the “Tent”, became its spiritual center. The sect, then has nearly two thousand followers in the cities of Rouen, Le Mans, Paris, Angers, Tours, Cahors and Albi. A cleric from Savoy became the logographer of the sect. In 1841, he published anonymously at Locquin the first publication of “Children of the Work”, theOpuscule on communications announcing the Work of Mercy. From that moment on, the sect published several collectively written pamphlets, and at the end of 1842 a periodical called the Voice of the Seventy,of which forty-eight deliveries appeared until 1846. Most of the sect’s writings emanate from the pen of Charvoz, who had published in 1846, under the pseudonym of Father La Paraz, the Prisons of a current prophet pursued by all powers.

From 1841, Vintras says he obtained, during ceremonies, mysterious bloody hosts, some of which are passed on to the occultist Joanny Bricaud. Another occultist, Éliphas Lévi visits Vintras. Stanislas de Guaita devotes a long study to him which concludes with: “Bloody hosts are true, but they are demonic!”

The following year, Vintras, accused of fraud, was imprisoned for six years.

He resumed his preaching in 1848, was then exiled by the Second Empire and did not return to France until 1862. When he died in 1875,Father Boullan tried unsuccessfully to succeed him as head of the sect.

Posterity[modifying | change the code]

Maurice Barrès, in his novel The Inspired Hill, describes at length the influence that Vintras, portrayed as a mystifier, exerted notably on the three Baillard brothers,non-fictional clergymen, responsible for the Lorraine shrine of Our Lady of Zion¹. Huysmans mentioned it in There in 1891. Father Bouix stigmatized their mummies and juggling in the quill chapters of M.’s pamphlet, entitled Costumes, emblems, amulets (ch. IV); Pierre-Michel’s work and operations; Oracle in default (ch. V); The House of Miracles (Ch. VI); History of bloodied hosts (ch. IX).

Sources[modifying | change the code]

• Auguste François Lecanu, Dictionary of Prophecies and Miracles, Vol. 2, Paris, J.-P. Migne, 1855, 1284 pp.
• Joseph-Marie Quérard, The Literary Supercheries Unveiled: gallery of apocryphal, supposed, disguised, plagiarist and unfaithful publishers of French literature during the last four centuries: Together literary industrialists and scholars who have been annoyed in our time, vol. 3, Paris, The Publisher, 1850, 614 p.

Bibliography[modify | change the code]

• Jean-Pierre Duval, “Sthrathanael, the prophet of Tilly-sur-Seulles,” Norman Heritage No. 29, October-November 1999 (read online [ archive])
• Agnel-Billoud, Eugene Vintras: a case of mystical and political delirium in the 19th century, Paris, Literary and Medical Bookstore, 1919, 46 p. Rare
• Maurice Garçon, Vintras, heresiac and prophet, Paris, Émile Nourry, 1928, 191 pp.
• Gaston Méry, La Voyante and the apparitions of Tilly-sur-Seulles: Eugene Vintras, Paris, Édouard Dentu, 1896.
• “Eugene Vintras,” Response from P.-M.-E. Vintras to Abbot Caillau, Paris, Ledoyen, 1849.
• “Eugene Vintras”, The Golden Book, revelations of the Archangel St-Michel from August 6, 1839-June 10, 1840, Paris, Ledoyen, 1849.
• Eugene Vintras, The Eternal Gospel demonstrating the Creation of Heaven and the pre-existence of man. The origin and reason of all cults. 2 flight, London, Trabner and Co ,1857.
• H. Grange, The Prophet of Tilly: P.M.E., Eugene Vintras, Paris, Free Society of Publishing People of Letters, 1897.

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