Vampires by Charlotte Montague Read Free Book Online Page A

Philosophical Dictionary , published in 1764, he employed his sharp wit to poke fun at the idea:
    These vampires were corpses, who went out of their graves at night to suck the blood of the living, either at their throats or stomachs, after which they returned to their cemeteries. The persons so sucked waned, grew pale, and fell into consumption; while the sucking corpses grew fat, got rosy, and enjoyed an excellent appetite. It was in Poland, Hungary, Silesia, Moravia, Austria, and Lorraine, that the dead made this good cheer.

     
‘A barbarism of ignorance’
     
    Despite Voltaire’s mocking review, Calmet’s treatise had such influence that the Empress Maria of Austria finally sent her personal physician, Gerard van Swieten, to investigate the claims of vampirism in her territories. Like Voltaire, van Swieten was sceptical about the existence of vampires, but nonetheless he wrote a serious report about the allegations, entitled, A Discourse on the Existence of Ghosts . In this essay, published in 1768, he explained how the body decomposed, and how blood and gases might account for the ruddy complexion and swollen appearance of recently buried corpses. In conclusion he called the vampire myth ‘a barbarism of ignorance’, and said, ‘…all the fuss is nothing but a vain fear, a superstitious credulity, a dark and eventful imagination, simplicity and ignorance among the people.’ As a result of van Swieten’s findings, the Empress issued an edict forbidding people to exhume, mutilate, and burn buried corpses.

     
The aristocratic vampire
     
    After this, the exhumations of corpses and persecution of living people with abnormalities of any kind thankfully died down. However, stories of vampires continued to thrill audiences, and were taken up in popular literature of all kinds. In the early nineteenth century, a suave and sophisticated vampire made its first appearance in John Polidori’s The Vampyre , published in 1819. (For more information on this, and other literary vampires, see Chapter 5). In appearance, Polidori’s vampire was a complete contrast to his forebears; instead of being ‘fat and rosy’, he was pale, thin, and good-looking. Polidori describes him thus:
     
    ‘It happened that in the midst of the dissipations attendant upon London winter, there appeared at the various parties of the leaders of the ton a nobleman more remarkable for his singularities, than his rank. He gazed upon the mirth around him, as if he could not participate therein … those who felt this sensation of awe, could not explain whence it arose: some attributed it to the dead grey eye, which, fixing upon the object’s face, did not seem to penetrate, and at one glance to pierce through to the inward workings of the heart …’
     
    Despite, or perhaps because of his deathly, soul-searching gaze, this intriguing stranger was extremely attractive to the female sex.

     
A ‘Winning tongue’
     
    ‘His peculiarities caused him to be invited to every house; all wished to see him, and those who had been accustomed to violent excitement, and now felt the weight of ennui, were pleased at having something in their presence capable of engaging their attention. In spite of the deadly hue of his face, which never gained a warmer tint, either from the blush of modesty, or from the strong emotion of passion, though its form and outline were beautiful, many of the female hunters after notoriety attempted to win his attentions, and gain, at least, some marks of what they might term affection.’
    Polidori’s vampire was not only physically alluring, he also had a ‘winning tongue’, and his ‘apparent hatred of vice’ – he routinely ignored all the women who threw themselves at him – made him even more fascinating.
    In creating his aristocratic vampire, Polidori set a template for virtually all the vampire figures that followed. Bram Stoker, author of the seminal Dracula , which was published in 1897, drew heavily on his idea