Everybody tried to show her that her vision was unreal and that she ought to pay no attention to it. It was of no use. The poor child was inconsolable; she spent the night in tears and wanted to go into mourning the next day, as though quite convinced of the affliction which had been revealed to her. Two days after news came of the bloody battle of Leipzig. Julius wrote to his _fiancée_ a letter dated at three o'clock p.m. on the 13th. He had not been wounded, but had distinguished himself, and was just going into Leipzig, where he expected to pass the night in the general's quarters, which were, of course, out of the range of danger. This reassuring letter did not calm Wilhelmina, who noticed that it had been written at three o'clock, and persisted in believing that her beloved had died at five o'clock. The unhappy girl was not mistaken. It was known that Julius had been sent out of Leipzig with a despatch at half-past four, and that three-quarters of a league from the town, beyond the Elster, a straggler from the enemy's army, concealed in a trench, had fired and killed him. The bullet pierced his heart and broke the portrait of Wilhelmina. "And what became of the poor girl?" I asked Madam de Strahlenheim. "Oh! she has been very ill. She is married now to a gentleman who is a barrister in Werner, and, if you went to Dessau, she would show you Julius's portrait." "All that was done by the interposition of the devil," the Abbé broke in, for he had only been half asleep during Madam de Strahlenheim's story. "He who could make the heathen oracles speak could easily make the eyes of a portrait move if he thought fit. Not twenty years ago an Englishman was strangled by a statue at Tivoli." "By a statue!" I exclaimed. "How did that come about?" "He was a wealthy man who had been making excavations at Tivoli, and had discovered a statue of the Empress Agrippina Messalina ... it matters little which. Whoever it was he had it taken to his house, and by dint of gazing at it and admiring it he became crazy. All Protestants are more than half mad. He called it his wife, his lady, and kissed it, marble as it was. He said that the statue came to life every evening for his benefit. So true was this that one morning they found milord stone dead in his bed. Well, would you believe it?--there was another Englishman quite ready to purchase the statue. Now I would have had it made into lime." When once stories of the supernatural are let loose there is no stopping them. Everybody contributed his share, and I too took part in this collection of fearful tales; to such purpose that when we broke up we were all pretty well scared and full of respect for the devil's power.