345. “Again we inquire of all serious minds, What is the faculty by which we predict, among other coming events, the turning of tables, which, nevertheless, do not turn till after the arrival of a _vessel_ and a medium? However, silence becoming impossible, the French press has thought proper to speak. On the 4th of May, the Journal of the Empire, _Le Pays_, happened to inform us that ‘from the Baltic to the banks of the Danube, all Germany was in a fever.’ It became then plainer and plainer that we were going to be infected, and from that time we hastened to prepare our batteries. 346. “It was high time, for about the end of April, the grand mysterious army had this time decidedly crossed the Rhine, and in all the large cities of France—Strasbourg, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Toulouse, &c.—the _turning_ epidemic broke out like a discharge of musketry; and better to impress the mind, it only at first attacked stands, tables, hats, seats, &c., for all these participated in the demonstration. 347. “At Paris especially, in repeating the experiments, they were made a pastime for a soirée. Children were introduced into the circles, without considering whether correlative evil might not be coupled with these mysterious amusements. 348. “It is true they would not allow the smallest Leyden jar to come near them; but what troubles might have resulted from the action of an electricity that could raise tables of eighteen dishes like a feather? 349. “It is true, too, that M. Rouilly, _maître de pension_ at Orleans, undertook to give an answer. In the _Moniteur due Loiret_, he informs us that ‘at his house, even in the middle of the process, a large young man of twenty-six was seized with a violent trembling in all his limbs, and that his left forearm began suddenly to oscillate in a frightful manner, making as many as a thousand movements in a minute; being able, he said, to utter only broken syllables; staggered like an intoxicated man; it was necessary to carry him to bed, and the next day he still felt some nervous trembling.’ M. Rouilly ended in saying ‘that he felt it his duty to report this fact for the benefit of those who may enter into these experiments without knowing their possible serious inconveniences.’ Little attention was paid to this, so much had fashion asserted empire, so much was this pleasure worth its cost.