Letters on Natural Magic; Addressed to Sir Walter Scott, Bart.Brewster, David
History
Letters on Natural Magic; Addressed to Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
Brewster, David
Scientific recreations
M. St. Gille, a grocer of St. Germain-en-Laye, whose performances have
been recorded by the Abbé de la Chapelle, had occasion to shelter
himself from a storm in a neighbouring convent, where the monks were
in deep mourning for a much-esteemed member of their community who had
been recently buried. While lamenting over the tomb of their deceased
brother the slight honours which had been paid to his memory, a voice
was suddenly heard to issue from the roof of the choir bewailing the
condition of the deceased in purgatory, and reproving the brotherhood
for their want of zeal. The tidings of this supernatural event brought
the whole brotherhood to the church. The voice from above repeated its
lamentations and reproaches, and the whole convent fell upon their
faces, and vowed to make a reparation of their error. They accordingly
chanted in full choir a _De Profundis_, during the intervals of
which the spirit of the departed monk expressed his satisfaction at
their pious exercises. The prior afterwards inveighed against modern
scepticism on the subject of apparitions, and M. St. Gille had great
difficulty in convincing the fraternity that the whole was a deception.
On another occasion, a commission of the Royal Academy of Sciences
at Paris, attended by several persons of the highest rank, met at St.
Germain-en-Laye to witness the performances of M. St. Gille. The real
object of their meeting was purposely withheld from a lady of the
party, who was informed that an aërial spirit had lately established
itself in the neighbourhood, and that the object of the assembly was
to investigate the matter. When the party had sat down to dinner in
the open air, the spirit addressed the lady in a voice which seemed to
come from above their heads, from the surface of the ground at a great
distance, or from a considerable depth under her feet. Having been thus
addressed at intervals during two hours, the lady was firmly convinced
of the existence of the spirit, and could with difficulty be undeceived.
Another ventriloquist, Louis Brabant, who had been valet-de-chambre
to Francis I., turned his powers to a more profitable account. Having
fallen in love with a rich and beautiful heiress, he was rejected by
her parents as an unsuitable match for their daughter. On the death
of her father, Louis paid a visit to the widow, and he had no sooner
entered the house than she heard the voice of her deceased husband
addressing her from above, “Give my daughter in marriage to Louis
Brabant, who is a man of large fortune and excellent character. I
endure the inexpressible torments of purgatory for having refused her
to him. Obey this admonition, and give everlasting repose to the soul
of your poor husband.” This awful command could not be resisted, and
the widow announced her compliance with it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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