A case which created a very great sensation at the time when it happened, and became generally known through the admirable manner in which it was narrated by the eloquent Bernardin de St. Pierre (_Journal de Trévoux_, vol. viii.), was that of the priest Bezuel. When a young man of 15, and at college, he contracted an intimate friendship with the son of a royal official, called Desfontaines. The two friends often spoke of future life, and when parted in 1696, they signed with their blood a solemn compact, in which they agreed that the first who died should appear after death to the survivor. They wrote to each other constantly, and frequently alluded in their letters to the agreement. A year after their parting, Bezuel happened to be, one day, in the fields, delivering a message to some workmen, when he suddenly fell down fainting. As he was in perfect health, he knew not what to think of this accident, but when it occurred a second and a third time, at the same hour, on the two following days, he became seriously uneasy. On the last occasion, however, he fell into a trance, in which he saw nothing around him, but beheld his friend Desfontaines, who seized him by the arm and led him some thirty yards aside. The workmen saw him go there, as if obeying a guardian hand, and converse with an unseen person for three quarters of an hour. The young man heard here from his friend's lips, that he had been drowned while bathing in the river Orne on the day and at the hour when Bezuel had had his first fainting fit, that a companion had endeavored to save him, but when seized by the foot by the drowning man, had kicked him on the chest, and thus caused him to sink to the bottom. Bezuel inquired after all the details and received full answers, but none to questions about the future life; nevertheless, the apparition continued to speak fluently but calmly, and requested Bezuel to make certain communications to his kinsmen, and to repeat the "seven penitential psalms," which he ought to have said himself as a penance. It also mentioned the work in which Desfontaines had been engaged up to the day of his death, and some names which he had cut in the bark of a tree near the town in which he lived. Then it disappeared. Bezuel was not able to carry out his friend's wishes, although the arm by which he had been seized, reminded him daily of his duty by a severe pain; after a month, the drowned man appeared twice more, urging his requests, and saying each time at the end of the interview, "_bis, bis_," just as he had been accustomed to do when in life. At last the young priest found the means to do his friend's bidding; the pain in the arm ceased instantly and his health remained perfect to the end of his life. When he reached Caen where Desfontaines had perished, he found everything precisely as he had been told in his visions, and two years afterwards he discovered by chance even the tree with the names cut in the bark. The amiable Abbé de St.