Clairvoyance, as far as it implies the seeing of persons or the witnessing of events at a great distance, is counted among the most frequent gifts of early saints, and St. Augustine mentions a number of remarkable cases. Not only absent friends and their fate were thus beheld by privileged Christians, but even the souls of departing saints were seen as they were borne to heaven by angelic hosts. The same exceptional gifts were apparently granted to the early Jesuit fathers; thus Xavier once saw distinctly a whole naval expedition sailing against the pirates of Malacca and defeating them in a great naval battle. He had himself caused the fleet to be sent from Sumatra, and remained during the whole time in a trance. He had fallen down unconscious at the foot of the altar, where he had been fervently praying for a long time, and during his unconsciousness he saw not only a general image of what was occurring at a distance of 200 Portuguese leagues, but every detail, so that upon recovering from the trance he could announce to his brethren the good news of a great victory, of the loss of only three lives, and of the very day and hour on which the official report would be received (Orlandini, l. vii. ch. 84). Queen Margaret, not always reliable, still seems to state well-known facts only, when she tells us in her famous _Mémoires_ (Paris, 1658) the visions of her mother, the great Queen Catherine de Medici. The latter was lying dangerously ill at Metz, and King Charles, a sister, and another brother of Margaret of Valois, the Duke of Lorraine, and a number of eminent persons of both sexes, were assembled around what was believed to be her death-bed. She was delirious, and suddenly cried out: "Just see how they run! my son is victorious. Great God! raise him up, he has fallen! Do you see the Prince of Condé there? He is dead." Everybody thought she was delirious, but on the next evening a messenger came bringing the news of the battle of Jarnac, and as he mentioned the main events, she calmly turned to her children, saying: "Ah! I knew; I saw it all yesterday!" It seems as if in times of great and general expectation, when bloody battles are fought, and the destiny of empires hangs in the scales, the minds of the masses become so painfully excited that the most sensitive among them fall into a kind of trance, and then perceive, by magic powers of divination, what is taking place at great distances. This over-excitement is, moreover, not unknown to men of the highest character and the greatest erudition. Calvin, whose stern, clear-sighted judgment abhorred all superstition, nevertheless once saw a battle between Catholics and Protestants with all its details. Swedenborg, whose religious enthusiasm never interfered with his scrupulous candor, saw more than once with his mind's eye events occurring at a distance of hundreds of miles. His vision of the great fire at Stockholm is too well authenticated to admit of doubt.