I have not yet done with the subject of magnetism; on the contrary, I have another most extraordinary incident of this kind to relate which took place in the presence of twelve to fifteen people. What follows is a simple recital, drawn up in the form of a legal report by two of the witnesses and signed at the time by us all. During my stay at Auxerre, I was received into the house of M. D----. He had two children, a boy of six and a girl of eleven years of age. Marie was the name of the daughter, and she was a lovely child, like an angel, for her cheeks were pale and her eyes were black and almost austere. She was an exquisitely delicate creature, but, of course, she only possessed the intelligence and qualities usual to a child of her age, and I had, accordingly, paid very little attention to her, beyond remarking to my daughter that she was very pretty. And my daughter, who agreed with me, made a portrait of the child awake. One day we were dining in a room which opened out on the garden. We had reached dessert; the two children had left the table and were playing amidst the shrubs and flowers. We were discussing the everlasting question of magnetism, a subject the constant recurrence of which bored me the more because the usual doubts were expressed which I could only confront with facts; now, as these facts had nearly always taken place in a different locality from that in which the discussion was being held, I was obliged to choose from among those present a subject whom I guessed might be easily hypnotised, and, whether willing or not, to operate on this subject. Now, anyone who has ever practised the hypnotic art knows that the exercise is as fatiguing to the hypnotiser as to the hypnotised. I related several of the incidents I have just recorded in the preceding chapter, but they were received with the utmost incredulity. "I should not believe in mesmerism," Madame D---- said to me, "unless, for instance (and she tried to think of the most unlikely subject she could find),--unless you could send my daughter Marie into a trance." "Call Mademoiselle Marie and let her sit down to her usual place at the table; give her a biscuit and some fruit, and while she is eating I will try and put her into a trance." "There is no danger, is there?" "Of what?" "It will not injure my daughter's health?" "Not in the least." "Marie!" They called the child, and she ran up; they put some greengages and a biscuit on her plate and told her to eat them, where she was. Her seat was near me, on my left. While everyone continued talking, as though nothing were going on, I stretched out my hand behind the child's head and was the only one to keep silence, my will being concentrated on making the child go to sleep. In half a minute, she had stopped every movement, and seemed absorbed in the contemplation of a greengage which she was just going to put into her mouth. "What is the matter, Marie?" asked her mother. The child did not reply: she was asleep.