"Here," says the Abbe, "is an example, all the more worthy of attention, inasmuch as persons of every station and condition, ecclesiastics, magistrates, ladies of rank, were among the spectators. Jeanne Moler, a young girl of twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, standing up with her back resting against a stone wall, an extremely robust man took an andiron,[18] weighing, as was said, from twenty-five to thirty pounds, and therewith gave her, with his whole force, numerous blows on the stomach. They counted upwards of a hundred at a time. One day a certain friar, after having given her sixty such blows, tried the same weapon against a wall; and it is said that at the twenty-fifth blow he broke an opening through it."[19] Dom La Taste, the great opponent of Jansenism, alluding to the same circumstance, says, "I do not dispute the fact, that the andiron sunk so deeply that it appeared to penetrate to the very backbone."[20] Montgeron, after quoting the above, adds his own testimony, as to this same occurrence, in these words:-- "As I am not ashamed to confess that I am one of those who have followed up most closely the work of the convulsions, I freely admit that I am the person to whom the author alludes, when he speaks of a certain friar who tried against a wall the effect of blows similar to those he had given the convulsionist. As this is an occurrence personal to myself, I trust the reader will perceive the propriety of my presenting to him the narrative in a more exact and detailed form than that in which it is given by the author of the 'Vains Efforts.' "I had begun, as I usually do, by giving the convulsionist very moderate blows. But after a time, excited by her constant complaints, which left me no room to doubt that the oppression in the pit of the stomach of which she complained could be relieved only by violent blows, I gradually increased the force of mine, employing at last my whole strength; but in vain. The convulsionist continued to complain that the blows I gave her were so feeble that they procured her no relief; and she caused me to put the andiron into the hands of a large and stout man who happened to be one of the spectators. He kept within no bounds. Instructed by the trial he had seen me make that nothing could be too severe, he discharged such terrible blows, always on the pit of the stomach, as to shake the wall against which the convulsionist was leaning. "She caused him to give her one hundred such blows, not reckoning as anything the sixty I had just administered. She warmly thanked the man who had procured her such relief, and reproached me for my weakness and my lack of faith.