"But one then heard nothing of the divining rod, not at least in cities, in cathedrals, among the sepulchers of kings, and in the department of State. Our first wish is that the experiment may be quite successful. It would be so very surprising; quite a new sensation, much wanted in these days. But there would be something more than a passing sensation. Even a moderate success would discover to us a means of support and a mode of existence far easier and pleasanter than any yet known. We should only have to walk about, very slowly with the orthodox rod, properly held and handled, keeping our attention duly fixed on the desirableness of a little more money, and we should find it springing up, as it were, from the ground before us.... "The French Minister of Fine Arts need not be deterred,--nay, it is plain he is not deterred,--by the scruples that interrupted the investigations of the great Linné and stopped him on the very threshold of verification. On one of his travels his secretary brought him a divining wand, with an account of its powers. Linné hid a purse containing one hundred ducats under a _ranunculus_[10] in the garden. He then took a number of witnesses who experimented with the wand all over the ground, but without success. Indeed, they trod the ground so completely that Linné could not find where he had buried the purse. "They then brought in the 'man with the wand' and he immediately pointed out the right direction, and then the very spot where the money lay. Linné's remark was that another experiment would convert him to the wand. But he resolved not to be converted, and therefore did not repeat the experiment. Possibly feeling that it was neither science nor religion, he would have nothing to do with any other conceivable alternative." In _The London Times_ of November 3rd, 1882, there was published under the head of "Foreign Intelligence," the following dispatch which may be regarded as a tragic sequel of the foregoing paragraphs: "The titular Archbishop of Lepanto, who is the head of the Chapter of St. Denis, has addressed a remonstrance to the Government against the renewed divining rod experiments on which Madame Caillavah is insisting under her compact with the State for a division of the spoils. He dwells on the absurdity of the theory that on the Revolutionary seizure of 1793 the Benedictines could have concealed a portion of their treasures, of which printed lists existed and the most valuable of which were notoriously confiscated.