The measure of her physical suffering was full; but the measure of her mental anguish was not yet complete. On the 8th of September, 1867, she was visited by a severe spiritual trouble. She seemed to be struggling with some power of hell. She became sad, and as if forsaken by God, to such an extent that until September 17th, and for weeks after, consciousness seems to have entirely left her. In this spiritual conflict she saw troops of demons, which surrounded, attacked her, and threatened to carry her off to judgment. She saw and heard the fiends blaspheming all things holy, and trying to bear even the most righteous away to the abyss. {39} She heard the devils scoff at her, and boast that they had the pope in their power; that they had desecrated churches and convents, and made wickedness thrive in the land. These temptations and obsessions lasted from the middle of September to the middle of October, when peace again returned to her soul. From the 23d of October she was able to receive the blessed sacrament regularly; the struggle was over; she had conquered, and was now at rest. When she was afterward interrogated regarding these obsessions, she said that, on the night of the 7th of September, as she was praying for the pope and the emperor, the attack began. It was precisely at this time that the invasion of the pope's temporal possessions by the Garibaldians, sanctioned by the Sardinian government, took place. The French expedition was sent to the pope's relief toward the middle of October, just when Maria's soul obtained rest from demoniacal aggressions; so that her personal affliction seems to have been a participation in the sufferings of the church. But the light of her life was flickering in the socket. She had a presentiment of her death before it took place, and prophesied often that she would never pass the winter on earth. Toward All Saints' day her weakness became greater, and everything foretold her dissolution. She could no longer bear nourishment. Lemonade or water, with the essence of quinces, was almost her only nourishment for some weeks before her death. When she felt better on certain days, she ate fruit, bread, or porridge, but never meat or meat soup. She sometimes spent several days without eating or drinking. In the last week, especially from Wednesday< she suffered great torture. But she was full of resignation; indifferent to life or death, she never repined or murmured. She was patient and full of calm resignation and infantile love. On the feast of the Epiphany, five days before her death, she showed herself in her usual way to the pilgrims; there was a mission at Kaltern, and the missionaries visited her on that festival, to bid her farewell. She received them with bland hospitality, and offered them grapes to eat.