At ten o'clock in the evening, the captain repaired to his soldier's lodging, and having laid his pistols ready primed upon the table, he lay down in his clothes, his sword by his side, with his soldier, in a bed without curtains. About midnight he heard something which came into the room, and in a moment turned the bed upside down, covering the captain and the soldier with the mattress and paillasse. Despilliers had great trouble to disengage himself and find again his sword and pistols, and he returned home much confounded. The horse-soldier had a new lodging the very next day, and slept quietly in the house of his new host. M. Despilliers related this adventure to any one who would listen to it. He was an intrepid man, who had never known what it was to fall back before danger. He died field-marshal of the armies of the Emperor Charles VI. and governor of the fortress of Segedin. His son has confirmed this adventure to me within a short time, as having heard it from his father. The person who writes to me adds: "I doubt not that spirits sometimes return; but I have found myself in a great many places which it was said they haunted. I have even tried several times to see them, but I have never seen any. I found myself once with more than four thousand persons, who all said they saw the spirit; I was the only one in the assembly who saw nothing." So writes me a very worthy officer, this year, 1745, in the same letter wherein he relates the affair of M. Despilliers. Footnotes: [284] St. Sulpit. Sever. Dialog. ii. c. 14, 15. [285] Bodin Demonomania, lib. ii. c. 2. [286] Guillelm. Paris, 2 Part. quaest. 2, c. 8. [287] Grot. Epist. Part. ii. Ep. 405. [288] They affirm that it happened at Dijon, in the family of the MM. Surmin, in which a constant tradition has perpetuated the memory of the circumstance. [289] Continuation of the Count de Gabalis, at the Hague, 1708, p. 55. [290] Cicero, de Divinat. lib. i. [291] John xiv. 2. CHAPTER XXXI. SPIRITS THAT KEEP WATCH OVER TREASURE.