discovered? Were these excellent persons superior
to the common weaknesses of humanity—
curiosity, and the lust of gain? The witness
Paret certainly saw the discovery of a parcel;
but the rest of her evidence was hearsay. The
witness Deleuil saw the exchange of bags and
paper; but all the rest—spectre included—was
hearsay. And when the witness Fournière
declared that Auguier, being taxed with robbery,
turned deadly pale, Auguier frankly—nay,
proudly—confessed it, stricken as that honourable
burgher was with horror at a charge so foul
and unexpected! The climax of injustice was
surely reached when this respected, estimable,
substantial merchant of France's proudest sea-mart,
was, on the uncorroborated word of a ghost
(for to this it must be traced), submitted to the
torture. In criminal, even more than in civil,
cases, that which seems repugnant to probability
is reputed false. Let a hundred witnesses testify
to that which is contrary to nature and the
light of reason, their evidence is worthless and
vain. Take, as example, the famous tradition
which gives an additional interest to the noble
house of Lusignan, and say that certain persons
swore that the fairy Melusina, who had the tail
of a serpent, and bathed every Saturday in a
marble cellar, had revealed a treasure to some
weak idiot, who was immediately robbed of it
by another. What would be thought of a
judge who should, on such testimony, condemn
the accused? Is it on such a fairy fable that
Auguier, the just, the respected family-father,
the loyal patriot, must be adjudged guilty?
Never! Such justice might be found at Cathay,
might prevail among the yet undiscovered
islands of the Eastern Archipelago, but in
France—no. There remained, in short, but one
manifest duty to the court, namely, to acquit,
with all honour, this much-abused man, and to
render him such noble compensation as the
injuries he had suffered deserved.

It was now, however, the phantom's innings.
Turning on the court the night side of nature,
the spectre's advocate pointed out that the gist
of Auguier's defence consisted of a narrow and
senseless satire upon supernatural visitations,
involving a most unauthorised assumption that
such things did never occur. Was it intended
to contradict Holy Writ? To deny a truth
attested by Scripture, by the Fathers of the
Church, by very wide experience and testimony,
finally, by the Faculty of Theology of Paris?
The speaker here adduced the appearance of
the prophet Samuel at Endor (of which Le
Brun remarked that it was, past question, a
work commenced by the power of evil, but
taken from his hand and completed by a
stronger than he); that of the bodies of buried
saints after our Lord's resurrection; and that of
Saint Felix, who, according to Saint Augustine,
appeared to the besieged inhabitants of Nola.
But, say that any doubts could rationally exist,
were they not completely set at rest by a recent
decision of the Faculty of Theology? "Desiring,"
says this enlightened decree, "to satisfy
pious scruples, we have, after a very careful
consideration of the subject, resolved that the
spirits of the departed may and do, by
super-natural power and divine license, reappear unto
the living," And this opinion was in conformity
with that pronounced at Sorbonne two centuries
before.

However, it was not dogmatically affirmed
that the spirit which had evinced this interest
in Mirabel was the ghost of any departed
person. It might have been a spirit, whether
good or evil, of another kind. That such a spirit
can assume the human form few will deny, when
they recal that the apostles held that belief,
mistaking their Lord, walking on the waves of
Galilee, for such an one. The weight of
probability, nevertheless, inclines to the side of this
singular apparition being, as was first suggested,
the spirit of one deceased—perhaps, a remote
ancestor of Mirabel—perhaps, one who, in this
life, sympathised with honest endeavour, and
sought to endow the struggling toiling peasant
with the means of rest and ease. And, with regard
to this reappearance, a striking modern instance
seemed pertinent to the question at issue. The
Marquis de Rambouillet and the Sieur de
Prècy, aged respectively twenty-five and thirty,
were intimate friends. Speaking one day of the
prospect of a future state of being, their conversation
ended with a mutual compact that the first
who died should reveal himself to the survivor.
Three months afterwards the marquis went to
the war in Flanders, while De Prècy, sick with
fever, remained in Paris. One night, the latter,
while in bed, heard the curtains move, and,
turning, recognised his friend, in buff-coat and
riding-boots, standing by the bed. Starting up,
he attempted to embrace the visitor, but the
latter, evading him, drew apart, and, in a
solemn tone, informed him that such greetings
were no longer fitting, that he had been slain
the previous night in a skirmish, that he had
come to redeem his promise, and to announce
to his friend that all that had been spoken of a
world to come was most certainly true, and that
it behoved him (De Prècy) to amend his life
without delay, as he would himself be slain
within a very brief period. Finding his hearer
still incredulous, the marquis exhibited a deadly
wound below the breast, and immediately
disappeared. The arrival of a post from
Flanders confirmed the vision. The marquis
had been slain in the manner mentioned. De
Prècy himself fell in the civil war, then
impending.

(The speaker here cited a number of kindred
examples belonging to the period, such as, in
later days, have found parallels in the well-known
stories of Lord Tyrone and Lady Betty Cobb,
Lord Lyttelton and M. P. Andrews, Prince
Dolgorouki and Apraxin, the ex-queen of Etruria
and Chipanti, with a long list of similar cases,
and then addressed himself to the terrestrial
facts.)

It was proved by Magdalene Paret that the
treasure was actually found. By the witness,
Deleuil, it was traced into the possession of
Auguier. By other witnesses, it was shown