that Auguier had made use of many artifices to
obtain the custody of the gold, cultivating a
romantic attachment for this humble labourer,
and seeking to inspire him with fears for his
personal safety, so long as he retained
possession of so large a sum. Upon the whole,
unless it had been practicable to secure the
attendance and oral testimony of the very phantom
itself, the claim of Mirabel could hardly address
itself more forcibly to the favourable judgment
of the court.

It may be that this little deficiency in the
chain of evidence weighed more than was
expected with the parliament of Aix. At all
events, they demanded further proof; and the
peasant, Bernard, was brought forward, and
underwent a very rigid examination.

He stated that, on a certain day in May,
Mirabel informed him that a ghost had revealed
to him the existence of some secreted treasure.
That, on the following morning, they proceeded
together to the spot indicated by the apparition,
but found no money. That he laughed at
Mirabel, snapped his fingers at the story,
and went away. That he nevertheless agreed
to a further search—the witness, Magdalene
Paret, being present—but again found nothing.
That, subsequently, Mirabel declared he had
discovered eighteen pieces of gold, then twelve,
finally, thirty-five, but displayed none of them.
That Mirabel had, however, sent by him twenty
sols to a priest, to say masses for the soul of
the departed, to whom he owed so much; and
that he had spoken of handing over the treasure
to Auguier, and taking the latter's receipt,
which certainly seemed to be the same now
produced, signed "Louis Auguier."

The matter was obscure and puzzling. There
was, by this time, no question that this large
sum of money had, somehow, come into the
possession of Mirabel. He could not, by skill
or labour, have realised the hundredth part of it.
No one had been robbed, for the notoriety of the
case would at once have produced the loser. If
Mirabel had found it (and there were the
witnesses who proved the discovery many feet below
the surface, in an undisturbed corner of the
terrace), who revealed the precious deposit to
this poor simple clown? The scale was
inclining, slowly and steadily, to the spectral
side, when some new and startling evidence
appeared.

Auguier proved that subsequently to the alleged
delivery of the treasure into his hands, Mirabel
had declared that it was still concealed in the
ground, and had invited his two brothers-in-law
from Pertuis to see it. Placing them at a little
distance from the haunted spot, he made
pretence of digging, but, suddenly raising a white
shirt, which he had attached to sticks placed
crosswise, he rushed towards them, crying out,
"The ghost! the ghost!" One of these
unlucky persons died from the impressions
engendered by this piece of pleasantry. The survivor
delivered this testimony.

The case now began to look less favourable for
the spectre. It was hardly probable that Mirabel
should take so unwarrantable a liberty with an
apparition in which he believed, as to represent
him, and that for no explainable purpose, by an
old white shirt! Was it barely possible that
Mirabel was, after all, a humbug, and that the
whole story was a pure fabrication, for the
purpose of obtaining damages from the well-to-do
Auguier?

It does not appear to what astute judicial
intellect this not wholly impossible idea
presented itself. At all events, a new process was
decreed, the great object of which was to
discover, in the first instance, how and whence
came the money into Mirabel's possession?

Under the pressure of this inquiry, the
witness Paret was, at length, brought to confess:
first, that she had never actually beheld one coin
belonging to the supposed treasure: secondly,
that she did not credit one word of Mirabel's
story: thirdly, that, if she had already deposed
otherwise, it was at the earnest entreaty of
Mirabel himself.

Two experts were then examined as to the
alleged receipt. These differed in opinion as to
its being in the handwriting of Auguier; but a
third being added to the consultation, all three
finally agreed that it was a well-executed
forgery.

This, after twenty months, three processes,
and the examination of fifty-two witnesses, was
fatal to the ghost. He was put out of court.

The final decree acquitted Auguier, and
condemned Mirabel to the galleys for life, he
having been previously submitted to the question.
Under the torture, Mirabel confessed that
one Etienne Barthélemy, a declared enemy of
Auguier's, had devised the spectral fable, as a
ground for the intended accusation, and, to
substantiate the latter, had lent him (for exhibition)
the sum of twenty thousand livres. By
an after process, Barthélemy was sentenced
to the galleys for life, and the witnesses
Deleuil and Fournière to be hung up by the
armpits, in some public place, as false witnesses.

So far as records go, this singular case was
the last in which, in French law-courts, the
question of ghost, or no ghost, was made the
subject of legal argument and sworn testimony.

MR. CHARLES DICKENS'S READINGS.

MR. CHARLES DICKENS will read at Clifton on
Wednesday and Friday the 9th and 11th; at Birmingham
on Thursday the 10th; at ST. JAMES'S HALL on Monday
the 14th; at Aberdeen on Wednesday 16th; at Glasgow
on Friday 18th; on Saturday mornlng the19th;
and at St. JAMES'S HALL on Tuesday the 22nd May.