ll add some
very natural reflections. If the souls which are in purgatory could
return hither to ask for prayers to pass into the abode of glory,
there would be no one who would not receive similar entreaties from
his relations and friends, since all the spirits being disposed to do
the same thing, apparently, God would grant them all the same
permission. Besides, if they possessed this liberty, no sensible
person could understand why they should accompany their appearance
with all the follies so circumstantially related in those stories, as
rolling up a bed, opening the curtains, pulling off a blanket,
overturning the furniture, and making a frightful noise. In short, if
there were any reality in these apparitions, it is morally impossible
that in so many ages _one_ would not have been found so well
authenticated that it could not be doubted.

"After having sufficiently proved that all the apparitions which
cannot be ascribed to angels or to the souls of the blessed are
produced only by one of the three following causes--the extreme
subtility of the senses; the derangement of the organs, as in madness
and high fever; and the power of imagination--let us see what we must
think of the circumstance which occurred at St. Maur.

"Although you have already seen the account that has been given of it,
I believe, sir, that you will not be displeased if I here give you the
detail of the more particular circumstances. I shall endeavor to omit
nothing that has been done to confirm the truth of the circumstance,
and I shall even make use of the exact words of the author, as much as
I can, that I may not be accused of detracting from the adventure.

"Monsieur de S----, to whom it happened, is a young man, short in
stature, well made for his height, between four and five-and-twenty
years of age. Being in bed, he heard several loud knocks at his door
without the maid servant, who ran thither directly, finding any one;
and then the curtains of his bed were drawn, although there was only
himself in the room. The 22d of last March, being, about eleven
o'clock at night, busy looking over some lists of works in his study,
with three lads who are his domestics, they all heard distinctly a
rustling of the papers on the table; the cat was suspected of this
performance, but M. de S. having taken a light and looked diligently
about, found nothing.

"A little after this he went to bed, and sent to bed also those who
had been with him in his