. It may often happen that we doubt whether an effect
is natural or supernatural; but also how many effects do we see on
which no sensible and rational person can form a doubt, good sense
concurring with the soundest philosophy to teach us that certain
wonders can only happen by a secret and divine virtue? One of the most
certain proofs which can be had of this is the sudden and durable cure
of certain long and cruel maladies. I know that simple and pious
persons have sometimes attributed to a miracle cures which might very
well be looked upon as purely natural; but what can be opposed to
certain extraordinary facts which have sometimes happened to very wise
and wide-awake persons, in the presence of sensible and judicious
witnesses who have attested them, and confirmed by the report of the
cleverest physicians, who have shown their astonishment at them? In
this city of Verona, where I live, an event of this kind happened very
recently, and it has excited the wonder of every one; but as the truth
of it is not yet juridically attested I abstain from relating it. But
such is not the case with a similar fact, verified, ten years ago,
after the strictest examination. I speak of the miraculous cure of
Dame Victoire Buri, of the monastery of St. Daniel, who after a
chronic ague of nearly five years' duration, after having been
tortured for several days with a stitch in her side, or acute pain,
and with violent colics--having, in short, lost her voice, and fallen
into a languid state, received the holy viaticum on the day of the
fete of St. Louis de Gonzaga. In this condition, having fervently
recommended herself to the intercession of the saint, she in one
moment felt her strength return, her pains ceased, and she began to
cry out that she was cured. At these cries the abbess and the nuns ran
to her; she dressed herself, went up the stairs alone and without
assistance, and repaired to the choir with the others to render thanks
to God for her recovery. I had the curiosity to wish to inform myself
personally of the fact and of these circumstances, and after having
interrogated the lady herself, those who had witnessed her cure, and
the physicians who had attended her, I remained fully convinced of the
truth of the fact. I, I repeat, whose defect is not that of being too
credulous, as it sufficiently appears by what I write here.

Again, I may say, that finding myself fourteen years ago at Florence,
I was in that city acquainted