l down, and amongst others that which had belonged to
that old woman. As they were digging there, they found the treasure,
consisting of a good many gold pieces of the value of a ducat, bearing
the effigy of the Emperor Justinian the First. The Grand Master of the
Order of Malta affirmed that the treasure belonged to him as sovereign
of the isle; the canons contested the point. The affair was carried to
Rome; the grand master gained his suit, and the gold was brought to
him, amounting in value to about sixty thousand ducats; but he gave
them up to the cathedral.

Some time afterwards, the knight of whom we have spoken, who was then
very aged, remembered what had happened to himself, and asserted that
the treasure ought to belong to him; he made them lead him to the
spot, recognized the cellar where he had formerly been, and pointed
out in the Register of the Inquisition what had been written therein
sixty years before. They did not permit him to recover the treasure;
but it was a proof that the demon knew of and kept watch over this
money. The person who told me this story has in his possession three
or four of these gold pieces, having bought them of the canons.

Footnotes:

[292] Matt. iv. 8.

[293] Job iii. 13, 14, 22.

[294] Joseph. Ant. lib. xiii.

[295] Martian. lib. iv.

[296] Le Loyer, liv. ii. p. 495.

[297] Remy, Demonol. c. iv. Ann. 1605.

[298] M. le Chevalier Guiot de Marre.

CHAPTER XXXII.

OTHER INSTANCES OF HIDDEN TREASURES WHICH WERE GUARDED BY GOOD OR BAD
SPIRITS.

We read in a new work that a man, Honore Mirable, having found in a
garden near Marseilles a treasure consisting of several Portuguese
pieces of gold, from the indication given him by a spectre, which
appeared to him at eleven o'clock at night, near the _Bastide_, or
country house called _du Paret_, he made the discovery of it in
presence of the woman who farmed the land of this _Bastide_, and the
farm-servant named Bernard. When he first perceived the treasure
buried in the earth, and wrapt up in a bundle of old linen, he was
afraid to touch it, for fear it should be poisoned and cause his
death. He raised it by means of a hook made of a branch of the almond
tree, and carried it into his room, where he undid it without any
witness, and found in it a great deal of gold; to satisfy the wishes
of the spirit who had appeared to him, he caused some masses to be
said for him. He revealed his good fortune to a countryman