d to himself by the phantom of his
friend what was to happen, may have imagined that the Marquis de
Rambouillet had been killed by a musket-shot in the side, and that the
ardor which he himself felt for war might prove fatal to him in the
first action. We shall see by the words of St. Augustine, which I
shall cite by-and-by, how fully that Doctor of the Church was
persuaded of the power of imagination, to which he attributes the
knowledge of things to come. I shall again establish the authority of
presentiments by a most singular instance.

"A lady of talent, whom I knew particularly well, being at Chartres,
where she was residing, dreamt in the night that in her sleep she saw
Paradise, which she fancied to herself was a magnificent hall, around
which were in different ranks the angels and spirits of the blessed,
and God, who presided in the midst, on a shining throne. She heard
some one knock at the door of this delightful place; and St. Peter
having opened it, she saw two pretty children, one of them clothed in
a white robe, and the other quite naked. St. Peter took the first by
the hand and led him to the foot of the throne, and left the other
crying bitterly at the door. She awoke at that moment, and related her
dream to several persons, who thought it very remarkable. A letter
which she received from Paris in the afternoon informed her that one
of her daughters was brought to bed with two children, who were dead,
and only one of them had been baptized.

"Of what may we not believe the imagination capable, after so strong a
proof of its power? Can we doubt that amongst all the pretended
apparitions that are related, imagination alone produces all those
which do not proceed from angels and blessed spirits, or which are not
the effect of fraudulent contrivance?

"To explain more fully what has given rise to those phantoms, the
apparition of which has been published in all ages, without availing
myself of the ridiculous opinion of the skeptics, who doubt of
everything, and assert that our senses, however sound they may be, can
only imagine everything falsely, I shall remark that the wisest
amongst the philosophers maintain that deep melancholy, anger, frenzy,
fever, depraved or debilitated senses, whether naturally, or by
accident, can make us see and hear many things which have no
foundation.

"Aristotle says[668] that in sleep the interior senses act by the
local movement of the humors and the blood, and that th