, who, she said, had cured
persons in as bad shape as she. I did not believe a word, but hearing
that the priest refused to take any money for his services I did not
dissuade her from visiting him, and out of curiosity I went along.

"They placed her in a chair. The ecclesiastic, little, active,
energetic, took her hand and applied to it, one after the other, three
precious stones. Then he said coolly, 'Mademoiselle, you are the victim
of consanguineal sorcery.'

"I could hardly keep from laughing.

"'Remember,' he said,'two years back, for that is when your paralytic
stroke came on. You must have had a quarrel with a kinsman or
kinswoman?'

"It was true. Poor Marie had been unjustly accused of the theft of a
watch which was an heirloom belonging to an aunt of hers. The aunt had
sworn vengeance.

"'Your aunt lives in Lyons?'

"She nodded.

"'Nothing astonishing about that,' continued the priest. 'In Lyons,
among the lower orders, there are witch doctors who know a little about
the witchcraft practised in the country. But be reassured. These people
are not powerful. They know little more than the A B C's of the art.
Then, mademoiselle, you wish to be cured?'

"And after she replied that she did, he said gently, 'That is all. You
may go.'

"He did not touch her, did not prescribe any remedy. I came away
persuaded that he was a mountebank. But when, three days later, the girl
was able to raise her arms, and all her pain had left her, and when, at
the end of a week, she could walk, I had to yield in face of the
evidence. I went back to see him, had occasion to do him a service; and
thus our relations began."

"But what are his methods?"

"He opens, like the curate of Ars, with prayer. Then he evokes the
militant archangels, then he breaks the magic circles and
chases--'classes,' as he says--the spirits of Evil. I know very well
that this is confounding. Whenever I speak of this man's potency to my
confreres they smile with a superior air or serve up to me the specious
arguments which they have fabricated to explain the cures wrought by
Christ and the Virgin. The method they have imagined consists in
striking the patient's imagination, suggesting to him the will to be
cured, persuading him that he is well, hypnotizing him in a waking
state--so to speak. This done--say they--the twisted legs straighten,
the sores disappear, the consumption-torn lungs are patched up, the
cancers become benign pimples, and the b