ch blow fell on the convulsionist's breast." We need not be
surprised that he adds,--"Not only ought such strokes naturally to
rupture the minute vessels, the delicate glands, the veins and the
arteries of which the breast is composed,--not only ought they, in the
course of Nature, to have crushed and reduced the whole to a bloody
mass,--but they ought to have shattered to pieces the bones and
cartilages by which the breast is inclosed."[26]

This was the view of the case taken by a celebrated physician of the
day. Montgeron tells us:--"This philosopher maintained that the facts
alleged could not be true, because they were physically impossible. He
raised, among other objections, this,--that the flexible, delicate
nature of the skin, of the flesh, and of the viscera, is incompatible
with a force and a consistency so extraordinary as the alleged facts
presuppose; and, consequently, that it was impossible, without ceasing
to be what they are,--without a radical change in their qualities,--that
they should acquire a force superior to that of the hardest and most
solid bodies. They let him quietly complete his anatomical argument, and
set forth all his proofs, and merely answered, 'Come and see; test the
truth of the facts for yourself.' He went. At first sight, he is seized
with astonishment; he doubts the evidence of his eyes; he asks to be
allowed himself to administer the succors. They immediately place in his
hands iron bars of a crushing weight. He does not spare his blows; he
exerts his utmost strength. The weapon sinks into the flesh, seems to
penetrate to the entrails. But the convulsionist only laughs at his idle
efforts. His blows but procure her relief, without leaving the least
impression, the slightest trace, even on the epidermis."[27]

Space fails me to furnish more than a very few additional specimens of
the endless incidents of which the details are scattered by Montgeron
over hundreds of pages,--incidents occurring in various parts of Paris,
daily, for many years. Three or four more of these may suffice for my
present purpose.

A certain Marie Sonnet had made herself so remarkable by the incredible
succors she demanded, that a physician of Paris, Dr. A----, published,
in regard to her case, a satirical letter addressed to M. de Montgeron,
in which, after attacking the girl's moral character, be assumed this
strange position: "It is a sentiment universally established, that it is
in the power of the Devi