caused by the prick of a pin. For the
rest, the convulsionist suffered no pain whatever."[36]

Similar is the testimony of an Advocate of the Parliament of Paris,
extracts from whose certificate in regard to the succors rendered to the
Sister Madeleine are given by Montgeron. Here is one of these:--

"One day, extended on the ground, she caused a spit to be placed
upright, with the point on her bare throat. Then a stout man mounted on
a chair, and suspended his whole body from the head of the spit,
pressing with all his force, as if to transfix the throat and pierce the
floor beneath. But the flesh merely sank in with the point of the spit,
without being in the least injured.

"Another day, she placed the point of a very sharp sword against the
hollow of the throat, just below the epiglottis, and, standing with her
back against the wall, called on them to push the sword. A vigorous man
did so, till the blade bent, though not so much as to form a complete
arc. The point sank into the flesh about an inch. I was curious to
measure the exact depth, and found that the flesh rose so far around the
sword-point that I could sink a finger in beyond the first joint. She
received this succor twice. The sword was one of the sharpest I have
ever seen. We tried it against a portfolio containing the paper intended
for the minutes which on such occasions I always make out. It perforated
the pasteboard and a considerable part of the papers within."[37]

The Sister Madeleine carried her temerity in this matter still farther.
Here is a portion of the certificate of an ecclesiastic, for whose
uprightness and truthfulness Montgeron vouches in strong terms, and who
relates what he alleges he saw on the thirty-first of May, 1744.

"Madeleine caused them to hold two swords in the air horizontally. She
herself placed the point of one in the inner corner of the right eye,
and of the other in the inner corner of the left, and then called out to
those who held the swords, 'In the name of the Father, push!' They did
so with all their force; and I confess that I shuddered from head to
foot.... A second time Madeleine caused them to set two swords against
the pupils of her eyes, and to press them strongly, as before. This time
I took especial notice of the part of the sword that was on a level with
the surface of the eye when the pressure was the strongest, and I
perceived that the point had penetrated a good inch into the pupil."[38]

The Chap