urned its head toward me; its
eyes were not those of an ordinary child. To give you an idea of the
impression I received, I must say that already they saw and thought. The
childhood of this predestined being was attended by circumstances quite
extraordinary in our climate. For nine years our winters were milder
and our summers longer than usual. This phenomenon gave rise to several
discussions among scientific men; but none of their explanations seemed
sufficient to academicians, and the baron smiled when I told him of
them. The child was never seen in its nudity as other children are; it
was never touched by man or woman, but lived a sacred thing upon the
mother's breast, and it never cried. If you question old David he will
confirm these facts about his mistress, for whom he feels an adoration
like that of Louis IX. for the saint whose name he bore.

"At nine years of age the child began to pray; prayer is her life. You
saw her in the church at Christmas, the only day on which she comes
there; she is separated from the other worshippers by a visible space.
If that space does not exist between herself and men she suffers. That
is why she passes nearly all her time alone in the chateau. The events
of her life are unknown; she is seldom seen; her days are spent in the
state of mystical contemplation which was, so Catholic writers tell us,
habitual with the early Christian solitaries, in whom the oral tradition
of Christ's own words still remained. Her mind, her soul, her body, all
within her is virgin as the snow on those mountains. At ten years of
age she was just what you see her now. When she was nine her father and
mother expired together, without pain or visible malady, after naming
the day and hour at which they would cease to be. Standing at their
feet she looked at them with a calm eye, not showing either sadness, or
grief, or joy, or curiosity. When we approached to remove the two bodies
she said, 'Carry them away!' 'Seraphita,' I said, for so we called her,
'are you not affected by the death of your father and your mother
who loved you so much?' 'Dead?' she answered, 'no, they live in me
forever--That is nothing,' she pointed without emotion to the bodies
they were bearing away. I then saw her for the third time only since her
birth. In church it is difficult to distinguish her; she stands near
a column which, seen from the pulpit, is in shadow, so that I cannot
observe her features.

"Of all the servants of t