that a
little reflection will dispense us from having recourse to fantastic
hands in order to explain it.

"Let us imagine a bedstead upon castors; a person whose imagination is
impressed, or who wishes to enliven himself by frightening his
domestics, is lying upon it, and rolls about very much, complaining
that he is tormented. Is it surprising that the bedstead should be
seen to move, especially when the floor of the room is waxed and
rubbed? But, you will say, some of the witnesses even made useless
efforts to prevent this movement. Who are these witnesses? Two are
youths in the service of the patient, who trembled all over with
fright, and were not capable of examining the secret causes of this
movement; and the other has since told several people that he would
give ten pistoles not to have affirmed that he saw this bedstead
remove itself without help.

"In regard to the voice, whose secret has been so carefully kept, as
there is no witness of it, we can only judge of it by the state in
which he who had been favored with this pretended revelation was
found. Repeated cries from the man who, hearing his closet door beaten
in, draws back the bolts which he had apparently drawn himself, his
eyes quite wild, and his whole person in extraordinary disorder, would
have caused the ancient heathens to take him for a sibyl full of
enthusiasm, and must appear to us rather the consequence of some
convulsion than of a conversation with a spiritual being.

"Lastly, the violent blows given upon the walls and panes of glass, in
the night, in the presence of two witnesses, might make some
impression, if we were sure that the patient, who was lying directly
under the window in a small bed, had no part in the matter; for of the
two witnesses who heard this noise, one was his mother, and the other
an intimate friend, who, even reflecting on what he saw and heard,
declares that it can only be the effect of a spell.

"How much good soever you may wish for this place, I do not believe,
sir, that what I have just remarked on the circumstances of the
adventure, will lead you to believe that it has been honored with an
angelic apparition; I should rather fear that, attributing it to a
disordered imagination, you may accuse the subtility of the air which
there predominates as having caused it. As I am somewhat interested
in not doing the climate of St. Maur such an injury, I am compelled to
add something else to what I have said of the pe