rancis Maigret, savetier of
Mantua, spoke divers languages, and was cured by Calderon, a
physician, famous in his time, who gave her a potion of Hellebore.
Erasmus says also[264] that he had seen an Italian, a native of
Spoletta, who spoke German very well, although he had never been in
Germany; they gave him a medicine which caused him to eject a quantity
of worms, and he was cured so as not to speak German any more.

Le Loyer, in his _Book of Spectres_,[265] avows that all those things
appear to him much to be doubted. He rather believes Fernel, one of
the gravest physicians of his age, who maintains[266] that there is
not such power in medicine, and brings forward as an instance the
history of a young gentleman, the son of a Knight of the Order, who
being seized upon by the demon, could be cured neither by potions, by
medicines, nor by diet (_i. e._ fasting), but who was cured by the
conjurations and exorcisms of the church.

As to the reality of the return of souls, or spirits, and their
apparitions, the Sorbonne, the most celebrated school of theology in
France, has always believed that the spirits of the defunct returned
sometimes, either by the order and power of God, or by his permission.
The Sorbonne confessed this in its decisions of the year 1518, and
still more positively the 23d of January, 1724. _Nos respondemus
vestrae petitioni animas defunctorum divinitus, seu divina virtute,
ordinatione aut permissione interdum ad vivas redire exploratum esse._
Several jurisconsults and several sovereign companies have decreed
that the apparition of a deceased person in a house could suffice to
break up the lease. We may count it for much, to have proved to
certain persons that there is a God whose providence extends over all
things past, present, and to come; that there is another life, that
there are good and bad spirits, rewards for good works, and
punishments after this life for sins; that Jesus Christ has ruined the
power of Satan; that he exercised in himself, in his apostles, and
continues to exercise in the ministers of his church, an absolute
empire over the infernal powers; that the devil is now chained; he may
bark and threaten, but he can bite only those who approach him, and
voluntarily give themselves up to him.

We have seen in these parts a woman who followed a band of mountebanks
and jugglers, who stretched out her legs in such an extraordinary
manner, and raised up her feet to her head, before and