to find out what can be the
nature of that illusion, seen so often and by the eyes of so many
persons in the Forest of Fontainebleau; it was a phantom surrounded by
a pack of hounds, whose cries were heard, while they might be seen at
a distance, but all disappeared if any one approached.

The note of M. d'Ecluse, editor of these Memoirs, enters into longer
details. He observes that M. de Perefixe makes mention of this
phantom; and he makes him say, with a hoarse voice, one of these three
sentences: Do you expect me? or, Do you hear me? or, Amend yourself.
"And they believe," says he, "that these were sports of sorcerers, or
of the malignant spirit." The Journal of Henry IV., and the Septenary
Chronicle, speak of them also, and even assert that this phenomenon
alarmed Henry IV. and his courtiers very much. And Peter Matthew says
something of it in his History of France, tom. ii. p. 68. Bongars
speaks of it as others do,[362] and asserts that it was a hunter who
had been killed in this forest in the time of Francis I. But now we
hear no more of this spectre, though there is still a road in this
forest which retains the name of the _Grand Veneur_, in memory, it is
said, of this visionary scene.

A Chronicle of Metz,[363] under the date of the year 1330, relates the
apparition of a spirit at Lagni sur Marne, six leagues from Paris. It
was a good lady, who after her death spoke to more than twenty
people--her father, sister, daughter, and son-in-law, and to her other
friends--asking them to have said for her particular masses, as being
more efficacious than the common mass. As they feared it might be an
evil spirit, they read to it the beginning of the Gospel of St. John;
and they made it say the _Pater_, _credo_, and _confiteor_. She said
she had beside her two angels, one bad and one good; and that the good
angel revealed to her what she ought to say. They asked her if they
should go and fetch the Holy Sacrament from the altar. She replied it
was with them, for her father, who was present, and several others
among them, had received it on Christmas day, which was the Tuesday
before.

Father Taillepied, a Cordelier, and professor of theology at
Rouen,[364] who composed a book expressly on the subject of
apparitions, which was printed at Rouen in 1600, says that one of his
fraternity with whom he was acquainted, named Brother Gabriel,
appeared to several monks of the convent at Nice, and begged of them
to satisfy the d