y
a time, and, in reply to my questions, so many strokes as I asked
for were given'. Montalembert received information (by way of raps)
from the 'spirit,' about matters of importance, qui ne pourroient
estre cogneus de mortelle creature. 'Certainly,' as he adds,
'people have the best right to believe these things who have seen
and heard them.'

The rites of the Church were conferred in the most handsome manner
on the body of Sister Alix, which was disinterred and buried in her
convent. Exorcisms and interrogations of the spirit were practised.
It merely answered questions by rapping 'Yes,' or 'No'. On one
occasion Sister Anthoinette was 'levitated'. Finally, the spirit
appeared bodily to her, said farewell, and disappeared after making
an extraordinary fracas at matins. Montalembert conducted the
religious ceremonies. One case of hysteria was developed; the
sufferer was a novice. Of course it was attributed to diabolical
possession The whole story in its pleasant old French, has an
agreeable air of good faith But what interests us is the remarkable
analogy between the Lyons rappings and those at Epworth, Tedworth,
and countless other cases, old or of yesterday. We can now
establish a catena of rappings and pour prendre date, can say that
communications were established, through raps, with a so-called
'spirit,' more than three hundred years before the 'Rochester
knockings' in America. Very probably wider research would discover
instances prior to that of Lyons; indeed, Wierus, in De Praestigiis
Daemonum, writes as if the custom was common.

It is usual to explain the raps by a theory that the 'medium'
produces them through cracking his, or her, knee-joints. It may
thus be argued that Sister Anthoinette discovered this trick, or was
taught the trick, and that the tradition of her performance, being
widely circulated in Montalembert's quarto, and by oral report,
inspired later rappers, such as Miss Kate Fox, Miss 'C.' Davis, Miss
Hetty Wesley, the gentlewoman at Mr. Paschal's, Mr. Mompesson's
'modest little girls,' Daniel Home, and Miss Margaret Wilson of
Galashiels. Miss Wilson's uncle came one day to Mr. Wilkie, the
minister, and told him the devil was at his house, for, said he,
'there is an odd knocking about the bed where my niece lies'.
Whereupon the minister went with him, and found it so. 'She, rising
from her bed, sat down to supper, and from below there was such a
knocking up as bred fear to all