The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864

Lettre de M. Colbert, du 8 Février, 1733, à Madame de Coetquen.

22

Montgéron, Tom. II.

23

Montgéron, Tom. II. Idée de l'Œuvre, etc., p. 123.

24

Montgéron, Tom. II. Idée de l'État, etc. p. 82.

25

Ibid. p. 17.

26

Ibid. p. 19.

27

Montgéron, Tom. II. Idée de l'État, etc., p. 77.

28

In proof of this opinion, Montgéron gives numerous quotations from St. Augustine, St. Thomas, St. Gregory, and various theologians and ecclesiastics of high reputation, to the effect that "it often happens that errors and defects are mixed in with holy and divine revelations, (of saints and others, in ecstasy,) either by some vice of nature, or by the deception of the Devil, in the same way that our minds often draw false conclusions from true premises."—Ibid. pp. 88-96.

29

Ibid. p. 94.

30

Ibid. p. 95.

31

Montgéron, Tom. II. Idée de l'État, etc., pp. 102, 103.

32

Ibid. p. 73.

33

Vains Efforts des Discernans, pp. 39, 40.

34

Lettres de M. Poncet, Let. VII. p. 129.

35

Montgéron, Tom. II. Idée de l'État, etc., p. 76.

36

Recherche de la Vérité, p. 25.

37

Montgéron, Tom. II. Idée de l'État, etc., p. 76.

38

Montgéron, Tom. II. Idée de l'État, etc., p. 73.

39

Philosophy of Mysterious Agents, Human and Mundane, by E. C. Rogers, Boston, 1853, p. 321, and elsewhere. He argues, "that, in as far as persons become 'mediums,' they are mere automatons," surrendering all mental control, and resigning their manhood.

40

Montgéron, Tom. II. Idée de l'État, etc., pp. 34, 35.

41

Hume's Essays, Vol. II. sect. 10.

42

Diderot's Pensées Philosophiques. The original edition appeared in 1746, published in Paris.

43

Dom La Taste's Lettres Théologiques, Tom. II. p. 878.

44

Montgéron expressly tells us, that, in the case of Marguerite Catherine Turpin, her limbs were drawn, by means of strong bands, "with such, extreme violence that the bones of her knees and thighs cracked with a loud noise."—Tom. III. p. 553.

45

Montgéron supplies evidence that the expression clubs, here used, is not misapplied. He furnishes quotations from a petition addressed to the Parliament of Paris by the mother of the girl Turpin, praying for a legal investigation of her daughter's case by the attorney-general, and offering to furnish him with the names, station in life, and addresses of the witnesses to the wonderful cure, in this case, of a monstrous deformity that was almost congenital; in which petition it is stated,—"Little by little the force with which she was struck was augmented, and at last the blows were given with billets of oak-wood, one end of which was reduced in diameter so as to form a handle, while the other end, with which the strokes were dealt, was from seven to eight inches in circumference, so that these billets were in fact small clubs." (Montgéron, Tom. III. p. 552.) This would give from eight to nine inches, English measure, or nearly three inches in diameter, and of oak!

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