254 On the Performances of different Ventriloquists. 



repeated its lamentations and reproaches, and the whole con- 

 vent fell on their faces and vowed to make a reparation of their 

 error. They accordingly chaunted a full choir a de prqfun- 

 dis, during the intervals of which the spirit of the departed 

 monk accordingly expressed his satisfaction at these pious ex- 

 ercises. The prior afterwards inveighed against the incredulity 

 of the moderns, and the subject of apparitions ; and it was 

 with great difficulty that M. St Gille convinced them that the 

 whole was a deception. 



M. St Gille gave another proof of his skill before a large 

 party, consisting of Commissioners from the Royal Academy 

 of Sciences at Paris, and other persons of the highest rank, to- 

 gether with a lady who was not in the secret, and who was merely 

 informed that an aerial spirit had lately established itself in 

 that part of St Germain en Laye, and that the present party 

 had been assembled to inquire into its truth. After the party 

 had sat down to dinner in the open air, the spirit addressed the 

 lady in a voice that seemed to come from above their heads ; 

 sometimes it spoke to her from the trees around them, and 

 from the surface of the ground at a great distance, or from a 

 considerable depth under her feet. Having been thus addressed 

 for above two hours, the lady was firmly convinced of the ex- 

 istence of the spirit, and could scarcely be undeceived. 



II. Account of the Performances of the Ventriloquist Louis 

 Brabant, Valet de Chambre to Francis I. 

 Louis Brabant had fallen in love with a rich and beautiful 

 heiress, but, from his humble condition, he was rejected by the 

 parents as an unsuitable match. Upon the death of her father, 

 Louis paid a visit to the widow, and he had no sooner entered 

 the house than she heard herself accosted in the voice of her 

 deceased husband, which seemed to proceed from above,— 

 " Give my daughter in marriage to Louis Brabant, who is a 

 man of large fortune and excellent character. I now endure 

 the inexpressible torments of purgatory for having refused her 

 to him. Obey this admonition and I shall soon be delivered. 

 You will thus provide a worthy husband to your daughter, 

 and procure everlasting repose to the soul of your poor hus- 

 band. * This awful command, which had no appearance of 



