THE PHYSIOLOGY OF DEATH. 333 



i 



returned to life, and hastened to get out of his shroud . 

 with the assistance of those of the by-standers who had riot 

 been frightened away by his sudden resurrection. An hour 

 later he could recognize his friends, and felt no uneasiness 

 except a slight confusion in his head, and the next day was 

 able to go to work again. At about the same time a resi- 

 dent of Nantes gave up life after a long illness. His heirs 

 made arrangements for a grand funeral, and, while the per- 

 formance of a requiem was going on, the dead man re- 

 turned to life and stirred in the coffin, that stood in the 

 middle of the church. When carried home, he soon re- 

 gained his health. Some time afterward, the cure, not 

 caring to be at the trouble of the burial ceremonies for 

 nothing, sent a bill to the ex-corpse, who declined to pay 

 it, and referred the cure to the heirs who had given orders 

 for the funeral. A lawsuit followed, with which the papers 

 of the day kept the public greatly amused. A few years 

 ago Cardinal Donnet, in the Senate, told his own story of 

 the circumstances under which he narrowly escaped being 

 buried alive. 



Besides these instances of premature burial in which 

 the victim escaped the fearful consequences of the mistake 

 made, others may be cited in which the blunder was dis- 

 covered only too late. Quite a number of such cases are 

 known, some of which are told with details too romantic 

 to entitle them to implicit belief, while, however,, many 

 of them show unquestionable signs of authenticity. There 

 long prevailed a tradition, not easily traceable to any source, 

 which attributed the death of the Abb6 Provost to a mis- 

 take of this kind. All his biographers relate that the 

 famous author of " Manon Lescaut," falling senseless from 

 the effect of a rush of blood, in the depths of the forest of 

 Chantilly, was supposed to be dead ; that then the surgeon 

 of the village having made an incision into his stomach, 

 by direction of the magistrate, to ascertain the cause of 



