witnessed by M. Leroux and by Leseigneur, or the candlestick which Madame de St. Victor watched in its flight.
Now the disturbances began at the end of November, 1850, and they ended on the 15th February, 1851, so that the occurrences were still fresh in the memory of the witnesses. More than one of the most inexplicable events are testified to by witnesses who, if strongly predisposed to belief in the marvellous, were, it is to be presumed, fairly well educated. Their testimony is given with some care, and there can be no doubt that these witnesses honestly believed that they had seen and heard things inexplicable by natural causes. It seems scarcely credible that the two little boys should have done the things themselves without detection (save in one doubtful case) and apparently without suspicion. The performance, it is to be remembered, lasted for some weeks; and the actors throughout the time were constantly called upon to play their parts with variations before an interested and not wholly uncritical audience.
The explanation in fact is not to be reached from the examination of any single case, least of all a case where personal enquiry and interrogation of the witnesses are no longer possible. But these outbreaks, as said, are numerous and monotonously similar in their general features. The person who is the centre of the disturbance, and in whose absence nothing takes place, is generally a child, boy or girl; more rarely a young servant maid. The
