had developed a remarkable power in the muscles of her legs, and could throw over a heavy table with them, under the eyes of a crowd of observers, without being detected, unless she was watched very closely.
As we read that a few years earlier, in 1839, two "electric girls" had been brought to France from Smyrna, we see how Angélique probably got the idea of her trick. Such things were common in the 'thirties and 'forties. "Mesmeric healers" were all over Europe. "Somnambules," or ladies mesmerised into a state of trance (like hypnotism), gave weird and wonderful performances nightly. In France and England, and most of Europe, this sort of thing was regarded as quite "scientific." But already there was a rival theory—a battle of Spiritualism and materialism. In Germany the idea of "spirit" was substituted for the electric fluid, and there were some everywhere who preferred this more refined theory.
It is well to remember, too, that in one form the spiritualist belief really was as old as humanity, and no ecclesiastical authority had ever ventured to condemn it. The Church could and did condemn the idea that certain individuals had what we now term mediumistic powers, and could "call spirits from the vasty deep." Their spirits were said to be evil spirits. They were wizards or witches. But the Church never condemned the popular belief that the ghosts of murdered people, or suicides, or other unfortunates, haunted the living. Men believed this probably a quarter of a million years ago, for we find
