If there were no spectre, there was, ac cording to all human probability, no gold; and if no gold, no ground for the accusation of Auguier. Descending to the earthly reasoning, was it likely that Mirabel would intrust to Anguier a treasure of whose actual value he knew nothing, or that he would take in return a receipt he had not seen the giver write? How was it, pray, that the woman Paret and Gaspard Deleuil demanded no share in the treasure so discovered? Were these excellent persons superior to the com mon weaknesses of humanity, — curiosity, and the lust of gain? The witness Paret certainly saw the discovery of a parcel, but the rest of her evidence was hearsay. The witness Deleuil saw the exchange of bags and paper; but all the rest — spectre in cluded — was hearsay. And when the wit ness Fourniere declared that Auguier, being taxed with robbery, turned deadly pale, Au guier frankly — nay, proudly — confessed it, stricken as that honorable burgher was with horror at a charge so foul and unex pected! The climax of injustice was surely reached when this respected, estimable, sub stantial merchant of France's proudest seamart was, on the uncorroborated word of a ghost (for on this it must be traced), sub mitted to the torture. In criminal even more than in civil cases, that which seems repugnant to probability is reputed false. Let a hundred witnesses testify to that which is contrary to nature and the light of reason, their evidence is worthless and vain. Take, as example, the famous tradition which gives an additional interest to the noble house of Lusignan, and say that cer tain persons swore that the fairy Melusina, who had the tail of a serpent, and bathed every Saturday in a marble cellar, had re vealed a treasure to some weak idiot, who was immediately robbed of it by another. What would be thought of a judge who should, on such testimony, condemn the accused? Is it on such a fairy fable that Auguier, the just, the respected family-
father, the loyal patriot, must be adjudged guilty? Never! Such justice might be found at Cathay, might prevail in the yet undiscovered islands of the Eastern Archi pelago; but in France — no. There re mained, in short, but one manifest duty to the court; namely, to acquit, with all honor, this much-abused man, and to render him such noble compensation as the injuries he had suffered deserved. It was now, however, the phantom's in nings. Turning on the court the night-side of Nature, the spectre's advocate pointed out that the gist of Auguier's defence consisted of a narrow and senseless satire upon super natural visitations, involving a most unau thorized assumption that such things did never occur. Was it intended to contradict Holy Writ, and to deny a truth attested by Scripture, by the Fathers of the Church, by every wide experience testimony; finally, by the Faculty of Theology of Paris? The speaker here adduced the appearance of the prophet Samuel at Endor (of which Le Brun remarked that it was, past question, a work commenced by the power of evil, but taken from his hand and completed by a stronger than he); that of the bodies of buried saints after our Lord's resurrection; and that of Saint Felix, who, according to Saint Augus tine, appeared to the besieged inhabitants of Uola. But say that any doubts could rationally exist, were they not completely set at rest by a recent decision of the Fac ulty of Theology? " Desiring," says this en lightened decree, " to satisfy pious scruples, we have, after a very careful consideration of the subject, resolved that the spirits of the departed may, and do by supernatural power and divine license, reappear unto the liv ing." And this opinion was in conformity with that pronounced at Sorbonne two cen turies before. However, it was not dogmatically affirmed that the spirit which had evinced this in terest in Mirabel was the ghost of any departed person. It might have been a spirit, whether good or evil, of another kind.
