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180
FRENCH AFFAIRS.

advantage of their religion that none of their number can die of the prevailing malady, because progress is a law of nature, and as social progress is specially in Saint-Simonism, so long as the number of its apostles is incomplete none of its followers can die. The Bonapartists declare that if any one feels in himself the symptoms of the cholera, if he will raise his eyes to the column of the Place Vendôme he shall be saved and live. And so hath every man his special faith in these troubled times. As for me, I believe in flannel. Good dieting can do no harm, but one should not


    subject are most fully given in a very rare work of about 800 pages, entitled, "Curiosus Amuletorum Scrutator . . . ac in Specie de Zenechtis," to which is added a treatise on amulets by Julius Reichalt (Frankfort, 1690). In this extraordinary and immensely erudite book almost every known disease is cited, and the amulets described which must be carried about the person to cure it. Thus, according to this authority, ivy (as I have heard in Florence, and read in Marcellus of Bordeaux, fourth century), when worn, is a cure for headache; also plaintain-roots and the gem ophites. In addition to these there are directions as to what should be done to secure favour, to avert the evil eye, to protect against lightning, to become rich, or be constantly jolly (herba contra melancholiam)—in short, for almost everything desirable under the sun. In some cases legitimate cures seem to indicate a certain empirical knowledge, as, for instance, where we are told that camphor when carried is good for heart complaints. It is remarkable that, as regards amulet-rosaries, those which are made of a curious kind of triangular seed or nut are considered as possessing special virtue both by Turks and Italian Christians.—Translator.