was drowned, I pointed out to him the very spot; and by counting the trees in a particular direction which Desfontaines had specified to me, I went straight up to the tree, and I found his writing.  He (the Chevalier) told me also that the article of the Seven Psalms was true, and that on coming from confession that they had told each other their penance; and since then his brother has told me that it was quite true that at that hour he was writing his exercise, and he reproached himself for not having accompanied his brother.  As nearly a month passed by without my being able to do what Desfontaines had told me in regard to his brother, he appeared to me again twice before dinner at a country house whither I had gone to dine a league from hence.  I was very faint.  I told them not to mind me, that it was nothing, and that I should soon recover myself; and I went to a corner of the garden.  Desfontaines having appeared to me, reproached me for not having yet spoken to his brother, and again conversed with me for a quarter of an hour without answering any of my questions.

“As I was going in the morning to Notre-Dame de la Victoire, he appeared to me again, but for a shorter time, and pressed me always to speak to his brother, and left me, saying still, ‘Jusques, jusques,’ without choosing to reply to my questions.

“It is a remarkable thing that I always felt a pain in that part of my arm which he had held me by the first time, until I had spoken to his brother.  I was three days without being able to sleep, from the astonishment and agitation I felt.  At the end of the first conversation, I told M. de Varonville, my neighbour and schoolfellow, that Desfontaines had been drowned; that he himself had just appeared to me and told me so.  He went away and ran to the parents’ house to know if it was true; they had just received the news, but by a mistake he understood that it was the eldest.  He assured me that he had read the letter of Desfontaines, and he believed it; but I maintained always that it could not be, and that Desfontaines himself had appeared to me.  He returned, came back, and told me in tears that it was but too true.”

XXXIV

THE MARQUIS DE RAMBOUILLET

“The Phantom World”

The Marquis de Rambouillet, eldest brother of the Duchess of Montauzier, and the Marquis de Precy, eldest son of the family of Nantouillet, both of them between twenty and thirty, were intimate friends, and went to the wars, as in France do all men of quality.  As they were conversing one day together on the subject of the other world, they promised each other that the first who died should come and bring the news to his companion.  At the end of three months the Marquis de Rambouillet set off for Flanders, where the war was then being carried on; and de Precy, detained by a high fever, remained at Paris.  Six weeks afterwards de Precy, at six in the morning, heard