“They placed her in a chair.  The ecclesiastic, little, active, energetic, took her hand and applied to it, one after the other, three precious stones.  Then he said coolly, ’Mademoiselle, you are the victim of consanguineal sorcery.’

“I could hardly keep from laughing.

“‘Remember,’ he said,’two years back, for that is when your paralytic stroke came on.  You must have had a quarrel with a kinsman or kinswoman?’

“It was true.  Poor Marie had been unjustly accused of the theft of a watch which was an heirloom belonging to an aunt of hers.  The aunt had sworn vengeance.

“‘Your aunt lives in Lyons?’

“She nodded.

“‘Nothing astonishing about that,’ continued the priest.  ’In Lyons, among the lower orders, there are witch doctors who know a little about the witchcraft practised in the country.  But be reassured.  These people are not powerful.  They know little more than the A B C’s of the art.  Then, mademoiselle, you wish to be cured?’

“And after she replied that she did, he said gently, ’That is all.  You may go.’

“He did not touch her, did not prescribe any remedy.  I came away persuaded that he was a mountebank.  But when, three days later, the girl was able to raise her arms, and all her pain had left her, and when, at the end of a week, she could walk, I had to yield in face of the evidence.  I went back to see him, had occasion to do him a service; and thus our relations began.”

“But what are his methods?”

“He opens, like the curate of Ars, with prayer.  Then he evokes the militant archangels, then he breaks the magic circles and chases—­’classes,’ as he says—­the spirits of Evil.  I know very well that this is confounding.  Whenever I speak of this man’s potency to my confreres they smile with a superior air or serve up to me the specious arguments which they have fabricated to explain the cures wrought by Christ and the Virgin.  The method they have imagined consists in striking the patient’s imagination, suggesting to him the will to be cured, persuading him that he is well, hypnotizing him in a waking state—­so to speak.  This done—­say they—­the twisted legs straighten, the sores disappear, the consumption-torn lungs are patched up, the cancers become benign pimples, and the blind eyes see.  This procedure they attribute to miracle workers to explain away the supernatural—­why don’t they use the method themselves if it is so simple?”

“But haven’t they tried?”

“After a fashion.  I was present myself at an experiment attempted by Dr. Luys.  Ah, it was inspiring!  At the charity hospital there was a poor girl paralyzed in both legs.  She was put to sleep and commanded to rise.  She struggled in vain.  Then two interns held her up in a standing posture, but her lifeless legs bent useless under her weight.  Need I tell you that she could not walk, and that after they had held her up and pushed her along a few steps, they put her to bed again, having obtained no result whatever.”