When she died—­then aged fifty-two, having lived as a nun for thirty-three years, and fourteen as Superior of Oirschot—­her face was transfigured, and in spite of the cold of a winter when the Scheldt could be crossed in a carriage, her body remained soft and pliable; but it swelled.  Surgeons examined it and opened it in the presence of witnesses.  They expected to find the stomach filled with water, but scarcely half a pint was removed, and the body did not collapse.

This autopsy led to the incomprehensible discovery in the gall-bladder of three nails with black heads, angular and polished, of an unknown metal; two weighed as much as half a French gold crown, within seven grains; the third, which was as large as a nutmeg, weighed five grains more.

The operators then filled up the intestines with tow soaked in wormwood, and sewed the body up again with a needle and thread.  And during and after these proceedings not only did the dead nun give out no smell of putrefaction, but, as in her lifetime, she diffused an ineffable and exquisite perfume.

Nearly three weeks elapsed; boils formed and broke, giving out blood and water for more than a month; then the skin showed patches of yellow; exudation ceased and oil came out, at first white, limpid, and fragrant, afterwards darker and of about the colour of amber.  It filled more than a hundred phials, each containing two ounces, several of them being still preserved in the Carmels of Belgium; and her remains when buried were not decomposed, but had assumed the golden brown colour of a date.

“A book might really be written on the life of this admirable woman,” thought Durtal.  “And then what a group of wonderful nuns were those about her!  The convents of Antwerp, Mechlin, and Oirschot swarmed with saintly nuns.  In the time of Charles V. the Order of Carmelites renewed in Flanders the mystical prodigies which, four centuries before, in the Middle Ages, the Dominicans had accomplished in the Monastery of Unterlinden at Colmar.

“How such women as these carry one away and throw one, as it were!  What strength of soul we see in this Marie Marguerite!  What grace must have sustained her, that she could thus shed all the natural frenzy of the senses, and endure so cheerfully and bravely the most overwhelming sufferings!

“Well, now, shall I harness myself to a history of this venerable Abbess?  But then I must procure the volume by Joseph de Loignac, her first biographer, the notice by the Recluse of Marlaigne, the pamphlet by Monseigneur de Ram, the narrative by Papebroech; above all I must have at hand the translation, made by the Carmelites of Louvain, of the Flemish manuscript written while the Mother was still alive, by her daughters.  Where can I unearth that?  In any case the search must be a long one.  No, I must set aside that scheme, which for the present is impracticable.