Montgeron further says, that “the greatest enemies of these miraculous succors admitted the fact that such terrible blows, far from producing the slightest wound, or causing the convulsionist the least suffering, actually cured the pains of which she complained."[22]

The convulsionist sometimes demanded enormous pressure instead of violent blows.  To this also, the Abbe d’Asfeld testifies.  I translate from his “Vains Efforts.”

“Next came the exercise of the platform.  It consisted in placing on the convulsionist, who was stretched on the ground, a board of sufficient size to cover her entirely; and as many men as could stand upon it mounted on the board.  The convulsionist sustained them all."[23]

Montgeron adds,—­“This relation is tolerably exact, and it only remains for me to observe, that, as they gave each other the hand, for reciprocal support, most of those who were on the board rested the whole weight of the body on a single foot.  Thus, twenty men at a time often stood upon the board, and were supported on the body of a young convulsionist.  Now, as most men weigh a hundred and fifty pounds, and many weigh more, the body of the girl must have sustained a weight of three thousand pounds, if not sometimes nearly four thousand,—­a load sufficient to crush an ox.  Yet, not only was the convulsionist not oppressed by it, but she often found the pressure insufficient to correct the swelling which distended her muscles.  With what force must not God have endowed the body of this girl!  Since the days of Samson, was ever seen such a prodigy?"[24]

If these incidents, attested as they are by friend and foe, seem to us incredible, what shall we say of another, not less strongly attested?

Let us first, as before, take the statement of an adversary.  I translate from the “Memoire Theologique.”

“A convulsionist laid herself on the floor, flat on her back; and a man, kneeling beside her, and raising a flint stone, weighing upwards of twenty pounds, as high as he could, after several preliminary trials, dashed it, with all his force, against the breast of the convulsionist, giving her one hundred such blows in succession."[25]

To this Montgeron subjoins,—­“But the author ought to have added, that, at each blow, the whole room shook, the floor trembled, and the spectators could not repress a shudder at the frightful noise which was heard, as each blow fell on the convulsionist’s breast.”  We need not be surprised that he adds,—­“Not only ought such strokes naturally to rupture the minute vessels, the delicate glands, the veins and the arteries of which the breast is composed,—­not only ought they, in the course of Nature, to have crushed and reduced the whole to a bloody mass,—­but they ought to have shattered to pieces the bones and cartilages by which the breast is inclosed."[26]