Independently of the theory of Satanic intervention which the above details are adduced to disprove, they are very interesting in themselves, for the insight they give into the exact character of these terrible probations.

[22] Montgeron, Tom.  III. p. 694.

[23] Quoted by Montgeron, Tom.  III. p. 697.

[24] Montgeron, Tom.  III. p. 697.

[25] Memoire Theologique, p. 96.

[26] Montgeron, Tom.  III. p. 697.

[27] Ibid. p. 698.

[28] Lettre du Dr. A——­ a M. de Montgeron, p. 8.

[29] Ibid. p. 7.

[30] Montgeron, Tom.  II. Idee de l’Etat des Convulsionnaires, pp. 45, 46.  Montgeron does not allege, however, that any other part of the body than that where the warning pains were felt became insensible or invulnerable.  He cites (Tom.  III. p. 629) the case of a convulsionist who, “at the moment when they were striking her on the breast with all possible force with a stone weighing twenty-five pounds, bade them suspend the succors for a moment, till she adjusted, in another part of her dress, a pin that was pricking her.”

[31] Montgeron, Tom.  II. Idee de l’Etat des Convulsionnaires, pp. 31, 32.

[32] Montgeron, Tom.  II. Idee de l’Etat des Convulionnaires, p. 33.

[33] Lettre du Dr. A——­ a M. de Montgeron, p. 7.

[34] Reponse des Anti-Secouristes a la Reclamation, par M. Poncet, p. 4.

[35] Montgeron, Tom.  III. p. 706.

[36] Montgeron, Tom.  III. p. 707.

[37] Montgeron, Tom.  III. p. 720.

[38] Ibid. pp. 713, 714.

[39] Ibid. p. 719.

[40] Montgeron, Tom.  III. p. 716.

[41] Ibid. p. 721.

[42] Ibid. p. 709.

[43] Montgeron, Tom.  III. p. 708.

[44] Ibid. p. 718.

[45] Ibid. p. 709.

[46] Montgeron, Tom.  III. pp. 722, 723.

[47] The details are given by M. Morand, a surgeon of Paris of high reputation, member of the Academy of Sciences, who had been employed by the Lieutenant of Police to make to him a report on the subject, and who reproduces the result of his observations in his “Opuscules de Chirurgie.”  He found four girls, the centres of whose hands and feet were indurated by the frequent perforations of the nails.  He witnessed the operation of crucifying one of them, the Sister Felicite.  A certain M. La Barre was the operator.  The nails were of the sort called demi-picaron, very sharp, flat, four-sided, and with a large head.  They were driven, at a single blow of a hammer, nearly through the centre of the palm, between the third and fourth fingers; and in like manner through each foot a little above the toes and between the third and fourth; the same stroke causing the nail to enter also the wood of the cross.  Felicite gave no signs of sensibility during the operation.  When attached to the cross, she was gay, and converged with whoever addressed her, remaining crucified nearly half an hour.  Morand remarked, that her wounds were not at all bloody, and that very little blood flowed, even when the nails were withdrawn.  See his “Opuscules de Chirurgie,” Partie II. chap. 6.