"This first circumstance being found true, and in the same manner as de Précy had said, those to whom he had related the adventure began to think that there might be something in it, because Rambouillet having been killed precisely the eve of the day he had said it, it was impossible de Précy should have known of it in a natural way. This event having spread in Paris, they thought it was the effect of a disturbed imagination, or a made up story; and whatever might be said by the persons who examined the thing seriously, there remained in people's minds a suspicion, which time alone could disperse: this depended on what might happen to the Marquis de Précy, who was threatened that he should be slain in the first engagement; thus every one regarded his fate as the dénouement of the piece; but he soon confirmed everything they had doubted the truth of, for as soon as he recovered from his illness he would go to the combat of St. Antoine, although his father and mother, who were afraid of the prophecy, said all they could to prevent him; he was killed there, to the great regret of all his family.
"Supposing all these circumstances to be true, this is what I should say to counteract the deductions that some wish to derive from them.
"It is not difficult to understand that the imagination of the Marquis de Précy, heated by fever, and troubled by the recollection of the promise that the Marquis de Rambouillet and himself had exchanged, may have represented to itself the phantom of his friend, whom he knew to be fighting, and in danger every moment of being killed. The circumstances of the wound of the Marquis de Rambouillet, and the prediction of the death of de Précy, which was fulfilled, appears more serious: nevertheless, those who have experienced the power of presentiments, the effects of which are so common every day, will easily conceive that the Marquis de Précy, whose mind, agitated by a burning fever, followed his friend in all the chances of war, and expected continually to see announced to himself by the phantom of his friend what was to happen, may have imagined that the Marquis de Rambouillet had been killed by a musket-shot in the side, and that the ardor which he himself felt for war might prove fatal to him in the first action. We shall see by the words of St. Augustine, which I shall cite by-and-by, how fully that Doctor of the Church was persuaded of the power of imagination, to which he attributes the knowledge of things to come. I shall again establish the authority of presentiments by a most singular instance.
"A lady of talent, whom I knew particularly well, being at Chartres, where she was residing, dreamt in the night that in her sleep she saw Paradise, which she fancied to herself was a magnificent hall, around which were in different ranks the angels and spirits of the blessed, and God, who presided in the midst, on a shining throne. She heard some one knock at the door of this delightful place; and St. Peter having opened it, she saw two pretty children, one of them clothed in a white robe, and the other quite naked. St. Peter took the first by the hand and led him to the foot of the throne, and left the other crying bitterly at the door. She awoke at that moment, and related her dream to several persons, who thought it very remarkable. A letter which she received from Paris in the afternoon informed her that one of her daughters was brought to bed with two children, who were dead, and only one of them had been baptized.
"Of what may we not believe the imagination capable, after so strong a proof of its power? Can we doubt that amongst all the pretended apparitions that are related, imagination alone produces all those which do not proceed from angels and blessed spirits, or which are not the effect of fraudulent contrivance?
"To explain more fully what has given rise to those phantoms, the apparition of which has been published in all ages, without availing myself of the ridiculous opinion of the skeptics, who doubt of everything, and assert that our senses, however sound they may be, can only imagine everything falsely, I shall remark that the wisest amongst the philosophers maintain that deep melancholy, anger, frenzy, fever, depraved or debilitated senses, whether naturally, or by accident, can make us see and hear many things which have no foundation.
"Aristotle says[[668]] that in sleep the interior senses act by the local movement of the humors and the blood, and that this action descends sometimes to the sensitive organs, so that on awaking, the wisest persons think they see the images they have dreamt of.
"Plutarch, in the Life of Brutus, relates that Cassius persuaded Brutus that a spectre which the latter declared he had seen on waking, was an effect of his imagination; and this is the argument which he puts in his mouth:—
"'The spirit of man being extremely active in its nature, and in continual motion, which produces always some fantasy; above all, melancholy persons, like you, Brutus, are more apt to form to themselves in the imagination ideal images, which sometimes pass to their external senses.'
"Galen, so skilled in the knowledge of all the springs of the human body, attributes spectres to the extreme subtility of sight and hearing.