Case LXXXVI

"The best proof, my friend, that I can give you of the vanity of dreams, is that I live after the apparition which I had on the 22d of September, 1679. - On that morning I awoke at five o'clock, but slept again directly. I soon dreamed that I was in my bed, and that the covering was withdrawn (an accidental circumstance, but true). I saw one of my relations, who had been dead some years, enter my room; she who was formerly so lively, now looked very sad. She sat down on the foot of my bed, and looked compassionately on me. As in my dream I knew she was dead, I judged by her distressed look that she was about to announce to me some bad news, perhaps death. Indifferent to that event, I said: 'Well, I must then die!' - 'It is true.* - 'When? - 'To-day.' - I own that the time seemed short, but without any fear, I questioned her anew: 'How?' - She murmured some words that I could not catch, and I awoke.

"The importance of so peculiar a dream caused me to examine attentively my situation. I remarked that I was lying on the right side, my body straight out and my hands on my stomach. - I arose to write down my dream, lest I should forget it, and finding that it contained all the circumstances peculiar to divine and mysterious visions, I was no sooner dressed than I went to tell my mother-in-law, that if serious dreams were infallible warnings, in twenty-four hours she would cease to have a son-in-law. I then related to her what had happened; I also repeated it to some of my friends, but without feeling the least alarm or changing my habits, yielding myself to the will of Providence.

"Perhaps, had I been weak enough to believe in this vision, I should really have died, and my fate would have resembled that of the men spoken of by the Greek historian Procopius; I should have lost my life as a punishment for my belief in dreams, a superstition forbidden by God."

Presentiments, then, may be explained in a number of cases by natural causes; but may we not, without being taxed with a leaning towards the marvellous, affirm that there are events that seem to depart from common laws, or that at least depend on connections, hardly understood, between moral and physical laws, on over-excitability of the nervous system, or which are connected with the phenomena of magnetism and somnambulism?

Case LXXXVII

Mademoiselle R. was endowed with excellent judgment and was religious without bigotry. She lived, before her marriage, in the house of her uncle, a noted physician, and member of the Institute. She was thus separated from her mother, who was seized, in the country, with a severe illness. One night, this young person dreamed that she saw her mother, pale, altered, and about to Breathe her last. She was bitterly expressing her grief that she was not surrounded by her children, one of whom, a curate from one of the parishes in Paris, had emigrated to Spain, whilst the other was in Paris. She soon heard herself called by her baptismal name; in her dream she saw the persons who surrounded her mother, imagining that she called her granddaughter, who bore the same name, seek for this girl in the neighbouring square; a sign from the sick woman gave them to understand that it was not her granddaughter, but her daughter, who was in Paris, that she desired to see. Her mother's countenance expressed all the grief that she felt in her absence; suddenly her features fell, and were covered with the paleness of death; she fell lifeless on her bed.

The next day, Mademoiselle It. appeared very sad. To D., who inquired the cause of her grief, she gave the details of the trouble that oppressed her. D., finding her so disturbed, pressed her to his heart, and confessed that it was but too true, that her mother had just died; but entered into no further explanations.

Some months afterwards, Mademoiselle R., profiting by her uncle's absence to arrange his papers, found a letter, which he had thrust into a corner. What was her surprise on reading all the particulars of her dream, which D. had passed over in silence, being unwilling to excite too strong an emotion in a mind already so vividly impressed!

This account was given to us by the person herself, in whose veracity we place the utmost confidence.' We must, doubtless, here exercise a prudent reserve, and the explanation of the dream given by Abercrombie (p. 230) may strictly be used here; but we frankly acknowledge that such explanations are far from satisfying us, and that this subject, to which we have given deep attention, affects some of the profoundest mysteries of our being. Were we to give the names of all the known characters holding a high position in science, with correct judgment and extensive knowledge, who have had these warnings and presentiments, we should find ample matter for reflection.

In support of these remarks, we will give the following anecdote, recorded by Dr. Sigmond, who had it from the widow of M. Colmache, private secretary of M. de Talleyrand: -