pages: practicalmagicia00harr.pdf, 83
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practicalmagicia00harr.pdf | 83 | THE PRACTICAL MAGICIAN. 73 in his countenance be discovered. But he observed that M. St. Gille presented only the profile of his face to him while he was speaking as a ventriloquist. On another occasion, M. St. Gille sought for shelter from a storm in a neighboring convent ; and finding the community in mourning, and inquiring the cause, he was told that one of their body, much esteemed by them, had lately died. Some of their rc- ligious attended him to the church, and showing him the tomb of their deceased brother, spoke very feelingly of the scanty hon- ors that had been bestowed on his memory, when suddenly, a voice was heard, apparently proceeding from the roof of the choir, lamenting the situation of the defunct in purgatory, and reproaching the brotherhood with their want of zeal on his ac- count. The whole community being afterwards convened in the church, the voice from the roof renewed its lamentations and rc- proaches, and the whole convent fell on their faces, and vowed a solemn reparation. Accordingly, they first chanted a De profun- dis in full choir ; during the intervals of which the ghost occa- sionally expressed the comfort he received from their pious exercises and ejaculations in his bchalf. The prior, when this religious service was concluded, entered into a serious conversa- tion with M. St. Gille, and inveighed against the .incredulity of our modern sceptics and pretended philosophers on the article of ghosts and apparitions ; and St. Gille found it difficult to convince the fathers that the whole was a deception. M. St. Gille, in 1771, submitted his attainments in this direction to several experiments before MM. Leroy and Fouchy, Commis- sioners of the Royal Academy of Sciences, and other persons of exhalted rank, in order to demonstrate that his mimicry was so perfect as to reach the point of complete illusion. For this purpose a report was circulated that a spirit's voice had been licard at times in the envions of St. Germain, and that the commission was appointed to verify the fact. The company, with the exception of one lady, were apprised of the real nature of the case, the in- tention being to test the strength of the illusion upon her. The arrangement was that they should dine together in the country, in the open air ; and while they were at table, the lady was ad- dressed in a supernatural voice, now coming from the top of adjoining trees, then descending until it approached her, next re- ceding and plunging into the ground, wherei it ceased. For up- wards of two hours was this startling continued with such adroitness that she was convinced the voice belonged to a person from another world, and subsequent explanation failed to convince her to the contrary. M. Alexandre, the famous ventriloquist, had an extraordinary facility in counterfeiting all the expressions of countenance and bodily conditions common to humanity. When in London, his mimetic powers, which he was fond of exercising both in pub- |