senses she did not know who had lowered her outstretched arms. It was
with astonishment that she beheld blood flowing from the palms of her
hands, and felt violent pain in her feet and side. It happened that her
landlady's little daughter came into her room, saw her hands bleeding,
and ran to tell her mother, who with great anxiety asked Anne Catherine
what had happened, but was begged by her not to speak about it. She
felt, after having received the stigmas, that an entire change had
taken place in her body; for the course of her blood seemed to have
changed, and to flow rapidly towards the stigmas. She herself used to
say: 'No words can describe in what manner it flows.'

We are indebted to a curious incident for our knowledge of the
circumstances which we have here related. On the 15th December 1819,
she had a detailed vision of all that had happened to herself, but so
that she thought it concerned some other nun who she imagined must be
living not far off, and who she supposed had experienced the same
things as herself. She related all these details with a very strong
feeling of compassion, humbling herself, without knowing it, before her
own patience and sufferings. It was most touching to hear her say: 'I
ought never to complain anymore, now that I have seen the sufferings of
that poor nun; her heart is surrounded with a crown of thorns, but she
bears it placidly and with a smiling countenance. It is shameful indeed
for me to complain, for she had a far heavier burden to bear than I
have.'

These visions, which she afterwards recognised to be her own
history, were several times repeated, and it is from them that the
circumstances under which she received the stigmas became known.
Otherwise she would not have related so many particulars about what her
humility never permitted her to speak of, and concerning which, when