The following case is a much harder exercise in belief. It is
narrated by the Duc de Saint Simon. {62} The events were described to
Saint Simon on the day after their occurrence by the Duc d'Orleans,
then starting for Italy, in May, 1706. Saint Simon was very intimate
with the duke, and they corresponded by private cypher without
secretaries. Owing to the death of the king's son and grandson (not
seen in the vision), Orleans became Regent when Louis XIV. died in
1714. Saint Simon is a reluctant witness, and therefore all the
better.

THE DEATHBED OF LOUIS XIV.

"Here is a strange story that the Duc d'Orleans told me one day in a
tete-a-tete at Marly, he having just run down from Paris before he
started for Italy; and it may be observed that all the events
predicted came to pass, though none of them could have been foreseen
at the time. His interest in every kind of art and science was very
great, and in spite of his keen intellect, he was all his life subject
to a weakness which had been introduced (with other things) from Italy
by Catherine de Medici, and had reigned supreme over the courts of her
children. He had exercised every known method of inducing the devil
to appear to him in person, though, as he has himself told me, without
the smallest success. He had spent much time in investigating matters
that touched on the supernatural, and dealt with the future.

"Now La Sery (his mistress) had in her house a little girl of eight or
nine years of age, who had never resided elsewhere since her birth.
She was to all appearance a very ordinary child, and from the way in
which she had been brought up, was more than commonly ignorant and