Observations placeholder

Flammarion, C., Carroll, L,
Death and its mystery: before death, proofs of the existence of the soul

… which was sent to me in August, 1904, by Monsieur A. d'Argy Commissioner of the Marine, in retreat at La Rochelle, who begged me not to reveal the names.

Madame S- of La Rochelle was living in 1887, in the Vendée, with her family. At the time she was engaged to Monsieur T-. There was an intense reciprocal affection, and an active correspondence.

One night, toward eleven o'clock Madame S- awoke, hearing herself called despairingly by her given name. She recognized the voice instantly and felt a breath on her face. Mechanically she put out a hand to see what it was, thinking that some one was actually there.

She felt nothing, she saw nothing. Very much frightened, she called her mother, who was sleeping in another room, and told her about her disturbing hallucination. She had at the same time an intense feeling of some misfortune which had just come to pass far down in the Basse-Pyrénées. She wrote the next morning to her fiancé, but received no reply. The letters that followed met with the same fate. Several months passed without any news. Then Madame S- Iearned, by chance, that her friend had been taken to prison that very night, on very grave charges, to avoid creating a scandal in a little town. A doctor who accompanied the unfortunate man testified that, overwhelmed and seeing all his chances for happiness disappear, he called upon his fiancée in a despairing voice.

Their relations were broken forever. Monsieur T, who married later into another family, died three or four years ago.

This tale is scrupulously exact.

Argy.  (Letter 1068.)