Dr. Spangenberg mentioned further, that at the time of his consulting Lenormand, he was for the first time of his life at Paris; that he had no mind to consult her, but had been teased into doing so by Monsieur de Pful and other friends. He had never before been in the neighborhood of her house, had never seen her until that day, and, at his visit, told her neither his name nor his circumstances, nor suffered anything to escape him which could have served her as a clue.

Malchus was at length prevailed on to visit the divineress; the following is his account of the visit, which we give in his own words :

"All this at length overcame the repugnance 1 felt towards a sybil of this species, and I determined to go, intending however to put the reality of her miraculous knowledge to every test in my power.

to her house on foot.

-that he would be emperor, that his wife (Josephine) was his guardian angel, that he would for a time reign and make war prosperously, but afterwards become unfortunate, subsequently be overcome and dethroned, and at last die in exile-all this, Malchus considers, could have been only conjecture; at least no one knew anything certain about it. It struck him more, he said, that the Countess Bocholz (whoever she was) was more than once very pressing with him to feel the pulse of the fates, and protested to him that Lenormand had told her circumstances out of her past life, which it had given her a positive thrill of terror to hear, they being things known almost to no human being, and of which Lenormand could by no earthly chance have been informed. Many others of his most intimate friends spoke in the same way, but there was nobody that so much aroused his curi"I was glad to find that the street in which she osity, respecting this singular woman, as lived, and even the quarter of the town in which Dr. Spangenberg, the queen's (what it was situated, was one in which I had never queen's) physician. This personage, who been. I put on a threadbare cast-off surtout, and is described by Malchus as a particularly a very shabby old hat, got into a fiacre, and drove dry, clear-headed man, who brought every- to the Faubourg St. Germain, alighted before turnthing to the bar of reason, and admitted ing the corner of the Rue Tournon, and proceeded nothing that was not susceptible of mathe-was opened by a little girl, who might be about On my ringing, the door matical proof, assured him, just as every fourteen years of age. I asked for Mlle. Lenorone else did, that it was perfectly incom- mand, and received answer that she would scarcely prehensible what this woman knew, and be able to speak with me just then, as she was excould tell one. To him, as well as to the tremely busy. Very well,' said I; ask her Countess Bocholz, she had presented the when I may call again? After a few moments, picture of his earlier life, in its leading out- the child returned with the answer, Next Saturlines, with the greatest fidelity, reminding day, any time after twelve o'clock.' I expressed my wish that she would appoint the hour herself, him of many things which, even in Meck- as I had, I said, abundance of leisure, so that it lenburg (his native country), very few peo- was equal to me at what time I came, and I was ple were aware of, and which, here in Paris, anxious that her reception of me should interfere no human soul could know. Also with res-with no other engagement. The little maid disappect to the present and the paulo-post-peared and presently there came out of the adjoinfuture, she had said things to him, which were true, or had since become true, to a degree that was enough to drive one mad. For instance-" he would in eight days' time receive very interesting intelligence, through an old friend, respecting affairs in his own country, but the bringer of this intelligence would die two days after." He and his friends, with whom he was livSaturday came, and 1 was there (in the same ing at Compiegne, had several times joked dress) punctually at three o'clock, was again reabout this, and wondered when the messen-ceived by the little maid, and requested to wait a ger, who was to die two days after deliver- few moments, as somebody was just then with ing his message, would make his appear- Mlle. Lenormand. About ten minutes might have ance. At last, on the eighth day, the actor passed, when the door of the cabinet opened, and Narcisse, who had spent a considerable time young woman, supported by a man under the at Cassel, and elsewhere in Germany, armiddle age, came out, weeping so excessively, that rived, and brought him several pieces of tears, and giving utterance to the most heart-pierc one could literally have washed oneself in her news which were of great interest for him, ing lamentations. Her companion did everything but-two days after Narcisse died. possible to assuage her grief, reminded her that

ing chamber a woman advanced in years, and, I her appearance, her eyes glancing about her not exactly with fire, but still with an expression of uncommon intelligence and subtlety. Coming straight up to me, and giving me no time to speak, she put a card into my hand, and, with the words, Samedi, trois heures, monsieur,' disappeared again into her cabinet: she hardly saw me half a second and I had not opened my lips in her presence.

must confess, not without somewhat witch-like in

a

66

the thing, after all, had not been infallibly declared, that the question still remained, whether it would really come to pass,' and so on. There must something terrible have been said to the poor soul.

"I was now ushered in, and made to sit down near the sorceress, at a table that stood by the sofa. As I had heard that, when asked only for the petit jeu (which cost two napoleons), she left out many details, in her sketch of the past, the present, and the future, I at once signified my desire to have the grand jeu, of which four napoleons is the price.

"She then asked me

"1. The initial letter of my Christian name. "2. That of my surname.

"3. Of my country.

"4. Of the place of my

birth.

5. My age to be given with as much exactitude as was in my power: it so happened that I could state it even to the hour, and did so. "6. The name of my favorite flower. "7. The name of my favorite animal. "8. The name of the animal to which I had the greatest repugnance.

tinies. She spoke very rapidly, and as if reading out of a book; and I observed that if, in running on, she happened to revert a second time to anything already mentioned, she stated it in the very same words as at first-in short, exactly as if she were reading it again out of the book.

"Of my past history, she told me, to my infinite astonishment, much that I myself had almost forgotten, which, probably, there was no one in my own country that knew or remembered, and which most certainly was known to nobody at Paris.

Among other things, she said-' You have more than once been in peril of life; in particular, within your first five years, you had a narrow escape of drowning.'

"Who told her that in my fourth year I fell into the great pond at Schwetzingen?

"More than once you have been in danger of losing your life by fire.'

66

This, too, is true.

"You were born in circumstances which did not offer you the prospect of high station in the world; nevertheless, you have attained it. Very early in life you began to labor for distinction of some sort; you were not yet five-and twenty when you first entered the service of the state, but it was in a very subordinate position.'

"How did she find out that I received my first official appointment at nineteen?

"Upon this, she took, in addition to some seven packs of cards which already lay on the table, seven packs more, making in all fourteen packs. They were, however, of very different kinds; for instance, Tarok-cards, old German cards, whist "Then she proceeded to reckon up to me a cards, cards marked with the celestial bodies, cards multitude of particulars of my past life, in partiwith necromantic figures, and I know not what all-cular placing the different sections of it before me besides. She now shuffled one pack after an- in so definite and distinct a manner, that I began other, giving me each pack, after she had shuffled to feel a kind of horror creeping over me, as if I it, to cut. Naturally, I was going to do this with had been in the presence of a spirit. the right hand, but she prevented me, and said, La main gauche, monsieur.' To try whether she said this merely to mystify me, or would seriously make a point of it, I cut the second pack with the left hand, but took the right again to the third; but she interposed instantly, and repeated, La main gauche, monsieur.' Out of each pack, after cutting, I had to draw (still with the left hand) a certain number of cards, prescribed by her; not the same number out of each pack, but from one more, from another less: from the Tarok cards, for instance, twenty-five; from another pack, six; from a third, ten; and so on. The cards thus drawn she arranged in a certain order on the table all the rest were put aside.

:

"She then took my left hand, and surveyed it very attentively, taking particular notice of all its lines and intersections. After a little while, she commenced counting the lines upwards and downwards, and from side to side, pronouncing at the same time the names of the heavenly bodies. At length, she opened a great necromantic book which lay near her, and in which were drawn an immense variety of hands, with all their linear marks: these drawings she compared carefully, one after another, with my hand, till she found one that was marked in a similar way. Then, turning to the cards arranged on the table, she studied them with great intentness, went from one to another, numbering and calculating very busily, till at last she began to speak, and to tell me, out of the cards before her, my past, present, and future des

"With respect to the last section but one (my taking office in Westphalia), she remarked, that it had not at first appeared likely to become very brilliant, but that circumstances had soon OCcurred, which had given it such a character. "Of the present she spoke with the same accuracy.

Of the future, some things that she said were characterized by a true Sibylline obscurity, or might have been compared to that Pythian utterance, If Croesus crosses the Phasis, a great kingdom will fall.' Some things, on the other hand, she expressed in a clear and unambiguous manner, and they have proved true.

"For example, she said, You are in great anxiety about your family'-which indeed I was, for I knew that my wife and children had got in safety as far as Elsen, but whether they had got happily to Hildesheim, and if so, how matters stood with them there, I knew not- but,' proceeded the sorceress, 'you may be tranquil on this score, for in eight days you will receive a letter, which will indeed contain various things not agreeable to you, but will relieve you of all uneasiness on your family's account.'

"In effect, by the eighth day I received a letter from my wife, which acquainted me that she and the children were well, but of which the remaining contents were by no means of a character to give me pleasure.

"Within the next eight days I should four times successively obtain accounts of the state of

things in my native country, and on one occasion] should hear very minute particulars respecting my family.

"After three weeks I revisited the house of Mlle. Lenormand, but found her engaged, and heard from the little maid that, with the best will in the "This was said on the 28th of March. Two world, she had not yet been able to make out time days after, the allies entered Paris, an event the to write what I wished for; but, if I would come most unexpected to all its citizens. About six days again in four days, it should positively be ready. after, I went to walk on the Boulevards; a person "I was glad of this delay; the test, I thought, in the uniform of the Prussian artillery came ea- would be all the severer, whether she really read gerly up to me, and to my astonishment I recog- the same things in the cards, this second time, that nised Monsieur N., who had lived with us a short she did three or four weeks before, or whether she time before at Compiegne, had then returned to only recalled, by an effort of memory, what she Hildesheim, and joined the Prussians, and was had said to me on a former occasion. I therefore now come direct from Hildesheim to Paris, conse-quitted the house with pleasure, and returned after quently had no end of things to tell me about my four days. Mlle. Lenormand was gone out. The family, whom he had seen and spoken with. A little maid excused this on the score of urgent little after, I met Monsieur Delius, formerly prefect of Göttingen, and, in short, I really, in the course of eight days, had news from Germany just four times. "She proceeded- You will not remain long in France, but will return to your own country, where you will at first have to encounter a host of annoyances, some of them trifling, some grave. You will be arrested, but speedily restored to liberty.'

"All this took place here in Heidelberg. "She now said very distinctly, that before the 23d of November, 1814, I should receive an important decision, but one very unacceptable to me. In effect, on the 21st of that month, I received the letter of the Hanoverian minister, Count Munster, conveying to me the determination of his government on my claim to the estate of Marienrode: the purport of this determination was, that my claim was rejected, but the appeal, which I spoke of, to the Congress of Vienna left open to me.

"Your destiny,' she added, will, for the next three years, be but precarious and unstable: and you will not find yourself in prosperous circumstances again until 1817.'

"When she had completely finished, I wished to have the whole written down (this costs a napoleon more), as it interested me too much to allow of my trusting the retention of it solely to memory. Much,' said I, of what you have said to me, respecting my past life, has put me in no small astonishment.'

« Ah! replied she, drily, c'est bien fait pour

cela.

"She had no objection to write it all down for me, but assured me that she had more to do than could be told, and must, therefore, request of me three things. First, that I would write down for her the three answers above mentioned; secondly, that I would not require her to go into the past and the present at such length as she had done in her verbal communication; and, thirdly, that 1 would give her three weeks' time, before coming for the paper. That will be the easier for you to do,' said she, as you will remain two months longer at Paris. This struck me much, because, in the position I then occupied, and under the political rcumstances existing, I could not engage to be at raris three days.

"Surement,' repeated she, as she observed my perplexed looks; vous resterez encore deux mois à Paris.

"And in this also she was right! I remained at Paris just two months longer, and no more.

business, begged me in her mistress's name, to enter the cabinet, and opening a drawer, showed me a paper intended for me, but which was not yet quite finished. I read it through, as far as it went, and found that it already contained about two-thirds of what the sorceress had said to met orally. Errors there were none, and the little variations from what I had heard near four weeks before from her, were of the most inconsiderable nature.

"In four days more, the little maid assured me, the manuscript should, without fail, be ready. In effect it was so, and corresponded accurately with what she had spoken more than four weeks before. Yet how many nativities might she not have cast in the interval! How many men's destinies must have thrust mine out of her recollection! I went purposely, from the time of my first visit to her till my departure from Paris, into her neighborhood several times, and always found one or more carriages standing before her house, which had brought persons desirous of learning their destiny at the lips of Mlle. Lenormand."

We offer no opinion on the above, except "True" we must that it is "curious." presume it, coming, as it does, not from a professional inditer of fugitive romance, but from a grave man, with a character to lose-a man of arithmetic and red tape, and such solid realities of life-whose only flight of imagination, that we can find any trace of, was that very high, but very brief one, of accepting the office of "liquidator of the national debt." Somebody has called chiromancy a monstrum nulla virtute redemptum." It may be so; still these coincidences (to use a word without much meaning) are strange. Malchus was not the only celebrated person of the last generation whose horoscope Lenormand structed: Talma, Madame de Stael, Mlle. George, and numerous other notabilities of that age, also had occasion to acknowledge that her predictions were not thrown out at random; and it is but a few years since the accomplishment of a prophecy of hers, respecting Horace Vernet, delivered in 1807, when he was a child. This was to the effect that he would, in about thirty years

con

66 Tribet vowed and swore he would be the most

regular, the most staid of men, and would suffer no degree of prosperity to intoxicate him; as for play, he bound himself by a solemn oath to avoid it, and to apply his gains in the lottery solely to his family's good. Well,' said Lenormand, I will tell you the numbers. I will even let you know that one of them denotes the year of your death-it is 28; another is 13, your name-festival, and a third 66, the number of your star. There is still another number, which is full of good luck for you, but-you once wounded yourself in the left hand on the stage with a pistol, while playing the part of a brigand.'

from that time, stand in such high considera- | ed Lenormand, represented that his happiness was tion as an artist, that the king would send in her hands; that he was poor, helpless, the fahim to Africa, to paint the storming of ther of ten children, whom it was not in his power even to educate, and for whose future prospects a fortress there by the French army; a he was in despair. At last the sybil looked on prediction which was literally fulfilled in him with a grave aspect, and said, "Do not de1839. It is also asserted, as something sire to know your numbers; it is true that they generally known, that she foretold Murat will be drawn in the next tirage at Paris, but they the place and the hour of his death, twenty will bring you far greater evils than you now Seduced by the first smile years before that event. People will tell have to contend with. us, these were all "coincidences;" which of fortune, you will become a passionate gambler; in your elated means, if it means anything, that the event you will neglect your art, renounce, folly, the profession that insures you bread, aban"coincided" with the prediction. Quite don your wife and your children, play again, and true; the event did coincide with the pre-again play, and not cease playing, until, beggared, diction, and here is just the wonder. If maddened, and lost irretrievably, you will only there had been no "coincidence"-that is, hasten, by suicide, a death already creeping if the prophecy had not been fulfilled-there towards you by starvation.' would have been no mystery in the case. But the certainty with which Lenormand divined the lucky numbers in the lottery, is said to have thrown all her other oracular exploits into the shade. The following anecdotes, illustrative of her gift in this way, are told by Doctor Weisskampf, who had them from Colonel Favier, at Paris :Mile. L. once declared to the celebrated comic actor, Polier, that one, two, or even three prizes, were assigned by destiny, generally speaking, to every man; but that she could not tell when and where any particular person's fortunate numbers would be drawn, without inspecting such person's hand. She said, further, that if she could collect about her all the individuals to whom fortune is favorably disposed, all the lotteries of all Europe would not be able to pay the immense winnings they would have to claim. Potier very naturally desired to know what were his own fortunate numbers. Mlle. L. contemplated his left hand, and said, Mark the numbers, 9, 11, 37, and 85; stake on these but not sooner than sixteen years hence in the imperial lottery at Lyons, and you will obtain a quatern. This was in 1810; in 1826, Potier remembered it; the drawing at Lyons took place in May; he staked on the four numbers the sorceress had named, and chose for himself a fifth, the number of his birth-day, 27; and Paris talks yet of the sensation produced when the five numbers Potier had set his money on were drawn. He won 250,000 francs, a sum which made a rich man of him, and by which he sprang, as it were, into the arms of fortune; his wealth increased from day to day, and when he died (which was in May, 1840), his heirs divided a million and a half among them.

666

I did so-it is just twelve years since.' "Well, that number is, since then, no longer to be traced in your hand.'

"But I know it,' exclaimed Tribet; it is 7. That has been a remarkable number to me all my life. At seven years of age I came to Paris; seven weeks after my arrival here I was received into the Royal Institute to be educated; seven years after I entered the Institute, Nicci noticed me there, and, finding that I had an ear for music, took me as a pupil; when I was just three times seven years old, I fell in love, married, and obtained, through Nicci, an appointment at the Royal Opera, with a salary of seven hundred livres. Finally, it is a man who lives at No. 7, on the Boulevard, that advised me to come to you. Without a doubt, seven is my fortunate number.'

666

Good: choose, then, 7 for your quatern; very likely this number also will win.'

"Tribet staggered from her presence like one drunk with joy. But he had not money enough to stake a large sum, and the prophetess had declared, as she did in all cases, that it would not do to stake borrowed money. The poor actor had only twenty francs in the world-he went and "Potier's good luck reached the ears of Tribet, an- staked the whole sum. The day of the tirage arother actor, a man to whom nature had been some-rived, and Tribet's four numbers came out of the what chary of talent, but, to make amends, extreme- wheel; not one failed-and the man who but the ly liberal in the matter of children. He flew to Mlle. day before had not a sou, found himself the posLenormand-she declined to give him any informa-sessor of ninety-six thousand francs! Who can tion; he besought her on his knees, but she continued inflexible; he supplicated, he conjured her, she perused his hand, but only shook her head in silence, sighed, and left him. Tribet was out of his senses at this silence of the oracle-he follow

describe his happiness? He ran through the streets without his hat; he embraced friends and enemies; he told every one he met that he was become a capitalist; he was so wild that he took a box at the theatre to see Tribet play;' in short,