N article in le Libéral informed the town of?… that it possessed¹ a prophetess. This was Mademoiselle Claude Deniseau, daughter of a man who kept a registry for country servants. Up to the age of seventeen Mademoiselle Deniseau had not revealed to the closest observer any abnormality of mind or body. She was a fair, fat, short girl, neither pretty nor ugly, but pleasant and of a lively disposition². “She had received,” said le Libéral, “a good middle-class education, and she was religious without bigotry³.” At the beginning of her eighteenth year, on the 3rd of February, 189–, at six o’clock in the evening, being engaged in laying the cloth on the table in the dining-room, she thought she heard her mother’s voice saying, “Claudine, go to your room.” She went there and between the bed and the door she perceived a bright light, and heard a voice which spoke⁴ from the light, saying: “Claudine, this country must do penance⁵, for that will ward⁶ off great90 misfortunes. I am Saint Radegonde, Queen of France.” Mademoiselle Deniseau then descried⁷ in the splendour a luminous⁸ and, as it were, transparent⁹ face that wore a crown of gold and gems¹⁰.

 

After that Saint Radegonde came every day to converse¹¹ with Mademoiselle Deniseau, to whom she revealed secrets and made prophecies. She had

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