lively impression upon her mind, and she preserves to this day the most consoling remembrance of it. It is from her that we have these details, through the favour of the venerable Abbe L., who was curate at Ardoye when these facts occurred.
The celebrated Father Lacordaire, in the beginning of the conferences on the immortality of the soul, which he addressed a few years before his death to the pupils of Soreze, related to them the following incident: —
The Polish prince of X., an avowed infidel and materialist, had just composed a work against the immortality of the soul. He was on the point of sending it to press, when one day walking in his park, a woman bathed in tears threw herself at his feet, and in accents of profound grief said to him, " My good Prince, my husband has just died. ... At this moment his soul is perhaps suffering in Purgatory. ... I am in such poverty that I have not even the small sum required to have a Mass celebrated for the dead. In your kindness come to my assistance in behalf of my poor husband."
Although the gentleman was convinced that the woman was deceived by her credulity, he had not courage to refuse her. He slipped a gold piece into her hand, and the happy woman hastened to the church, and begged the priest to offer some Masses for the repose of her husband's soul. Five days later, towards evening, the prince, in the seclusion of his study, was reading over his manuscript and retouching some details, when, raising his eyes, he saw, close to him, a man dressed in the costume of the peasants of the country. " Prince," said the unknown visitor, " I come to thank you. I am the husband of that poor woman who besought you the other day to give her an alms, that she might have the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered for the repose of my soul. Your charity was pleasing to God: it was He who permitted me to come and thank you."
