APPARITION OF SON

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 September 1929, Page 5

APPARITION OF SON

PSYCHIC EXPERIENCE

One of the best attested cases of an apparation at time of death was. that in which the Baroness de Boisleve, a woman of the highest social circles in Paris, figured, writes J. P. Glass ixx the Winnipeg “Free Press.” Oix a March evening the Baroness gave a dinner to a numbei’ of distinguished persons. Hex- guests included M. Devienne, first president of the Supreme Court of Appeals; M. Delesvaux, president of the Civil Tribunal of the Seine, and General Fleury, Equerry in Ordinary to Napoleon 111. It was 1863, the year after France had sent a military expedition to Mexico. Now the Baroness’s son, I-lonore de Boisleve, a lieutenant of light cavalry, had gone out to Mexico with the expedition. She had not heard from him for some time. If one guest interested hex- more than another, you may be sure this was General Fleury, because he might have heard of late

dispatches from across the Atlantic which would give hex’ news of her son. Ho had scarcely entered before she made inquiries. But he had heard nothing. “No news —good news,” says Flammarion, the French ’scientist who latex 1 chronicled the evening’s adventure. Madame de Boisleve aii'.l her guests dined pleasantly, remaining at table in interested conversation until 9 o’clock. There was no thought of disaster.

At 9 o’clock the Baroness left the table and entered the salon to serve coffee. She had scarcely passed through the door when an agonised cry was heard. Her guests pushed back from the table in alarm and rushed into the salon. On the floor, lying in a dead faint, was their hostess. Two of the men lifted her and put her on a couch. Someone brought restoratives. She recovered consciousness and told an amazing story. “As I crossed the threshold,” she said, “I saw Honore standing in his uniform, but without arms and without a cape. His face was deadly pale; he had apparently been shot through the left eye, and blood was trickling down his cheek and upon the embroidery of his coat collar.” The guests listened in astonishment and perhaps a little relief. They hastened to reassure her. “You are the victim of a hallucination/’ they said. The shock, however, was so great that the baroness thought herself dying. ' It was deemed necessary to summon the family physician, Dr. Auguste Nelation, a very famous surgeon of his day. He treated her, with the result that she was physically normal the next day. But she - could not shake off a gloomy foreboding. Every day she went to the War Office for news.

A week later she was informed officially that at ten minutes past 3 in the afternoon of 17th March, Honore de Boisleve had been killed while taking part in the storming of Puebla, a Mexican bullet having entered his left eye and passed through his head:

It was on 17th March that Baroness de Boisleve had had her vision. Allowing for the difference in time between Paris and Mexico, her son’s apparition must have appeared to her just following his death.