A NEW SLEEPING BEAUTY.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1579, 4 March 1887, Page 3

A NEW SLEEPING BEAUTY.

A singular case of lethargy is reported from the French village of Thenelle, in the department of Aisne, of which a picturesque account is given in the Independancc Beige. Close to the village drinking fountain there is a little red cottage in which since June 1, 1883, Marguerite Boyenval has lain in a deep lethargic sleep. The cottage consists of two rooms; in one the family lives, in the other, which is cold and damp, the sleeping girl is lying. A feeble light falls through the curtains of the only window looking upon a little garden. Like the pictures of pale saints in a Greek c'lurch, the figure of the young girl is set off against the white bedclothes. Her eyes are closed. Does she dream ? Does she think? Her beautiful face is quite calm. Sometimes her mother opens the heavy eyes, at which the girl seems to become troubled in her sleep, and her cheeks become slightly tinged with colour. Marguerite is dressed in an Indian costume. Her hands are cold as those of a corpse ; she is very thin ; her breathing is scarcely perceptible, and she is fed on nothing but peptone. During the three years that Bhe has been in this state of lethargy she has never been troubled by any indisposition, and she does not seem to grow a day older. A committee of special physicians is just about to make a careful investigation of the case.