Medical men who have given especial attention to the subject of mental
aberrations are well aware that periodical madness is of not unfrequent
occurrence. In some cases the illness appears several times in the year,
in others at only particular seasons of the year. I know at Fribourg an
old lady who for thirty years past has regularly presented herself at the
door of the asylum. At her own request they place her in confinement;
then the unhappy woman every night passes through the terrible scenes of
the French Revolution, of which she was a witness in her youth. She
trembles in the hands of the executioner; she fancies herself drenched
with the blood of the victims; she weeps and cries aloud incessantly. In
the course of a few weeks the mind returns to its wonted seat, and she is
restored to liberty with the full expectation that she will return again
in a year.
"The Count of Nideck is suffering from a similar attack," I said;
"unknown chains unite his fate with that of the Black Plague. Who can
tell?" thought I; "that woman once was young, perhaps beautiful!"
And my imagination, once launched, carried me into the interesting
regions of romance; but I was careful to tell no one what I thought.
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