Paris, Jan, 8, very: curious event, showing the survival in modern France of superstitions worthy of the Middle Ages, has just taken place at the village of Bombon, about 25 south of Paris. The parish priest, the Abbé Desnoyers, who is 55 years of age, was attacked in his vestry, just after he had celebrated mass, by two men and ten women who had come all the way from Bordeaux for the express purpose of custigating him. They tore off shoes, stockings and. breeches, held him' down. on the floor, and. thrashed him with knotted. ropes for a quarter of an hour, The congregation did not dare to interfere, but somebody fetched a gendarme, on whose appearance the assailant released their victim and struck up "Magnificat" in' token of War Widow They are members of a sect known as "Notre Dame der Pleurs," which has for its high priestess a woman named Marie Mesmin, and they acted under the conviction that the priest had east a spell over her and had also bewitched other members of the sect. One member of the party, a Mme, Report, the widow of an officer who fell' on active service, wag quite convinced that her husband lost his life through the abbé's incantations. She had Visions of her husband running slong and trying to catch his own head, which had been blown off by a shell, One of the two men in the peditionary force was much agitated because he had left his hat in the church, "While that priest Possession of something belonging to nie, he will be able to cast all sorts of spells over me," he exe ned. During the flogaing, the two" men, who are by no me uneducated, one being a cashire fand the other a clerk in the employ, of the Bordeaux municipal. coune addressed their victim as. "Satan, both being convinced that" ho Possessed demoniacal powers,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.