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Trunnion, who had been, during eight whole days and nights, in continual expectation of being hailed with the appellation of father. After some recollection, he swore the surgeon was an ignorant fellow, and that he would not take his word for what he advanced, being comforted and confirmed in his want of faith by the insinuations of the midwife, who still persisted to feed Mrs.

Sometimes the child hastens simply by expanding its legs and arms; in which, as in the former case, the woman must rock herself, but not with violence, until she finds those parts fall to their proper station; or it may be done by a gentle compression of the womb; but if neither of them avail, the midwife must close the legs of the infant with her hand, and if she can get there, do the like by the arms, and so draw it forth; but if it can be reduced of itself to the posture of a proper birth it is better.

As the pains produced no result, and the accouchement was of the most difficult nature, while the countess was near the last extremity, expresses were sent to all the neighbouring parishes to offer prayers for the mother and the child; the Holy Sacrament was elevated in the churches at Moulins. The midwife attended to everything herself.

But no sooner did he bestir himself in behalf of the midwife, and pay the expences of the ordinary's licence to set her up, but the whole secret came out; every horse he had lost, and two horses more than ever he had lost, with all the circumstances of their destruction, were known and distinctly remembered. The story ran like wild-fire.

While the bourgeois' republicans were engaged in the Assembly with the work of splicing this Constitution, of discussing and voting, Cavaignac, on the outside, maintained the state of siege of Paris. The state of siege of Paris was the midwife of the constitutional assembly, during its republican pains of travail.

The office of midwife was hereditary in the family of the basket-maker. It belonged to his wife. She might not be competent, but the office was hers, anyway. Her pay was not high 25 cents for a boy, and half as much for a girl. The girl was not desired, because she would be a disastrous expense by and by.

Frequently the village barber acts in the place of a priest and puts on the sacred thread. A similar thread placed around the neck of a child, and often around its waist by the midwife immediately after birth, is intended as an amulet or charm to protect from disease and danger.

I went thither several times to see her, and gave her a cipher which I had made double upon two cards; one of them was put into the linen of the child, and by the midwife deposited with the infant in the office of the foundling hospital according to the customary form.

But the woman, who was gravida, was straightway taken in labour from the fright; and my child was scarce out of the pigsty when the woman went into her cottage, wailing and holding by the wall, and called together all the woman of the neighbourhood, seeing that the proper midwife was dead, as mentioned above; and before long something shot to the ground from under her; and when the women stooped down to pick it up, the devil's imp, which had wings like a bat, flew up off the ground, whizzed and buzzed about the room, and then shot out of the window with a great noise, so that the glass clattered down into the street.

The countess and Madame de Bouille followed him, and there they chanced to encounter Louise Goillard, the midwife. This woman renewed her acquaintance with the house, and in particular often visited the Marchioness de Bouille. One day the countess, unexpectedly entering the marchioness's room, found them both conversing in an undertone. They stopped talking immediately, and appeared disconcerted.