instruction. His bright promise was, however,
obscured by a little cloud. Sister Milanie
gave him sixty francs to buy books of theology
and piety, but soon afterwards his
devout protectress was shocked at learning
that, among the books he had bought, were
copies of Racine and Molière. Some persons
deemed this fault a theft, and it was described
as such in the journals, when he had brought
down upon himself the public indignation. On
leaving school, a priest received him into his
house as his secretary; and he entered into
holy orders, becoming successively a deacon
and a priest. He was soon afterwards sent to
serve the parish of Guercheville.

The police found among his papers a thick
copybook entitled, "Notes sur l'Abbé Verger."
In these notes he complains of his first
parishioners refusing to pay him his dues,
saying, "These fellows would willingly have
paid me with cudgellings." From Guercheville
he passed to Jouarre, and thence rapidly
to Bailly-Canois. Le Droit says he was
obliged to decamp by a furtive removal from
this curacy to escape the seizure of his goods
on the loss of a lawsuit with a waggoner. "In
consequence of this affair, and after useless
efforts to obtain admission among the clergy
of Paris, tired of struggling, he went to London,
and was received into the number of the
French clergy, assisting Bishop Wiseman in
the work of the Catholic propaganda."

Returning from England, he was kindly
received by the Abbé Legrand, the curé at
Neuilly, who had become the curé of Saint
Germain l'Auxerrois. The English propaganda
being the grand affair of the Roman
Catholic Church, Monsieur l'Abbé Verger rose
to the dignity of cross-bearer in the chapel
of the Tuileries. His position inspired him
with ambitious dreams. The handsome young
priest who leads the processions bearing aloft
the cross, might indeed reasonably hope, in
due course of time, to close the processions as
an aged bishop, carrying the crozier.

Subservience, the feelers and feet needful
for all ambitious locomotion, was, however
—as the purchase of Racine and Molière
early indicated— wanting in this young
priest. He wrote, printed and tried to
publish, pamphlets, which were seized and
condemned, against the celibacy of the
clergy. The curé of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois
accused him of calumniating his brethren.
Verger lost his place. He fell into
debt; and, in a letter to a tradesman from
whom he had received some bedding on
credit, he wrote, " The difficulties created for
me by the curé of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois
having left me without resources, the
expenses of legal proceedings would fall upon
my creditor; nevertheless, if you will take
my mattress, come— I shall not oppose you."
He wearied the Archbishop and clergy with
solicitations for employment; but without effect.
And one day he appeared upon the steps of
the splendid church of the Madelaine— which
is always frequented by English visitors—in
the attitude of a beggar, with a paper upon
his breast bearing this inscription: "Have
pity upon me; I am a suspended priest, and
I am dying of hunger." An English lady
who relieved him, a neighbour of mine, was
struck with his appearance. The commissary
of police, before whom he was brought for the
offence, perceived in him a superior kind of
man.

Archbishop Sibour disembarrassed himself
of the Abbé Verger by giving him a
recommendation to the Bishop of Meaux. The
beggar from the steps of the Madelaine was
appointed curé of the parish of Seris; but,
he could not be kept out of trouble. One of
his parishioners, named Lamy, was convicted
of poisoning his wife; and Verger published
a pamphlet in which he attacked the
witnesses, the jurymen, and the judges. It is
but just to record the declaration of Le Droit,
the legal journal, that nothing has been
discovered, prior to the murder, which throws
a stain upon his morals. Verger held the
most exalted ideas of theocracy and clerical
power, maintaining the right of the clergy
to exemption from the judgments of the civil
and criminal tribunals.

The Abbé Verger had lost his position of
cross-bearer for denouncing the celibacy of the
clergy: he now forfeited his country parish by
attacking in his pulpit the newly promulgated
dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
Archbishop Sibour had himself opposed it
until it was voted; when he submitted to it.
Verger was dismissed by the Bishop of
Meaux on the twenty-first of last
December. He arrived in Paris on Christmas
Eve. Ten days of his time in the metropolis
remains to be accounted for. It has been
said he spent them in reading in the public
libraries. He bought the knife in the Rue
Dauphine on the evening of the second
of January. Dark rumours, however, are
blown in whispers all over Paris, which fill
with fearful occupations and extraordinary
associates the ten days which Verger
spent in the French capital from the
Eve of Christmas to the Feast of Sainte
Généviève. When all free discussion in a
country is suppressed, what is lost to
reason and truth is given to passion and
imagination. The capital of Napoleon the
Third is a whispering chamber of wild
conjectures. Is the assassin mad? Was he
driven by hunger? Is he alone in it? Who
has put him up to it? Who are his
associates? Is he an agent of the Jesuits?
Who gains by it? Was not the ultra-
montane party furious against the
Archbishop? Is not great power given to the
Emperor by it? Will the Abbé Bonaparte
be the new Archbishop? Was not the
Archbishop named by Cavaignac an obstacle
to the visit of the Pope to bestow the crown?
Will the Pope come now? Have not the
Univers party gained already by the