priesthood generally with hatred and scorn,
become soft and reverential when speaking of
him as a good man.

There was indeed something better than
curiosity observable in the vast crowds who
went to see the exhibition of his dead body.
This ceremony of the middle ages was got
up in the mediæval way. The silent crowds
went two and two through three square and
lofty rooms which were hung with black.
The coat of arms of the deceased with the
motto "Major autem horum est charitas,"
was displayed in each of the rooms. In the
fourth room lay the body upon a four-post
bed of state, the posts and top of which
looked silvery. Altars, upon which candles
burned, were placed upon each side of the
room, and each altar was served by six priests.
The corpse wore his full pontifical robes;
and being much raised up I could see
distinctly that the large black eyes were wide
open, and wore the look of surprise and
horror, characteristic of sudden death by
paralysis of the heart. The lower jaw, always
large, had swelled enormously. A priest was
constantly occupied in approaching to the
body, the newspapers say with objects handed
to him by the crowd, consisting chiefly of
medals and rosaries, but sometimes swords
and caps.

The interment on Saturday, the tenth of
January, was a strange and picturesque funereal
show. At eight o'clock all the bells in
the belfries began ringing. No doubt the
effect of the military, civil and ecclesiastical
costumes succeeding each other in the
procession along the quays, was very striking,
and well heightened by the funeral marches
played by the bands. My point of view was
a seat in the centre aisle of the cathedral of
Nôtre Dame. The wide and lofty porches
were open, and I could see the numerous
troops in the sunlight of the Place outside.
Far away, at the other end of the vast church
and long aisle, hung with black, ermine, and
silver, could be discerned through the religious
gloom, the lofty altar and officiating bishops
in their silver mitres. The violet-covered
coffin with the gold mitre, the missal, the
ring, and the crozier were borne between two
lines of infantry, slowly along the aisle to
the catafalque. The music was performed
in faux bourdon, an imitation of bells. But
the spectacle was more military than
ecclesiastical; the sacred hymns, the organ peals,
and all the musical effects, being destroyed
by the words of command, the screams of
bugles, the roll of drums, and the salvoes of
artillery. At three o'clock, the Chapter
sung the vespers of the dead, and soon
afterwards the body was lowered into the
vault of the Archbishops of Paris.

The moral effects were as much destroyed
as the musical. I saw many pensive faces,
and I saw some women in tears. But the
large majority of the audience formed the
most irreverent crowd I have ever seen in a
place of worship. Idle curiosity, indifferent
levity, and gross ill-breeding, made the
devotions of the worshippers impossible. I saw
several scuffles, and on two occasions I heard
the cry -- "On se bat!"—"they are fighting!"
Yet surely there has rarely been an affair
more fitted to make the light serious, and
the serious grave. Surely it is sad to
witness a melange of Christianity and crime—
assassination and benediction—a good man
laid low by a fanatic -- the chief of a church
murdered by a priest of the altar —the
poignard in the hands that had carried the
cross. Surely all this is mournful and
humiliating for the moral pride of the
nineteenth century. Louis-Jean Verger may
have carried the cross, but he never could
have truly seen it; and after all, this monster
of perversion is a man fashioned in all respects
as we are. Silence and not music, sack-
cloth and not gilt costumes, solitary meditation
and not military pomps, seem most
becoming when the cross has been so desecrated.

On the Monday, the church of Saint
Etienne du Mont was reconciled by an
expiatory sacrifice. A procession of clergy led
by a cross-bearer, and closed by a bishop,
marched slowly up to the porches and doors
of the church, which were hung with black.
There was no admission. The Holy Sacrament,
which had been turned away from the
scene of crime, would not enter into the
desecrated church. The procession made the
tour round the church, presenting the cross
at each door; and when the Holy Sacrament
returned to the principal door, a workman
mounted upon a ladder, and let down the
black cloth, and the whole procession entered
the re-consecrated edifice. The altars were
immediately decorated with their ornaments.
Every morning and every evening, the clergy
of Saint Etienne du Mont are to be seen at
present kneeling around the spot where the
martyr was immolated, chanting the Miserere
and the Parce, Domine.

When the black cloth fell, a workman at
my side, said:

"Now Sainte Généviève can perform her
miracles."

"Miracles!" I exclaimed, "What
miracles?"

"Don't you know?"

"No. I am a foreigner and a Protestant."

"Well; all the sick who lie in sheets, or
wear rings, or use handkerchiefs which have
touched the box containing the bones of
Sainte Généviève, are cured of their maladies
in nine days."

"Indeed!"

"Yes. Faith does everything."

The medal struck in commemoration of
the occasion is a very rude specimen of
numismatic art. On one side, is a figure of an
archbishop with the words "M. Dom. Auguste
Sibour, Archevêque de Paris;" and on the
other side is the inscription, "Frappé
mortellement le 3 Janvier, 1857, dans I'eglise de