as a madman having failed, the Archbishop
of Paris recommended Verger to
the Bishop of Meaux. The calumniator of
St. Germain I'Auxerrois, — the mendicant at
the entrance to the Madéleine,— the bad
priest — was made Curé of Seris, in March,
eighteen hundred and fifty-six. The following
letter to the Archbishop was written on the
occasion by the Bishop of Meaux.

10th February, 1856.

Monsieur, — According to the desire which you have
expressed to me through M. Bautain, I have hastened
to recall here, M. the Abbé Verger.

He arrived here this morning, and has made a very
serious revelation to me, on which subject I shall have
need of the counsels of our grandeur. Not being able
to go to Paris to-morrow, I send M. Josse, my grand
vicaire, whom I pray you to receive with the kindness
to which you have accustomed me.

Please receive, Monsieur, the homage of my
respectful and devoted sentiments.

AUGUSTE, Bishop of Meaux.

On the twelfth of December he was
dismissed. The reasons alleged for his
dismissal were his publication of a pamphlet
against a decision of the Court of Assizes at
Melun, his preaching against the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception, and the discovery of
a document called a Testament, which attacked
the celibacy of the clergy.

During the nine months in which Verger
was Curé of the parish of Seris, the police
were watching the persons whom he had
denounced. Alexis Dupont and a batch of
his associates were arrested and condemned.
The trials were not public ; the courts shut
their doors ; the newspapers published
nothing but the results.

On the twelfth of December, eighteen hundred
and fifty-six, the Curé of Seris was
dismissed from his functions by a letter which
contained the following sentence:

We think that you have need of being taken care of
in a madhouse, and if you consent I shall come to an
understanding with M. le Préfet about it.

In December eighteen hundred and fifty-six,
the Archbishop of Paris had arranged to
lock Verger up in a madhouse; and Verger
was nursing those ideas of killing the Archbishop,
which he had declared in the office of
one of the chiefs of the police, and which are
recorded in his letter to M. Parent Duchatelet,
dated the thirty-first of January,
eighteen hundred and fifty-six.

The evidence on the trial added little to
what was previously known respecting the
incidents of the assassination. While brandishing
his bloody knife, Verger cried, " à bas les
déesses," and "  Ã  bas les Génovefains," Down
with the goddesses — down with the worshippers
of Généviève! The Archbishop recognised
him and cried, " Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!
Malheur " or "Malheureux!"

Of the tempestuous manner in which the
trial was conducted, and of the chaotic form
in which it is reported, I will present a
specimen; merely premising that in France,
the issue of life or death depends, not on the
premeditated homicide, but on the presence
or absence of extenuating circumstances.
Immediately on the act of accusation being
read,

Verger said: "It is the Papal Inquisition
which has brought me here. Among my papers
—which were seized — are letters written by
my enemies themselves, which show to what
extent I was the victim of their abominable
manœuvres. A part only of these letters have
been given to my defender. I demand all.
Yesterday I was subjected to moral violence
in regard to my witnesses. Of sixty witnesses
they have only called one. I then
wrote the following letter to the Minister of
Justice, begging him to transmit it to the
Emperor:

Excellence, — The Advocate-General having refused,
obstinately, to call before the audience to-morrow the
witnesses necessary for my defence, I shall, with more
right and equal tenacity, refuse to reply to justice; or
if I speak, it will only be to protest against the moral
violence of which I am the victim. I ask the adjournment
of the session for a week.

The President: " You have accepted the
debate for to-day. Is it not true?"

Verger: " It is true, and it is false. You
said to me you wished my defence to be free,
complete, and placed upon the facts; and, I
added,—'upon all the circumstances which
brought about these facts.' For that I must
have the letters written by my enemies, the
members of the Inquisition."

The President: " What is this debate about ?
It is to learn whether the accused is guilty
of the attack upon the Archbishop. The
accused wishes to be an accuser: and to
indulge in calumny and scandal. Is not this
rather the licence than the liberty of the
defence?"

Verger: " Yesterday at two o'clock, contrary
to the advice of the Procureur-Général,
I received from the Minister of Justice an
authorisation to call all my witnesses at my
own expense. But there was not sufficient
time."

The Procureur-Général : " He does not
wish really to produce the witnesses
necessary for the defence, but to indulge in
abominable calumnies. We have a libel in
our hands — "

Verger: " Read it, read it — "

The Procureur-Général : " An odious libel,
which is nothing but a gathering of monstrous
inventions — "

Verger: " Read it, — once more, read it."

The Procureur-Général : " After the
assassination of the knife, we cannot permit the
assassination of calumny."

Verger: "The defence is not free."

The President: " What do you mean by
free defence?"

Verger: " I wish all the persons to be
heard among whom I have passed my life,
that my life may be explained by them."