went sometimes to hear him, and would have gone oftener, if his church were not disfigured by the most hideous images.

Remember, O most Holy Virgin Mary, that no one ever had recourse to your protection, implored your help, or sought your mediation, without obtaining relief. Confiding, therefore, in your goodness, behold me, a penitent sinner, sighing out my sins before you, beseecning you to adopt me for your child, and to take upon you the care of my eternal salvation. Despise not, O Mother of Jesus, the petition of your humble client, but hear and grant my prayer. O Mary, refugee of sinners, grant me a mother's blessing and a mother's care, now and at the hour of my death. Amen.”

This done, the Baron set his family and friend to say Ave Marias for the success of his attempt. The Baron himself was very assiduous in relating to Ratisbonne legends and Roman sight-seeing. This lasted for about three months; and at last Ratisbonne's imagination was wrought up and excited to the pitch of frenzy, so that, on the night of the 19th of January, 1842, he could not sleep, being haunted by a vision to the effect of the design of the reverse of the medal. On the 20th, he proceeded to church, and was left alone, for a short time, in the chapel of the Madonna; during which, it is said, that the Virgin Mary appeared to him in glory, and by a gesture of her hand, without speaking, commanded him to kneel before her.

Ratisbonne's narrative underwent a rigid investigation. Nine witnesses were examined by the Very Rev. the Fiscal-Promoter, acting under commission from the Cardinal Vicar Patrizi: the latter, after examining the depositions of the witnesses, has definitively pronounced, on the 3rd of June, 1842, as follows:

7),

"That it fully consists of a true and glorious miracle, wrought by God, the ever good and great, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the instantaneous and complete conversion of Alphonso Maria Ratisbonne from Judaism. And forasmuch as 'it is honourable to reveal the Works of God,' (Tobit XII. therefore, to the great glory of God, and increased devotion of the faithful in Christ towards the Blessed Virgin Mary, his Eminence has deigned to permit that the narrative of this miracle be printed and published by authority." Credat Latinus ! The best analysis

I am afraid, dear Joshua, this long epistle will try your patience; I will therefore forbear lengthening it any more. Salute most affectionately, in my name, our dear brothers and sisters. I enclose within this an epistle to our dear mother, which will acquaint you with my mind. respecting the fair daughters of Jacob in this city.

I am, &c. &c.

LETTER VII.

TO THE RIGHT REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF CORK.

My dear Lord,

Paris, August 1847.

I herewith send you a translation of a letter I have written to my brother, from this city. It will serve as a reply to some of your Lordship's queries. I do not wonder that you are not pleased with the account which the deputation of the Church of Scotland gave of the Jews of Paris. They were not the persons-though excellent and talented in other respects-adapted for a "Mission of Inquiry to the Jews." It requires something more than piety, zeal, and classical learning, to be able to pry into the present condition of the Jews; it requires tact, and an amount of Jewish information-literary, civil, and politicalwhich very few Gentiles have as yet attained. I would leave Paris with the same stock of information as those gentlemen have done, if I asked for it of a Fredric Monod. I do not use this expression in a disparaging tone-I have the greatest possible respect for that divine; but what

of the whole farce is to be found in the "Jewish Intelligence for 1842."

I mean to say is, that neither he nor any other Christian minister is the person most fitted to furnish information on the subject of the Jews.*

I was constantly asked by Englishmen, who lived in this city for years, to tell them something of the internal state of the Jewish congregations here. The fact is, that there are about three hundred and fifty Christian Jews in the metropolis of France and her environs; the great majority of them are very wealthy. Very few of them are known to the French public as having been once of the synagogue. I found, after minute and rigid inquiry, that they are the most consistent Christians, ruling their households in the fear of the Lord, making the Bible their code of laws for their conduct through life. Their greatest enemy could not help himself, if but a day or two in their society, but become their greatest friend. What would not M. Eugène Sue have given to know those really noble individuals! How enhanced would have been his "Mysteries of Paris," if embellished with such characters!

I have gathered the following important item of interesting information, by my intercourse with those Hebrew Christians; namely, that there are in England upwards of a hundred families, very wealthy and very learned, who are Hebrews by nation, and Christians by creed; I have recorded their names in my note-book. As they are particular in their wishes not to be pointed at by the "friends of Israel" at public meetings, it would be unjust, on my part, to divulge their names. Your Lordship shall be perfectly welcome to look into my "Evening notes," if, in God's good providence, we be permitted to meet again.

I am going to send to Lady Powerscourt a translation of

* Many are the Clergymen in London who are totally ignorant of the state of the Jews in the capital of Great Britain.

a laconic letter I dispatched to my mother. The two communications will make up one whole narrative of the present state of the Parisian Jews. The internal state of the great mass of the French people-I have been informed on the subject by all grades and shades of Parisian people -is minutely, correctly, and graphically described in Michelet's "Priests, Women, and Children," about which work we discussed, when I last had the honour of meeting your Lordship. I would, therefore, venture respectfully to suggest to your Lordship the perusal of that work, in which you will find an ample reply to your last question, in yours of the 12th ult. to me.

I am, my dear Lord, &c.

LETTER VIII.

Paris, August 1847.

My dear Lady Powerscourt,

I forward to the Bishop of Cork, by this day's post, a translation of a Hebrew letter I addressed to my brother, relative to the state of the Paris Jews, which I doubt not you will see and read.

Instead of inditing a new epistle to you, I translate one which I have just finished to my dear mother. It is a sort of supplement to my brother's letter, in which it is to be inclosed. Now for the translation :

My dear Mother,

I have promised to send you a few lines from the royal city of France, which I fulfil with the greatest pleasure; as it delights me much, at all times, and from all places, to hold converse with you. I never have you more vividly

before my mind's eye than when engaged in penning a letter to you. I almost imagine that I am now communing Would to God it were fact instead

face to face.

with you of fiction. I need not tell you that I have written a long letter to Joshua, for this one will be enveloped in that one. My communication to Joshua contains a considerable amount of information about the Jews of Paris. This will be a sort of P.S. It will be found to contain an account of the condition of Parisian Jewesses.

The Hebrew language is a dead letter amongst the daughters of Abraham in this city. In the respectable families, the females are indeed taught a little Hebrew, but it is very little. Their education in the sacred tongue does not extend beyond the mechanical part of it, namely, the reading, so as to be enabled to recite the synagogue prayers. Their education in the French language is a little more attended to, so as to enable them to do with it something more than simply read it. Being their vernacular tongue, they can read it with the understanding, and are taught, moreover, to write it. But no sooner does a French Jewish girl become able to read a novel, or pen a letter, than her parents, as well as herself, consider that she has finished her education. The society she begins to mix with consists of members of her own nation, of her own standing; and also of the middle classes of the French people. It is the misfortune of the Jews to be susceptible of being influenced by the indifferent conduct, habits, and manners of those nations amongst whom they dwell at ease. I call it a misfortune, because our brethren seldom become attached to the sound part of the nation in which they dwell, but invariably to the unsound one.

In Germany, the sympathies of the Jews are with the new-fangled Neologians and Rationalists; and Rationalists; in England,

VOL. I.

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