*
_________
* It may be thought that the historian of the Parisian miracles, M.
Montgeron, forms an exception to this last assertion. He presented his
book (with a suspicion, as it should seem, of the danger of what he was
doing) to the king; and was shortly afterwards committed to prison; from
which he never came out. Had the miracles been unequivocal, and had M.
Montgeron been originally convinced by them, I should have allowed this
exception. It would have stood, I think, alone in the argument of our
adversaries. But, beside what has been observed of the dubious nature of
the miracles, the account which M. Montgeron has himself left of his
conversion shows both the state of his mind and that his persuasion was
not built upon external miracles.--"Scarcely had he entered the
churchyard when he was struck," he tells us, "with awe and reverence,
having never before heard prayers pronounced with so much ardour and
transport as he observed amongst the supplicants at the tomb. Upon this,
throwing himself on his knees, resting his elbows on the tombstone and
covering his face with his hands, he spake the following prayer.
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