Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/785

Rh coat to the chemists of the Gobelin manufactory, who reported that the web might possibly date from the time of Christ, and that the stains may have been produced by blood; whether it was really the vesture upon which the Roman soldiers cast lots they would not undertake to decide. This vague and utterly worthless document was eagerly seized upon by the bishop and printed in the newspapers as a confirmation of the truth of ancient tradition by modern science.

We may add that the ecclesiastical authorities of Argenteuil do not deny the genuineness of the relic at Trier, but only assert that it is an upper garment, one of those which Christ's crucifiers parted among them, whereas theirs is an under garment, worn next to the skin, and therefore endowed with greater healing virtue than could possibly be possessed by a mere overcoat. The masses, however, do not seem to have been seriously affected by the accusations and recriminations passed backward and forward between the guardians of the two shrines vying for public patronage. On May 14th, the first day of the "elevation," thirty-seven extra trains left Paris for Argenteuil, and forty-two thousand persons paid their devotions to the wonder-working coat; and when the exhibition closed on June 10th half a million pilgrims had visited the little town on the Seine where, nearly eight centuries ago, the youthful Héloïse took the veil after her separation from Abélard. That thousands were healed of otherwise incurable diseases, and the maimed, the halt, and the blind recovered the use of their limbs and had their sight restored, has undoubtedly been fully recorded, and will in due time be officially reported.

Meanwhile the Bonapartists made a bold attempt to take the tide of popular superstition at the flood, hoping it might lead on to political fortune. One of their agents, while kneeling in adoration before the holy seamless coat, claims to have received a divine revelation through the newly canonized tutelar saint of France, Joan of Arc, who, it seems, has already begun to take a hand in French politics and to utter prophecies concerning the future of the land of which she was once the divinely commissioned defender. According to this revelation from on high, which has been printed on a single sheet of four large octavo pages and distributed in thousands of copies among the rural population and in the provincial towns, Prince Victor Napoleon V is the predestined ruler of France, and will be elected to the presidency of the republic by popular suffrage, or attain to sovereignty after bloody civil contests. In either case, Alsace and Lorraine will, on his accession to power,-be reunited to France either through diplomatic negotiations or as the issue of a short but sanguinary foreign war. The recipient of this