To the former of these our author answers, that “from the manner of stating the case, one would think that all these religious had been close shut up, without any communication with persons without doors; and this was certainly intended by an author who has made remarks upon it; but it will be found, upon looking into the beginning of the very paragraph cited, that the greatest part of them are represented as martyrs who had meritoriously exposed themselves. Of the twelve different orders mentioned on this occasion, the Grand Augustines only are said to have kept in their convent. But, supposing the Augustin convent to have been actually shut up, and in that state infected; it would by no means invalidate the instances brought of the preservation of the convents, the certificates concerning which were granted deliberately, after all was over; whereas the journal, written from day to day, marking circumstances rapidly as they occurred, the author, amongst various other affairs, had not always leisure or opportunity to examine minutely into circumstances. It is in this light I am inclined to consider the houses being infected which took in nothing without the most exact precautions; and the rather, because I met with several instances of the like kind at Aleppo, in the houses of the Christian and Jewish nations: but in the sequel it generally appeared there had been some improper communication carried on by the domestics, unknown to the family at the time.” “That the atmosphere, in a city so dreadfully circumstanced as Marseilles, may become so highly tainted as to convey the plague into houses shut up, cannot confidently be affirmed to be impossible, by those who hold mediate contagion; and the concurrence of circumstances at that period in Marseilles, renders it highly probable that such accidents happened. But, in general, the pestiferous effluvia once emitted into the air, do not appear to operate at any great distance from their source; and M. Deidier asserts, that two monasteries (from their situation, one near a burial ground, the other near a pest-house) very dangerously situated, remained nevertheless untouched, which he thinks an argument against infection being conveyed by the air.”