I, the undersigned, certify that on the 2nd July 1750 the day after the ass of the defendant Jacques Ferron, which had been attached to my door, had followed the female ass of the person Leclerc, there came, at seven o’clock in the morning, a woman to ask whether an ass had not been lost here; whereupon I replied in the affirmative. She told me that the individual who had lost it might come and fetch it, and that it would be returned to her; and that it was at a floral gardener’s in the Faubourg St. Marcel, near the Gobelins: in testimony to the truth of which I set-to my hand. (Signed) NEPVEUX, grocer. PORTE SAINT JACQUES, PARIS, _20th August 1720_. Certificate of the Curé, and the principal inhabitants of the parish of Vanvres to the moral character of the Jackass of Jacques Ferron. We, the undersigned, the Prieur-Curé, and the inhabitants of the parish of Vanvres, having knowledge that Marie Françoise Sommier, wife of Jacques Ferron, has possessed a jackass during the space of four years for the carrying on of their trade, do testify, that during all the while that they have been acquainted with the said ass, no one has seen any evil in him, and he has never injured any one; also, that during the six years that it belonged to another inhabitant, no complaints were ever made touching the said ass, nor was there a breath of a report of the said ass having ever done any wrong in the neighbourhood; in token whereof, we, the undersigned, have given him the present character. (Signed) PINTEREL, _Prieur et curé de Vanvres_. JEROME PATIN, } C. JANNET, } LOUIS RETORE, } _Inhabitants of Vanvres_. LOUIS SENLIS, } CLAUDE CORBONNET,} The case was dismissed by the Commissaire. Leclerc had to surrender the ass, and to rest content with the use that had been made of it as payment for its keep, whilst the claim for damages on account of the bite fell to the ground. But if dismissed by the Commissaire, it was only that it might be taken up by the wits of the day and made the subject of satire and epigram. Some of the pieces in verse originated by this singular action are republished in the series _Variétés Historiques et Literaires_; allusions to it are not infrequent in the writers of the day. About the same time an action was brought by a magistrate of position and fortune against the curé of St. Etienne-du-Mont, a M. Coffin, for refusing him the sacrament on account of a gross scandal he had caused. A wag contrasted the conduct of the two priests in the following lines:-- De deux curés portant blanches soutanes, Le procédé ne se ressemble en rien; L’un met du nombre des profanes Le magistrat le plus homme de bien; L’autre, dans son hameau, trouve jusqu’aux ânes Tous ses paroissiens gens de bien. A MYSTERIOUS VALE