Bicheno concludes thus: “... it must be allowed by all serious minds, ... that the great question relative to the future fortunes of the Jews, who, for so many ages, have been preserved as by a continued miracle, possesses considerable interest: . .. that the Jews, after their present long captivity, will be gathered from all nations, and be again restored to their own country, and be made a holy and happy people. That their restoration will be effected at a time of great and general calamities.... That it is most likely they will be first put in motion by some foreign power, and that this power is some maritime one in these western parts of the world.... How long it is to the time when ‘the dry bones of the House of _Israel_’ will begin to move, it is impossible to say;... But although no one can say how near, or how distant, the time may be, when God will fulfil his promises to the Jewish nation; yet it is certain there never were so many reasons for concluding it not to be very far off, as at present. We live in awful times. We and our fathers have seen wars, but, since man learnt to shed blood, there never was one similar to the present, in which the nations are dashing each other to pieces.... Events the most alarming follow each other in quick succession.... Palestine itself is becoming the scene of contest; and that ferment, which has been productive of such unexpected and awful catastrophes in Europe, has reached the shores of Egypt and Syria.”¹ ¹ _Ibid._, _pp._ 59‒60: 228‒230. In conclusion, it may be pointed out that Bonaparte’s idea of the restoration of the Jews was not quite new in France. Some suggestions of the kind had been made in French literature before. Thus the Prince _de_ Ligne¹ wrote, in his _Memoirs upon the Jews_, in 1797: ¹ Charles Joseph, Prince _de_ Ligne, was born in Brussels, 1735, and died in Vienna, 1814. He distinguished himself as a general during the Seven Years’ War. He was an immensely wealthy nobleman and a great traveller, and after the war he settled at Vienna, where he was attached to the Imperial Court, and became a friend and adviser of the Emperor Joseph II. (1765‒1790). He addressed to the Emperor――who was much interested in the reformation of the Jews and granted them some measure of rights――a “Memorial about the Jewish problem,” and suggested a scheme of a return of the Jews to Palestine (Œuvres choisis, Paris et Genève, 1809).