Börne does not personally believe in the dogmas of Christianity, or consider that faith is its essence; yet any attack on these dogmas is most repugnant to him. He sneers at Saint-Simonism because of its antagonism to the Christian religion, and he considers Strauss's _Life of Jesus_ to be not only a useless, but a mischievous book. All this makes it easy to understand how it was possible for him, in the last years of his life, to be completely carried away by a democratic Catholic like Lamennais, whose _Paroles d'un Croyant_, an attempt to blend Liberalism with religion, he translated and overrated. Religious Radicalism, as here expressed, was the magic formula to which the free and the locked-up powers of his own soul responded. In the course of the first volumes of the _Letters from Paris_, Börne, following the general trend of Oppositionist feeling in Germany, progressed from enthusiasm for constitutionalism to hope of revolution. In April 1832, not six months after their publication, one of the leaders of the Opposition, Dr Siebenpfeiffer, issued a general invitation to all the different German nationalities to attend a great national festival, to be held at the castle of Hambach, near Neustadt on the Haardt, on the 27th of May, the anniversary of the concession of the Bavarian constitution. It was to be a festival of brotherhood for all whose desire and aim was the regeneration of Germany. This festival, however, seemed so suspicious to the government of Rhenish Bavaria, that it was forbidden; strangers were prohibited from visiting Neustadt or its environs from the 26th to the 28th of May, and any assemblage of more than five persons in the streets or other public places was forbidden. These prohibitions excited such general discontent that the authorities were obliged to withdraw them. People streamed to the festival from every point of the compass. Almost every German country sent representatives--the majority, of course, being inhabitants of the Palatinate itself. Even Frenchmen were there in large numbers, and Poles naturally were not lacking. The assembly numbered about thirty thousand in all. Börne, who came from Paris, was the most fêted guest. His journey to Neustadt was a sort of triumphal procession. He was cheered everywhere. Torchlight processions and serenades were the order of the day.