A criminal drama which horrified all Paris in 1857 and had its suitable dénouement on the Place de la Roquette, was the murder of the Archbishop of Paris, Monseigneur Sibour, a dignified ecclesiastic, who was universally loved and esteemed in his diocese. The Archbishop was on his way to put on his vestments for the mass in the church of St. Etienne du Mont. The procession was on the point of entering the sacristy when a man, dressed in black, rushed in behind the Archbishop, who was carrying aloft the Episcopal Cross, and with his left hand caught hold of him and twisted him sharply round, while with his right he struck him in the ribs with a knife. The wound was mortal, and the Archbishop almost immediately fell dead, while his murderer was seized and roughly handled by the indignant crowd. The police proceeded at once to interrogate him and soon learned who he was. In appearance short and thin, with a not unpleasing countenance, carefully dressed in black, he proved to be one Louis Verger, an unfrocked priest. He confessed that the murder was premeditated, and that he had come to the church with the set intention of committing it. He had no animus against the Archbishop, but desired to aim a blow at the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Thence his outcry when he struck the fatal blow, “No more goddesses!” “Down with the goddesses!” He was quite calm and self-possessed afterward, and the suggestion that he was insane quite fell to the ground. When he was received at Mazas his mental condition was inquired into, but there was no symptom of derangement. His first demand was for food, for he had eaten nothing that morning, fearing to interfere with the steadiness of his nerves. When questioned as to the motives of his crime, his answers were clear and logical, except that he was fanatically hostile to certain doctrines, and especially to that of the celibacy of the clergy. In his parish he was constantly at difference with his parishioners, with whom he had many quarrels, and he was at length removed to another parish. He went to London to work under Cardinal Wiseman, the new Archbishop of Westminster, and on his return to Paris obtained fresh preferment at Saint Germain L’Auxerrois. He was still turbulent and constantly a thorn in the side of the Archbishop. His state of mind was held to be doubtful, but the doctors declared him more dangerous than mad. He preached the most violent diatribes against ecclesiastical authority, and richly deserved the sentence of suspension that was decreed against him within a week of his murderous attack upon the Archbishop.