Notwithstanding these severities, it is plain that Louis was actuated more by a desire of converting the Jews to Christ than of venting his horror and hate of them. We read of a solemn conference held in the year 1254 between Rabbi Jechiel and a convert from Judaism, named Nicolas, before Blanche, who acted as regent during her son’s absence. Both parties claimed the victory; neither, consequently, underwent any conversion. It was probably disappointment at this result which induced Louis to send home orders that they should now be banished from the realm, which, we are told, the queen-mother punctually executed. During Louis’s absence occurred also the first ‘rising of the shepherds,’ as it is called. This was led by an apostate Hungarian monk, who had originally been a Mussulman. The avowed purpose was the rescue of King Louis from the hands of his enemies. They committed pillage and murder wherever they went, but the Jews were the especial objects of their violence. It is probable that if they had confined their outrages to them, they might have escaped punishment. But the massacre of the Christians could not be overlooked, especially of priests and friars; and the Hungarian and his followers were overpowered and slain. Philip the Hardy succeeded to the throne in 1270, and one of his first acts was to recall the Jews to France, it having been discovered that, however much the people might complain of their avarice and exactions, they got on considerably worse without them. It is said that during his reign, which lasted for twenty-five years, they continued unmolested, and again gathered in great riches. They were banished, however, from Gascony, in 1288, by Edward I. of England, a preliminary measure, one might think, to his expulsion of them from his English domains. A story is told by Walsingham of his having taken this step in consequence of a miraculous escape which he had from being struck dead by a flash of lightning, which passed directly over his bed and killed two of his chamberlains who were standing close by. As a sign of his gratitude for this deliverance, he is said to have banished the Jews. Edward was a man rather in advance of his day, and it is difficult to believe that he could have thought that the merciless banishment of the Jews would be a fit requital of mercy shown to him. We shall see more of his motives in an ensuing chapter. But it is proper to remark that this age, apparently beyond any other, credited the most extravagant conceptions respecting the Satanic hatred of the Jews for the Christian mysteries. They are continually charged with endeavouring to possess themselves of the sacred wafer, and then offering it the grossest insults, their sacrilege being as often exposed and punished by some special miracle. A woman is persuaded by a Jew to convey to him the consecrated host, which he stabs in several places, whereupon it bleeds profusely; and some Christian customers, coming