[Footnote 100: An authorised account was prepared by Cardinal Wiseman for English readers, entitled "Manual of the Association of our Lady of Reconciliation of La Salette," and published as a tract by Burns, 17, Portman Street, in 1853. Since I passed through the country in 1869, the Germans have invaded France, the surrender has occurred at Sedan, the Commune has been defeated at Paris, but Our Lady of La Salette is greater than ever. A temple of enormous dimensions has risen in her honour; the pilgrims number over 100,000 yearly, and the sale of the water from the Holy Well, said to have sprung from the Virgin's tears, realises more than £12,000. Since the success of La Salette, the Virgin has been making repeated appearances in France. Her last appearance was in a part of Alsace which is strictly Catholic. The Virgin appeared, as usual, to a boy of the mature age of six, "dressed in black, floating in the air, her hands bound with chains,"--a pretty strong religio-political hint. When a party of the 5th Bavarian Cavalry was posted in Bettweiler, the Virgin ceased to make her appearance.] * * * * * As a pendant to this story, another may be given of an entirely different character, relating to the inhabitants of another commune in the same valley, about midway between La Salette and Grenoble. In 1860, while the discussion about the miracle at La Salette was still in progress, the inhabitants of Notre-Dame-de-Comiers, dissatisfied with the conduct of their curé, invited M. Fermaud, pastor of the Protestant church at Grenoble, to come over and preach to them, as they were desirous of embracing Protestantism. The pastor, supposing that they were influenced by merely temporary irritation against their curé, cautioned the deputation that waited upon him as to the gravity of their decision in such a matter, and asked them to reflect further upon it. For several years M. Fermaud continued to maintain the same attitude, until, in 1865, a formal petition was delivered to him by the mayor of the place, signed by forty-three heads of families, and by nine out of the ten members of the council of the commune, urging him to send them over a minister of the evangelical religion. Even then he hesitated, and recommended the memorialists to appeal to the bishop of the diocese for redress of the wrongs of which he knew they complained, but in vain, until at length, in the beginning of 1868, with the sanction of the consistory of Grenoble a minister was sent over to Comiers to perform the first acts of Protestant worship, including baptism and marriage; and it was not until October in the same year that Pastor Fermaud himself went thither to administer the sacrament to the new church.