M. Ratisbonne reluctantly gave the details of what he had seen. When questioned closely as to what took place at the moment he found himself environed by this celestial effulgence, he answers ingenuously that he could not account for the involuntary impulse causing him to leave the right hand side of the church for the chapel on the left, especially as he was separated from it by the preparations for the morrow's ceremonies; that, when the Queen of Heaven appeared before him in all the glory and brilliancy of her immaculate purity, he caught a glimpse of her incomparable beauty, but immediately realized the impossibility of contemplating it, that urged by the desire, three times had he endeavored to lift his eyes to the face of this Mother of mercy, whose sweet clemency had deigned to manifest herself to him, and three times, in spite of himself, had his gaze been stayed at sight of the blessed hands, whence escaped a torrent of graces. "I could not," he told us himself after his arrival, "I could not express what I saw of mercy and liberality in Mary's hands. It was not only an effulgence of light, it was not rays I distinguished, words are inadequate to depict the ineffable gifts filling our Mother's hands, and descending from them, the bounty, mercy, tenderness, the celestial sweetness and riches, flowing in torrents and inundating the souls she protects." In the first moments of his conversion, M. Ratisbonne gave vent to some of those thoughts which strongly pre-occupied him, those outpourings of a fervent heart which happily, are still preserved. "O my God!" he exclaimed in a transport of astonishment and gratitude, "I, who only half an hour before was blaspheming! I, who felt such violent hatred against the Catholic religion!... Every one of my acquaintances knew full well, that to all human appearances, it was impossible for me ever to think of changing my religion. My family was Jewish, my betrothed, my uncle were Jewish. In embracing Christianity, I know that I break away from all earthly hopes and interests.... And yet I do it willingly; I renounce the passing happiness of a future which was promised me; I do so without hesitation, I act from conviction; ... for I am not crazy, and have never been; they well know it.... Who, then, could refuse to believe me, and believe in the truth?... The most powerful interests enchained me to my religion, and consequently all should be convinced that a man who sacrifices everything to a profound conviction must sacrifice to a celestial light, which has revealed itself by incontrovertible evidence. What I have affirmed is true. I know it, I feel it; and what could be my object in thus betraying the truth and turning aside from religion by a sacrilegious lie?... I have not said too much; my words must carry conviction."