M. Letronne. Many other modes of performing the pretended

miracle might be found, f
If we inquire when the vocal properties of the statue ceased, we find the thread of history broken. In the midst of the disor- ders and dissensions that distracted the Empire, even after the accession of Constantine, the annalists had few opportunities of reverting to an isolated prodigy, foreign to the new religion whose tenets then began to predominate. It was even with difficulty that the assumed miracle could be renewed, and it was destined shortly to cease altogether ; as, by the succession of controversies arising between the Christians and the Polytheists, religious frauds were often brought to light, and when, at a later period, the dispersant pagan priests, reduced to indigence, and exposed to persecution, abandoned their temples and their images, all was thenceforward deprived of the veneration of the people.
As too often happens at the end of the most conscientious researches, we are constrained to acknowledge our ignorance,
* Moniteur, No. de Mardi, 9 octobre, 1838, Lettre de M. Nestor VHote a