(Louis-Basile-Carré de), was born at Paris, A.D. 1686; his father was master of requests. He was scarcely 25 years of age when he purchased the place of counsellor in parliament, where by his wit and external qualifications he gained considerable reputation. Deeply engaged in all the vices which flow from irreligion, he was converted by an unexpected circumstance. He went on the 7th of September 1731 to the tomb of Deacon Paris, with an intention to examine, with the rigour of the severest critic, the miracles which were reported to be performed there. But, according to his own account, he felt himself suddenly beat to the earth by innumerable flashes of light with which he was surrounded. His incredulity was converted into flaming zeal, and he became the apostle of the saint whom he formerly ridiculed. From that moment he devoted himself to the fanaticism of conversions, with the same impetuosity of character with which he had run into the most shameful excesses. He had not long been the disciple of Janenifim when he suffered persecution. When the chamber of inquests was banished in 1732, he was sent into the mountains of Auvergne; which, instead of cooling, tended rather to inflame his zeal. During his exile, he formed the plan of collecting the proofs of the miracles wrought at the tomb of the Abbé Paris, and of composing what he called a Demonstration of them. On his return to Paris, he prepared to execute this plan; and on the 29th of July 1737, he actually presented to the king at Versailles a volume in quarto superbly bound. This work he accompanied with a speech, which is a mixture of zeal and argument in a tolerable style. In consequence of this work, which some consider as a masterpiece of eloquence, and others as a mass of absurdities, he was committed to the Bastile. After a few months confinement, he was sent to an abbey of Benedictine monks in the diocese of Avignon; whence he was, in a short time, carried to Viviers. He was afterwards confined in the citadel of Valence, where he died, A.D. 1754, aged 68. The work which he presented to the king was entitled La vérité des Miracles opérés par l'intercession de M. Paris, &c., &c.—The critics, even to this day, seem to be guided in their opinion concerning this book either by hatred or by enthusiasm. "It would be extremely rash (says the Abbé de St Pierre, in the second volume of his Annales, p. 593.) to maintain with the Molinists, that no miraculous cure was ever performed at the tomb of the Abbé Paris; and to say with the Jansenists, that these cures were performed by a supernatural power, would be the height of fanaticism. The truth is (adds the same author), that no miracle appears ever to have been performed at this tomb except in the cure of the human body; in all other cases, there would have been the want of that imagination on which the whole miracle depended." Thus, although Montgeron ventured to compare these prodigies with the miracles of Jesus Christ and his apostles, yet we find no person raised from the dead, no multiplication of loaves, no command obeyed by the elements, and no blind or deaf restored to their sight or hearing. It belongs to the Author of nature alone, or to those who have derived power from him, to work such miracles as are recorded by the evangelists, or in the history of the apostles. Montgeron added a second and third volume on the same subject: he left also in manuscript a work which he composed in prison contre les Incrédules. Religion, it must be confessed, has had much more powerful advocates. Fortunately Pascal and Bossuet are among the number: and it could well have wanted both Paris and Montgeron, whatever virtues they might possess in other respects.