Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Physiognomy, Ethnology, Anatomy, Religious Authority, Miracle, Supernaturalism

    Notes from Galignani's Messenger that the Bishop of Nancy, Charles M A Lavigerie, asked an 'ethnologist', Dominique A Godron, to distinguish the skulls of two bishops of Toul, relics whose labels had been lost. Explains how Godron determined one of the skulls to be that of a Gaul, and thus identified it as that of St Gérard. Questions why the bishop resorted to an ethnologist, expecting the prelate to have asked the 'skulls to speak for themselves', which the skulls should have done had they belonged to saints.