The latter, when asked his name,
replied, 'I have brought disgrace enough upon it already,' and, seizing
the penknife, thrust it into his heart, and fell dead. He was the
descendant of a noble house in one of the southern provinces, and came
to Paris as a medical student, and, through a devoted attachment to his
mistress, whose costly tastes soon drained his purse, was induced to
steal the trunks of travelers as they left the railway stations at
night. In his apartment was found a large wardrobe; and a month's
purloining was thus summarily expiated. Similar incidents occur
elsewhere, but the details, when the scene is laid in Paris, are more
picturesque and dramatic.
Two instances which I heard related will illustrate this same dramatic
significance in the municipal system. After an _emeute_, the _chef_ of
police in a certain _arrondissement_, while engaged in superintending
the removal of corpses from a barricade, noticed the body of a female
whose delicate hands and finely-wrought robe were so alien to the scene
as to excite suspicion. He ordered it to be placed in a separate
apartment for examination. A more careful inspection confirmed his
surmise that this was the body of no amazonian whose warlike zeal or
accidental presence in such an affray could explain its discovery.
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