There
was no trace whereby the remains could be identified except a geranium
leaf that was found imbedded in her long and disheveled tresses. This
was given to a celebrated botanist, with orders to learn, if possible,
from what plant it had been taken. The man of science visited all the
houses of the neighborhood, and critically examined every specimen of
the shrub he could find. At length, in the elegant library of a young
abbe, he not only discovered one of the species, but, by means of a
powerful microscope, detected the very branch whence the leaf had been
nipped. By dexterous management the _chef_, thus scientifically put on
the track, brought home the charge to the priest, who confessed the
murder of the young lady in a fit of jealousy, and, by depositing her
body, at night, amid the dead of humbler lineage, who had fallen in the
revolutionary strife, thought to conceal all knowledge of his crime.
The lessee of an extensive 'hotel' had reason to believe that a child
had entered and left the world in one of his tenants' apartments,
without the cognizance of a human being except the mother; and, aware,
as a landlord in Paris should be, of his responsibility to the municipal
government, he communicated his suspicions to the authorities.
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