of _Tartufe_ played out--with the exception
of the close; Orgon's eyes could not be opened to the truth."

"And the tragi-comedy of _Adolphe_ by Benjamin Constant is constantly
enacted," cried Lousteau.

"And do you suppose," asked Madame de la Baudraye, "that such adventures
as Monsieur Gravier has related could ever occur now, and in France?"

"Dear me!" cried Clagny, "of the ten or twelve startling crimes that are
annually committed in France, quite half are mixed up with circumstances
at least as extraordinary as these, and often outdoing them in romantic
details. Indeed, is not this proved by the reports in the _Gazette des
Tribunaux_--the Police news--in my opinion, one of the worst abuses of
the Press? This newspaper, which was started only in 1826 or '27, was
not in existence when I began my professional career, and the facts of
the crime I am about to speak of were not known beyond the limits of the
department where it was committed.

"In the quarter of Saint-Pierre-des-Corps at Tours a woman whose husband
had disappeared at the time when the army of the Loire was disbanded,
and who had mourned him deeply, was conspicuous for her excess of
devotion. When the mission priests went through all the provinces to
restore the crosses that had been destroyed and to efface the traces
of revolutionary impiety, this widow was one of their most zealous
proselytes, she carried a cross and nailed to it a silver heart pierced
by an arrow; and, for a long time after, she went every evening to pray
at the foot of the cross which was erected behind the Cathedral apse.

"At last, overwhelmed by remorse, she confessed to a horrible crime. She
had killed her husband, as Fualdes was murdered, by bleeding him; she
had salted the body and packed it in pieces into old casks, exactly as
if it have been pork; and for a long time she had taken a piece every
morning and thrown it into the Loire. Her confessor consulted his
superiors, and told her that it would be his duty to inform the
public prosecutor. The woman awaited the action of the Law. The public
prosecutor and the examining judge, on examining the cellar, found the
husband's head still in pickle in one of the casks.--'Wretched woman,'
said the judge to the accused, 'since you were so barbarous as to throw
your husband's body into the river, why did you not get rid of the head?
Then there would have been no proof.'

"'I often tried, monsieur,' said she, 'but it was too heavy