have killed little children,
and the very children whom he seemed to love the most, whom he spoiled
and stuffed with sweet things, for whom he spent half his salary in
buying toys and bonbons?

"One must consider him insane to believe him guilty of this act. Now,
Moiron seemed so normal, so quiet, so rational and sensible that it
seemed impossible to adjudge him insane.

"However, the proofs kept growing! In none of the candies that were
bought at the places where the schoolmaster secured his provisions could
the slightest trace of anything suspicious be found.

"He then insisted that an unknown enemy must have opened his cupboard
with a false key in order to introduce the glass and the needles into the
eatables. And he made up a whole story of an inheritance dependent on the
death of a child, determined on and sought by some peasant, and promoted
thus by casting suspicions on the schoolmaster. This brute, he claimed,
did not care about the other children who were forced to die as well.

"The story was possible. The man appeared to be so sure of himself and in
such despair that we should undoubtedly have acquitted him,
notwithstanding the charges against him, if two crushing discoveries had
not been made, one after the other.

"The first one was a snuffbox full of crushed glass; his own snuffbox,
hidden in the desk where he kept his money!

"He explained this new find in an acceptable manner, as the ruse of the
real unknown criminal. But a mercer from Saint-Marlouf came to the
presiding judge and said that a gentleman had several times come to his
store to buy some needles; and he always asked for the thinnest needles
he could find, and would break them to see whether they pleased him. The
man was brought forward in the presence of a dozen or more persons, and
immediately recognized Moiron. The inquest revealed that the schoolmaster
had indeed gone into Saint-Marlouf on the days mentioned by the
tradesman.

"I will pass over the terrible testimony of children on the choice of
dainties and the care which he took to have them eat the things in his
presence, and to remove the slightest traces.

"Public indignation demanded capital punishment, and it became more and
more insistent, overturning all objections.

"Moiron was condemned to death, and his appeal was rejected. Nothing was
left for him but the imperial pardon. I knew through my father that the
emperor would not grant it.

"One morning, as I was working