e waters of the river Aveyron, there lived a
lawyer by the name of Fualdes, a commonplace man, neither good nor bad.
Notwithstanding his advanced age, he had only recently retired from
affairs, and his finances were in such a bad shape that he was obliged,
in the beginning of the year 1817, to dispose of his estate of La
Morne. With the proceeds he meant to retire to some quiet spot and live
on the interest of his money. One evening--it was the nineteenth of
March--he received from the purchaser of the estate, President Seguret,
the residue of the purchase-money in bills and securities, and, after
locking the papers in his desk, he left the house, having told the
housekeeper that he had to go to La Morne once more in order to make
some necessary arrangements with the tenant.

He neither reached La Morne nor returned to his home. The following
morning a tailor's wife from the village of Aveyron saw his body lying
in a shallow of the river, ran to Rodez and fetched some people back
with her. The rocky slope was precipitously steep at that point, rising
to a height of about forty feet. A great piece of the narrow footpath
which led from Rodez to the vineyards had crumbled away, and it was
doubtless owing to that circumstance that the unfortunate man had been
precipitated to the bottom. It had rained very heavily the day before,
and the soil on top had, according to the testimony of a number of
people who worked in the vineyards, been loose for a long time. It
seemed a singular fact that there was a deep gash in the throat of the
dead man; but as jagged stones projected all over the rocky surface of
the slope, such an injury explained itself. On examination of the
steep wall, no traces of blood were found on stone or earth. The rain
had washed away everything.

The news of the occurrence spread rapidly, and all through the day two
or three hundred people from Rodez--men, women, and children--were
standing on both shores staring with a look of fascination and
self-induced horror into the depths of the ravine. The question was
raised whether it was not a will-o'-the-wisp that had misled the old
man. A woman alleged that she had spoken with a shepherd who declared
he had heard a cry for help; this, it is true, occurred about midnight,
and Fualdes had left his house at eight o'clock. A stout tinker
contended that the darkness had not been as dense as all believed; he
himself had crossed the fields, on his way from La Valette,