was found which was full of toys and dainties destined for the children.
Almost all these delicacies contained bits of crushed glass or pieces of
broken needles!

"Moiron was immediately arrested; but he seemed so astonished and
indignant at the suspicion hanging over him that he was almost released.
How ever, indications of his guilt kept appearing, and baffled in my
mind my first conviction, based on his excellent reputation, on his
whole life, on the complete absence of any motive for such a crime.

"Why should this good, simple, religious man 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