The peculiarly horrid manner in which the crime was committed, and the
audacious style in which the criminal appears to brave justice, will,
it is thought, prevent any _extenuating circumstances_ being pleaded,
as is usually done, for the purpose of commuting the punishment of
death into imprisonment with enforced labour. It is generally expected
that this atrocious murderer will be guillotined, notwithstanding the
averseness of the government to capital punishment.
The circumstances are, indeed, hideous in all ways, and the more so
from being mixed up with what is miscalled the tender passion. The
cannibal fury which sets a man to kill his foe that he may eat him,
has fully as much tenderness in it as this species of affection.
When "the passion is made up of nothing but the finest parts of love,"
it may, perhaps, deserve the epithet of tender; but we have heard of
late of so many horrible and deliberate assassinations, originating in
what newspapers are pleased to call "_une grande passion_" that the
first idea which a love-story now suggests to me is, that the sequel
will in all probability be murder "most foul, strange, and unnatural!"
Is there in any language a word that can raise so many shuddering
sensations as "_La Morgue_?" Hatred, revenge, murder, are each
terrible; but La Morgue outdoes them all in its power of bringing
together in one syllable the abstract of whatever is most appalling in
crime, poverty, despair, and death.
To the ghastly Morgue are conveyed the unowned dead of every
description that are discovered in or near Paris. The Seine is the
great receptacle which first receives the victims of assassination or
despair; but they are not long permitted to elude the vigilance of the
Parisian police: a huge net, stretched across the river at St. Cloud,
receives and retains whatever the stream brings down; and anything
that retains a trace of human form which is found amidst the product
of the fearful draught is daily conveyed to La Morgue;--DAILY; for
rarely does it chance that for four-and-twenty hours its melancholy
biers remain unoccupied; often do eight, ten, a dozen corpses at a
time arrive by the frightful caravan from "_les filets de St. Cloud_."
I have, in common with most people, I believe, a very strong
propensity within me for seeing everything connected directly or
indirectly with any subject or event which has strongly roused my
curiosity, or interested my feelings; but, strange to say, I never
feel its influence so irresistible as when something of shuddering
horror is mixed with the spectacle. It is this propensity which has
now induced me to visit this citadel of death;--this low and solitary
roof, placed in the very centre of moving, living, laughing Paris.
No visit to a tomb, however solemn or however sad, can approach in
thrilling horror to the sensation caused by passing the threshold of
this charnel-house.
The tomb calls us to the contemplation of the common, the inevitable
lot; but this gathering place of sin and death arouses thoughts of all
that most outrages nature, and most foully violates the sanctuary of
life, into which God has breathed his spirit. But I was steadfast in
my will to visit it, and I have done it.
The building is a low, square, carefully-whited structure, situated on
the Quai de la Cité. It is open to all; and it is fearful to think how
many anxious hearts have entered, how many despairing ones have
quitted it.
On entering I found myself in a sort of low hall which contained no
object whatever. If I mistake not, there is a chamber on each side of
it: but it was to the left hand that I was led, and it was thither
that about a dozen persons who entered at the same time either
followed or preceded me. I do not too well remember how I reached the
place where the bodies are visible; but I know that I stood before one
of three large windows, through the panes of which, and very near to
them, lighted also by windows in the roof, are seen a range of biers,
sloping towards the spectator at an angle that gives the countenance
as well as the whole figure of the persons extended on them fully to
view.
In this manner I saw the bodies of four men stretched out before me;
but their aspect bore no resemblance to death--neither were they
swollen or distorted in any way, but so discoloured as to give them
exactly the appearance of bronze statues.
Two out of the four had evidently been murdered, for their heads and
throats gave frightful evidence of the violence that had been
practised upon them; the third was a mere boy, who probably met his
fate by accident: but that the fourth was a suicide, it was hardly
possible to doubt; even in death his features held the desperate
expression that might best paint the state of mind likely to lead to
such an act.
It was past mid-day when we entered the Morgue; but neither of the
bodies had yet been claimed or recognised.
This spectacle naturally set me upon seeking information, wherever I
was likely to find it, respecting the average number of bodies thus
exposed within the year, the proportion of them believed to be
suicides, and the causes generally supposed most influential in
producing this dreadful termination.
I will not venture to repeat the result of these inquiries in figures,
as I doubt if the information I received was of that strictly accurate
kind which could justify my doing so; yet it was quite enough so, to
excite both horror and astonishment at the extraordinary number which
are calculated to perish annually at Paris by self-slaughter.
In many recent instances, the causes which have led to these desperate
deeds have been ascertained by the written acknowledgment of the
perpetrators themselves, left as a legacy to mankind. Such a legacy
might perhaps not be wholly unprofitable to the survivors, were it not
that the motives assigned, in almost every instance where they have
been published, have been of so frivolous and contemptible a nature as
to turn wholesome horror to most ill-placed mirth.
It can hardly be doubted, from the testimony of these singular
documents, that many young Frenchmen perish yearly in this guilty and
deplorable manner for no other reason in the world than the hope of
being talked of afterwards.
Had some solitary instance of so perverted a vanity been found among
these records, it might perhaps have been considered as no more
incredible than various other proofs of the enfeebling effects of this
paltry passion on the judgment, and have been set down to insanity,
produced by excessive egotism: but nothing short of the posthumous
testimony of the persons themselves could induce any one to believe
that scarcely a week passes without such an event, from such a cause,
taking place in Paris.
In many instances, I am told that the good sense of surviving friends
has led them to disobey the testamentary instructions left by the
infatuated young men who have thus acted, requesting that the wretched
reasonings which have led them to it should be published. But, in a
multitude of cases, the "Constitutionnel" and other journals of the
same stamp have their columns filled with reasons why these poor
reckless creatures have dared the distant justice of their Creator, in
the hope that their unmeaning names should be echoed through Paris for
a day.
It is not long since two young men--mere youths--entered a
_restaurant_, and bespoke a dinner of unusual luxury and expense, and
afterwards arrived punctually at the appointed hour to eat it. They
did so, apparently with all the zest of youthful appetite and youthful
glee. They called for champagne, and quaffed it hand in hand. No
symptom of sadness, thought, or reflection of any kind was observed to
mix with their mirth, which was loud, long, and unremitting. At last
came the _café noir_, the cognac, and the bill: one of them was seen
to point out the amount to the other, and then both burst out afresh
into violent laughter. Having swallowed each his cup of coffee to the
dregs, the _garçon_ was ordered to request the company of the
_restaurateur_ for a few minutes. He came immediately, expecting
perhaps to receive his bill, minus some extra charge which the jocund
but economical youths might deem exorbitant.
Instead of this, however, the elder of the two informed him that the
dinner had been excellent, which was the more fortunate as it was
decidedly the last that either of them should ever eat: that for his
bill, he must of necessity excuse the payment of it, as in fact they
neither of them possessed a single sous: that upon no other occasion
would they thus have violated the customary etiquette between guest
and landlord; but that finding this world, its toils and its troubles,
unworthy of them, they had determined once more to enjoy a repast of
which their poverty must for ever prevent the repetition, and
then--take leave of existence for ever! For the first part of this
resolution, he declared that it had, thanks to his cook and his
cellar, been achieved nobly; and for the last, it would soon
follow--for the _café noir_, besides the little glass of his admirable
cognac, had been medicated with that which would speedily settle all
their accounts for them.
The _restaurateur_ was enraged. He believed no part of the
rhodomontade but that which declared their inability to discharge the
bill, and he talked loudly, in his turn, of putting them into the
hands of the police. At length, however, upon their offering to give
him their address, he was persuaded to let them depart.
On the following day, either the hope of obtaining his money, or some
vague fear that they might have been in earnest in the wild tale that
they had told him, induced this man to go to the address they had left
with him; and he there heard that the two unhappy boys had been that
morning found lying together hand in hand, on a bed hired a few weeks
before by one of them. When they were discovered, they were already
dead and quite cold.
On a small table in the room lay many written papers, all expressing
aspirations after greatness that should cost neither labour nor care,
a profound contempt for those who were satisfied to live by the sweat
of their brow--sundry quotations from Victor Hugo, and a request that
their names and the manner of their death might be transmitted to the
newspapers.
Many are the cases recorded of young men, calling themselves dear
friends, who have thus encouraged each other to make their final exit
from life, if not with applause, at least with effect. And more
numerous still are the tales recounted of young men and women found
dead, and locked in each other's arms; fulfilling literally, and with
most sad seriousness, the destiny sketched so merrily in the old
song:--
Gai, gai, marions-nous--
Mettons-nous dans la misère;
Gai, gai, marions-nous--
Mettons-nous la corde au cou.
I have heard it remarked by several individuals among those who are
watching with no unphilosophical eyes many ominous features of the
present time and the present race, or rather perhaps of that portion
of the population which stand apart from the rest in dissolute
idleness, that the worst of all its threatening indications is the
reckless, hard indifference, and gladiator-like contempt of death,
which is nurtured, taught, and lauded as at once the foundation and
perfection of all human wisdom and of all human virtue.
In place of the firmness derived from hope and resignation, these
unhappy sophists seek courage in desperation, and consolation in
notoriety. With this key to the philosophy of the day, it is not
difficult to read its influence on many a countenance that one meets
among those who are lounging in listless laziness on the Boulevards or
in the gardens of Paris.
The aspect of these figures is altogether unlike what we may too often
see among those who linger, sunken, pale, and hopeless, on the benches
of our parks, or loiter under porticos and colonnades, as if waiting
for courage to beg. Hunger and intemperance often leave blended traces
on such figures as these, exciting at once pity and disgust. I have
encountered at Paris nothing like this: whether any such exist, I know
not; but if they do, their beat is distant from the public walks and
fashionable promenades. Instead of these, however, there is a race who
seem to live there, less wretched perhaps in actual want of bread, but
as evidently thriftless, homeless, and friendless as the other. On the
faces of such, one may read a state of mind wholly different,--less
degraded, but still more perverted;--a wild, bold eye, that rather
seeks than turns from every passing glance--unshrinking hardihood, but
founded more on indifference than endurance, and a scornful sneer for
any who may suffer curiosity to conquer disgust, while they fix their
eye for a moment upon a figure that looks in all ways as if got up to
enact the hero of a melodrame. Were I the king, or the minister
either, I should think it right to keep an eye of watchfulness upon
all such picturesque individuals; for one might say most truly,
"Yon Cassius hath a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous."
The friend to whom I addressed myself on the subject of these
constantly-recurring suicides told me that there was great reason to
believe that the increase of this crime, so remarkable during the last
few years, might be almost wholly attributed to the "light
literature," as it is called, of the period:--dark literature would be
a fitter name for it.
The total absence of anything approaching to a virtuous principle of
action in every fictitious character held up to admiration throughout
all the tales and dramas of the _décousu_ school, while every hint of
religion is banished as if it were treason to allude to it, is in
truth quite enough to account for every species of depravity in those
who make such characters their study and their model. "How oft and by
how many shall they be laughed to scorn!"--yet believing all the
while, poor souls! that they are producing a sensation, and that the
eyes of Europe are fixed upon them, notwithstanding they once worked
as a tailor or a tinker, or at some other such unpoetical handiwork;
for they may all be described in the words of Ecclesiasticus, with a
very slight alteration,--"They would maintain the state of the world,
and all their desire is in (forgetting) the work of their craft."