CAUSES CÉLÈBRES.
III.
THE MYSTERY OF THE RUE DE VAUGIRARD.
[1833.]
On the 23d of April, 1833, several carriages were drawn up before the door of a house in the Rue de Vaugirard, bearing the number 81. From the first alighte'd a tall thin man who carried in one hand a lawyer's bag filled with papers; after him came two men whose faces bore marks of evident anxiety and disturbance : one of them, short and thickset, was fashionably dressed and wore a pair of enormous green spectacles, behind which a pair of restless eyes seemed constantly in motion; the other, pale and thin, clad in the garb of a well-to-do work ing-man, appeared greatly depressed, and gazed vacantly about him.
A municipal guard and two officers surrounded these last individuals as they alighted.
From the second carriage, at the same moment, descended two men, one of whom carried a surgeon's case. The other was no less than the dean of the medical faculty, M. Orfila. He approached the first person whom we have described, and grasping him by the hand, said, —
"Monsieur Procureur du roi, my colleague, Dumoutier, and I are here at your orders. What does it concern? A case of poisoning? An autopsy?"
"Nothing of the kind," replied the procureur du roi, smiling; "it concerns rather a question of archaeology."
"Then you have addressed yourself to the wrong persons. You should have sent for Letronne."
While carrying on this conversation, the magistrate and the two savants had entered, through a low dark gateway, the garden at tached to the house. This garden was large, but evidently had not been cared for within the past few years. The paths were overrun with grass and weeds. A short flight of dilapidated steps led from this enclosure to the dining-room of the house.
A large kitchen table stood under an old apricot-tree in a corner of the garden, upon which were ink, pens, and paper. A few chairs and a large white-pine box completed the preparations which had evidently been made in expectation of the visitors whom we have introduced.
The procureur du roi, the two savants, a greffier, the municipal guard, and his two acolytes, each holding by the arm one of the two men who appeared so greatly disturbed, directed their steps to the apricot-tree. The procureur, after glancing at a plan which lay upon the table, turned to two workmen who were standing near the wall, and designating with his finger a cross traced in red ink upon the plan, said, —
"Begin there."
The two men at once commenced to dig the ground near a path which ran along be side the wall. After working a few moments one of them suddenly felt his pickaxe penetrate an excavation, and uttered an exclamation of surprise. The short thickset man with the green spectacles started involuntarily, and a momentary flash lighted up the dull eyes of his companion. The municipal guard and the two agents of police contracted the semicircle which they formed around these two men, still holding them tightly by the arms.
"Now," said the procureur to the work men, " take the greatest precautions; proceed slowly, and be careful to break nothing."
The men emptied the earth with their hands from the hole that they had made, and laid bare a layer of mortar which apparently formed the covering of a sort of vault. It
