the tastes, opinions, and habits of its master. Vases of flowers threw
a green reflection on the curtains, for François is fond of flowers.
Among his gallery of portraits were those of Augereau and Kleber, both
in long coats, leaning on immense sabres, with peruques and powder.
Napoleon is there three times.

"'Look at these jars,' said François, 'these are sweetmeats of
my wife's making; she excels in sweetmeats.' I read upon them,
'gooseberries of 1831.' We left François's apartment which forms the
right wing of the Morgue, while the clerk's house is on the left, and
entered the cabinet of administration of M. Perrin.

"If François is fond of flowers, M. Perrin has the same penchant for
hydraulics and the camera obscura; he draws, he makes jets from the
Seine, by an ingenious piece of machinery of his own invention; while
he was retouching his syphon, I asked permission to turn over the
register, where suicides are ranged in two columns.

"The fatal 'unknown' was the prevailing designation; 'brought here at
three in the morning, skull fractured, _unknown;_' 'brought at twelve
at night, drowned under the Pont des Arts, cards in his pocket,
_unknown;_'--'young woman, pregnant, crushed by a fiacre at the corner
of the Rue Mandar, _unknown_;'--'new born child found dead of cold,
at the gate of an hotel, _unknown.'_

"I said to M. Perrin that he must weary here very much occasionally
during the long nights of winter.

"'No,' replied he good humouredly, 'the children sing, we all work,
François and I play at draughts or piquet; the worst of it is, we are