hole was observed to have been drilled in the wood, as if by the teeth
of some animal, it was judged expedient to open and examine it further.
The remains of the marquess were discovered in a state of dry
decomposition, with his head as completely severed from his body as
if by the stroke of the axe; but, horror of horrors! that head, that
skeleton skull, moved, as those who opened the coffin stood to gaze on
its revolting contents, and rolled to and fro by itself! Dismay seized
the spectators, who were about to rush in disorder from the spot, when
one more courageous than the rest, laying hold of the skull, shook it
violently for some moments, when, from one of the eye-sockets dangled
the tail of a rat! The cause of the strange sounds heard by Morel and
others, connected with the church of St. Genevieve, was now obvious;
the voracious animal had entered when lean and small, into the head of
the deceased marquess, by the eye, but after revelling upon the brain
of the unfortunate defunct for some time, had increased to a size which
rendered its exit by the same passage impossible, and its efforts at
extrication from horrible thraldom, caused the rattling of the disjoined
head in the coffin. It was proposed to saw asunder the skull, in
order to free the creature, and the advice of Albert Morel, that the
operation should be performed by one of the medical fraternity, who
might be glad to witness the fact of a rat being imprisoned in a human
head, was cheerfully taken. Some, however, objected to its being done,
without application for leave having been first made to the Comtesse de
Villeroi, as one to whom the proprietorship of her deceased husband's
remains naturally and solely appertained, and who might feel it as a
cruel insult towards herself, and a sacrilegious violation of the grave
of her first lord, the consigning without her knowledge and permission,
any part of his body to the hands of a surgeon. "Tush!" quoth old Morel,
"all nonsense that! for if one may believe what has long been town-talk,
'tis little that madame will care for her dead husband now she has a