them in romantic details. Indeed, is not this proved by the reports in
the _Gazette des Tribunaux_--the Police news--in my opinion, one of
the worst abuses of the Press? This newspaper, which was started only
in 1826 or '27, was not in existence when I began my professional
career, and the facts of the crime I am about to speak of were not
known beyond the limits of the department where it was committed.

"In the quarter of Saint-Pierre-des-Corps at Tours a woman whose
husband had disappeared at the time when the army of the Loire was
disbanded, and who had mourned him deeply, was conspicuous for her
excess of devotion. When the mission priests went through all the
provinces to restore the crosses that had been destroyed and to efface
the traces of revolutionary impiety, this widow was one of their most
zealous proselytes, she carried a cross and nailed to it a silver
heart pierced by an arrow; and, for a long time after, she went every
evening to pray at the foot of the cross which was erected behind the
Cathedral apse.

"At last, overwhelmed by remorse, she confessed to a horrible crime.
She had killed her husband, as Fualdes was murdered, by bleeding him;
she had salted the body and packed it in pieces into old casks,
exactly as if it have been pork; and for a long time she had taken a
piece every morning and thrown it into the Loire. Her confessor
consulted his superiors, and told her that it would be his duty to
inform the public prosecutor. The woman awaited the action of the Law.
The public prosecutor and the examining judge, on examining the
cellar, found the husband's head still in pickle in one of the casks.
--'Wretched woman,' said the judge to the accused, 'since you were so
barbarous as to throw your husband's body into the river, why did you
not get rid of the head? Then there would have been no proof.'