the impression that she had met her death in this fashion. But
either the arm of Mademoiselle Sidonie--who was told off to do the
hammering--was unskilled in such work, or the opiate was too weak,
for the victim began to shriek before she gave up the ghost.
Detection seemed imminent, so Narcisse, in whom the quality of
discretion was evidently predominant, bolted at once and got out of
the country. But the facts were absolutely clear. The victim
lived long enough to depose that Mademoiselle Sidonie attacked her
with the wood chopper, while Narcisse watched the door. The
advocate of Narcisse did his work like a man. He shed the
regulation measure of tears; he drew graphic pictures of the
innocent youth of Narcisse, of his rise to eminence, and of his
filial piety as evidenced by the frequent despatch of money and
comestibles to his venerable mother, who was still living near
Bourges. Once a year, too, this incomparable artist found time to
renew his youth by a sojourn in the simple cottage which saw his
birth, and by embracing the giver of his life. Was it possible
that a man who treated one woman with such devotion and reverence
could take the life of another? He adduced various and picturesque
reasons to show that such an event must be impossible, but the jury
took the opposite view. Some one had to be guillotined, and the
intelligent jury decided that Paris could spare Narcisse better
than it could spare Mademoiselle Sidonie. I fear the fact that he
had deigned to sell his services to a brutal islander may have
helped them to come to this conclusion, but there were other and
more weighty reasons. Of the supreme excellence of Narcisse as an
artist the jury knew nothing, so they let him go hang--or worse--
but of Mademoiselle Sidonie they knew a good deal, and their
knowledge, I believe, is shared by certain English visitors to
Paris. She is one of the attractions of the Fantasies d'Arcadie,