Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/47

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The Green Bag.

way out of the woods, and that he had no j His nights were agitated; a profound sad ticed him examining his garments with the ness took possession of him. His sleep greatest care as if to assure himself that was filled with visions, and a vague uneasi there was no spot upon them, and that he ness filled his mind in his wakeful hours. had asked if his face was clean. As for the His condition became such that he was ad vised to travel. Acting upon this advice prisoner, he said tranquilly : " It is an abomi nable thing to have killed two children. If he went to Beauvais, where he found some one has anything to complain of in another, relatives and also met a gentleman named Branche, with whom he had had business lie can call him out in a duel; but to mur der two children, one must have the most relations. j On the day after his arrival at Beauvais, powerful motives." As soon as the arrested man was brought Papavoine, who was still seeking from the into the presence of the three women, the War Department a renewal of the contract, mother cried, " That is the monster who received unexpectedly from his mother two killed my children! " The woman Malser- orders from the War Department. As it vait identified him at once as the man who was necessary that these papers should be had spoken to her in the woods, and Dame put into proper form, Papavoine determined Jean recognized him as the individual who to go to Paris at once. He arrived there on had bought the knife in her shop. the 6th of October, having borrowed money The prisoner, on being questioned, re to pay his expenses. plied that his name was Papavoine, and He alighted at the H6tel de la Providence, with the greatest calmness he related his situated in the Rue Saint- Pierre-Montmartre, history. and repaired at once to the office of his cor Born at Mouy, in the department of L'Eure, respondents in the city, to whom he delivered in 1783, he had for a father a manufacturer the orders he had received, in order that of cloth, a man in comfortable circumstances. they might have them put into proper form. He had received an excellent education, and Until the following Sunday, the 10th of at an early age he entered the French navy. October, he lived very quietly in the city. In December, 1823, his father died, leaving On that day, feeling the need of distraction, to his wife and son an estate which was* in a he went out, after a frugal breakfast, and disordered and complicated condition. The proceeded to Vincennes. widow being unable to carry on or wind up All these declarations were found to con the business, Papavoine determined to ask form to the truth, and it was impossible to for his discharge from the navy, which he discover any relation between the prisoner obtained with a pension of three hundred! and the woman Herin, and it was equally francs. He then established himself at proved that he did not know the woman Mouy. At the time,of his father's death the Malservait. manufactory had a contract for supplying Papavoine, however, calmly repelled the the army with uniforms; but presently the accusation brought against him. In vain War Department refused to continue it, and they urged the identification of himself by by this refusal the affairs of the Papavoine the three women, and by other less impor family were placed in a very critical condi tant witnesses who had seen him not far tion. Papavoine, it seems, then repented of from the place of the crime; in vain they having given up his position; he endeavored showed him upon his hat the evident trace to re-enter the navy, but without success. of the blow of the umbrella which the poor The condition of business affairs and his mother had used against him : he persisted failure to be reinstated in the navy greatly in denying. He fought the proofs which affected Papavoine, who became really ill. accumulated against him with a rare lucidity,