CHAPTER I. IN THE NOTARY'S OFFICE. Brain, or heart of the land, which you will, as large cities are, Paris may claim to have nerves, muscles, and arteries centering in it, which but few capitals, by right of size, passions, horrors, loves, charms, mysteries, in a word, can reveal. To trace its emotions, impulses, secrets, wounds, cankers, joys, the following pages are devoted. We must begin by... more...

CHAPTER I. THE TAPIS-FRANC. It was on a cold and rainy night, towards the end of October, 1838, that a tall and powerful man, with an old broad-brimmed straw hat upon his head, and clad in a blue cotton carter's frock, which hung loosely over trousers of the same material, crossed the Pont au Change, and darted with a hasty step into the Cité, that labyrinth of obscure, narrow, and winding... more...

THE CONSTANT WANDERER. It is night. The moon shines and the stars glimmer in the midst of a serene but cheerless sky; the sharp whistlings of the north wind, that fatal, dry, and icy breeze, ever and anon burst forth in violent gusts. With its harsh and cutting breath, it sweeps Montmartre's Heights. On the highest point of the hills, a man is standing. His long shadow is cast upon the stony,... more...

CHAPTER I. THE PRESENTATION. A few days after the murder of Madame Séraphin, the death of the Chouette, and the arrest of the gang of desperadoes taken by surprise at Bras-Rouge's house, Rodolph paid another visit to the house in the Rue du Temple. We have already observed that, with the view of practising artifice for artifice with Jacques Ferrand, discovering his hidden crimes, obliging him to... more...