Here are the facts: The body of a young girl was found early in the
morning, stranded on the river-bank in the slime and reeds of the
Seine. Men employed in dredging sand saw it as they were getting into
their frail boat on their way to their work.
"_Tiens_! fifty francs earned!" said one of them.
"True," said the other.
They approached the body.
"A handsome girl! We had better go and make our statement."
And the two dredgers, after covering the body with their jackets, went
to the house of the village mayor, who was much embarrassed at having
to make out the legal papers necessitated by this discovery.
The news of this event spread with the telegraphic rapidity peculiar
to regions where social communications have no distractions, where
gossip, scandal, calumny, in short, the social tale which feasts the
world has no break of continuity from one boundary to another. Before
long, persons arriving at the mayor's office released him from all
embarrassment. They were able to convert the _proces-verbal_ into a
mere certificate of death, by recognizing the body as that of the
Demoiselle Ida Gruget, corset-maker, living rue de la
Corderie-du-Temple, number 14. The judiciary police of Paris arrived,
and the mother, bearing her daughter's last letter. Amid the mother's
moans, a doctor certified to death by asphyxia, through the injection
of black blood into the pulmonary system,--which settled the matter.
The inquest over, and the certificates signed, by six o'clock the same
evening authority was given to bury the grisette.
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