Whilst I was at Bordeaux I learned through the newspapers that an appalling discovery had been made at Pantin, in the outskirts of Paris. Six bodies—including one of a middle-aged woman, another of a youth about sixteen years of age, with three younger lads and a little girl—had been found buried in a field. They were all fearfully disfigured, with no less than one hundred and seven wounds, some of which had been inflicted with a knife, and the others with a pickaxe. The younger children had playthings in their pockets, and the little girl still grasped in her hand a bit of bread and a slice of sausage, which she had apparently been eating when she was killed.

With but little of that respect for the dead on which French people pride themselves, the bodies were removed to the Paris Morgue in a couple of dung carts, hurriedly cleansed for the purpose. They were escorted, not only by police, but by foot-soldiers, and the singular cortege attracted general attention as it passed through the Paris streets. When the crowd which had gathered near the Morgue beheld the mutilated bodies as they were carried into the building, it was generally surmised that there had been a terrible railway accident, and that these were some of the victims. On the morrow, however, the newspapers gave full particulars of the discovery and thousands of people hurried to the Morgue to feast their eyes on the morbid sight, but were doomed to be disappointed, for, owing to the bodies having already been identified, they were not publicly exhibited.