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the theme, and the police were upon the point of making serious
investigations, when, one fine morning, after the lapse of a week,
Marie, in good health, but with a somewhat saddened air, made her
re-appearance at her usual counter in the perfumery. All inquiry, except
that of a private character, was of course immediately hushed. Monsieur
Le Blanc professed total ignorance, as before. Marie, with Madame,
replied to all questions, that the last week had been spent at the
house of a relation in the country. Thus the affair died away, and was
generally forgotten; for the girl, ostensibly to relieve herself from
the impertinence of curiosity, soon bade a final adieu to the perfumer,
and sought the shelter of her mother's residence in the Rue Pavée Saint
Andrée.
It was about five months after this return home, that her friends were
alarmed by her sudden disappearance for the second time. Three days
elapsed, and nothing was heard of her. On the fourth her corpse was
found floating in the Seine, * near the shore which is opposite the
Quartier of the Rue Saint Andree, and at a point not very far distant
from the secluded neighborhood of the Barrière du Roule. (*6)
The atrocity of this murder, (for it was at once evident that murder had
been committed,) the youth and beauty of the victim, and, above all, her
previous notoriety, conspired to produce intense excitement in the minds
of the sensitive Parisians. I can call to mind no similar occurrence
producing so general and so intense an effect. For several weeks, in
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