when an order on the subject was published by the chief of police. For the police, who in every country seem to be less inclined to prevent crime than to appear to know all about it, either desired to display their universal information or else thought, as regards the tales of poisoning, that whether they were true or false, they themselves must in any case divert all suspicion from the Government—suffice it to say, that by their unfortunate proclamation, in which they distinctly said that they were on the track of the poisoners, they officially confirmed the rumours, and thereby threw all Paris into the most dreadful apprehension of death.
"We never heard the like!" said the oldest people, who, even in the most dreadful times of the Revolution, had never experienced such fearful crime. "Frenchmen! we are dishonoured!" cried the men, striking their foreheads. The women, pressing their little children in agony to their hearts, wept bitterly and lamented that the innocent babes were dying in their arms. The poor people dared neither eat nor drink, and wrung their hands in dire need and distress. It seemed as if the end of the world had come. The crowds assembled chiefly at the corners of the streets, where the red-painted wine-shops are situated, and it was generally there that men who seemed suspicious were searched, and woe
