The doctor felt the hands, the arms, the legs. He said:
"She must have been bathing, no doubt. They ought to be at the water's edge."
The Mayor thereupon gave directions:
"Do you, Princépe" (this was his secretary), "go and look for those clothes for me along the river. Do you, Maxime" (this was the steward), "hurry on towards Roug-le-Tors, and bring on here to me the examining magistrate with the gendarmes. They must be here within an hour. You understand."
The two men quickly departed, and Renardet said to the doctor:
"What miscreant has been able to do such a deed in this part of the country."
The doctor murmured:
"Who knows? Everyone is capable of that? Everyone in particular and nobody in general. No matter, it must be some prowler, some workman out of employment. As we live under a Republic, we must expect to meet only this kind of person along the roads."
Both of them were Bonapartists.