But it would be ungrateful in me to pass without a special notice the Præfecturate of Police. If I now lodge in the Rue D’Enfer, No.—, looking down upon the garden of the Luxembourg, and having my conduct registered once a week in the king’s books; if I have permission to abide in Paris; and, above all, if ever I shall have the permission to go out of it; whither am I to refer these inestimable privileges, but to the never-sleeping eye of the Præfecturate of Police? But the merits of this institution are founded upon a much wider scheme of benefits; for which I am going to look into my Guide to Paris.
It “discourages pauperism” by sending most of the beggars out of Paris, to besiege the Diligence on the highways: and gives aid to dead people by fishing them out of the Seine, at twenty-five francs a piece, into the Morgue. It protects personal safety by entering private houses in the night, and commits all persons taken in the fact (flagrant délit;) it preserves public decency by removing courtezans from the Palais Royal to the Boulevards, and other convenient places; and protects his Most Christian Majesty by seizing upon “Infernal Machines,” just after the explosion. In a word, this Præfecturate of the Police, with only five hundred thousand troops of the line, and the National Guard, encourages all sorts of public morals at the rate of seven hundred millions of francs per annum, besides protecting commerce by taking gentlemen’s cigars out of their pockets at Havre.
Towards the south and west of the Island, you will see a little building distinguished from its dingy neighbours by its gentility and freshness. It stands retired by the river side, modestly, giving a picturesque appearance to the whole prospect, and a relief to the giant monuments which I have just described. This building is the Morgue.
If any gentleman, having lost his money at Frascati’s—or his health and his money too at the pretty Flora’s—or if any melancholy stranger lodging in the Rue D’Enfer, absent from his native home and the sweet affections of his friends, should find life insupportable, (there are no disappointed lovers in this country,) he will lie in state the next morning at the Morgue. Upon a black marble table he will be stretched out, and his clothes, bloody or wet, will be hung over him, and there he will be kept (except in August, when he won’t keep) for three whole days and as many nights; and if no one claims him, why then the King of the French sells him for ten francs to the doctors; and his clothes, after six months, belong to François, the steward, who has them altered for his dear little children, or sells them for second-hand finery in the market.
One of these suicides, as I have read in the Revue de Paris, was claimed the other day by his affectionate uncle as follows:—A youth wrote to his uncle that he had lost at gambling certain sums entrusted to him, in his province, to pay a debt in Paris, and that he was unwilling to survive the disgrace. The uncle recognised him, and buried him with becoming ceremony at Père la Chaise. In returning home pensively from this solemn duty, the youth rushed into his uncle’s arms, and they hugged and kissed, and hugged each other, to the astonishment of the spectators. It is so agreeable to see one’s nephews, after one has buried them, jump about one’s neck!
The annual number of persons who commit suicide in all France, I have seen stated at two thousand. Those who came to the Morgue in 1822 were 260. Is it not strange that the French character, so flexible and fruitful of resources in all circumstances of fortune, should be subject to this excess? And that they should kill themselves, too, for the most absurd and frivolous causes. One, as I have read in the journals, from disgust at putting on his breeches in the cold winter mornings; and two lately (Ecousse and Lebrun) because a farce they had written did not succeed at the play-house. The authors chose to incur the same penalty in the other world that was inflicted on their vaudeville in this. And these Catos of Utica are brought here to the Morgue.
The greater part are caught in the Seine, by a net stretched across the river at St. Cloud. Formerly twenty-five francs were given for a man saved, and twenty if drowned; and the rogues cheated the government of its humanity by getting up a company, who saved each other. The sum is now reversed, so that they always allow one time, and even assist one a little sometimes, for the additional five francs.
The building, by the advance of civilization, has required, this season, to be repaired, and a new story is added. Multitudes, male and female, are seen going in and out at every hour of the day. You can step in on your way as you go to the flower market, which is just opposite. There is a lady at the bureau, who attends the sale and recognition of the corpses in her father’s absence, and who plays the piano, and excels in several of the ornamental branches.
She was crowned at the last distribution of prizes, and is the daughter of the keeper, M. Perrin. He has four other daughters, who also give the same promise of accomplishment. Their morals do not run the same risk as most other children’s, of being spoilt by a bad intercourse from without. Indeed, they are so little used to associate abroad, that, getting into a neighbour’s the other day, they asked their playmates, running about through the house, “Where does your papa keep his dead people?” Innocent little creatures! M. Perrin is a man of excellent instruction himself, and entertains his visitors with conversations literary and scientific, and he writes a fine round text hand.
When a new corpse arrives, he puts himself at his desk, and with a graceful flourish enters it on the book; and when not claimed at the end of three days he writes down in German text, “inconnu;” if known, “connu.” The exhibition room is, since its enlargement, sufficient for the ordinary wants of society; but on emergencies, as on the “three glorious days,” and the like, they are obliged to accommodate a part of the corpses elsewhere. They have been seen strewed, on these occasions, over the garden; and Miss Perrin has to take some in her room. Alas! that no state of life should be exempt from its miseries! You who think to have propitiated fortune by the humility of your condition, come hither and contemplate M. Perrin. Only a few years ago, when quietly engaged in his official duties, his own wife came in with the other customers. He was struck with horror; and he went to his bureau and wrote down “connu.”