Alarmed at the shrieks of the mother, all the inmates of the house became witnesses of the scene, the report of which spread rapidly through the city. The same morning, upon a warrant from the procureur-general, M. Desalleux was conducted to the criminal prison of Orleans; and it has since been remarked, as a singular coincidence, that his cell was the same that had been occupied by Peter Leroux up to the day of his execution.
The end of the deputy-prosecutor, however, was a little less tragic. Declared by the unanimous testimony of the physicians to be insane, the man who had dreamed of moving the world with his eloquence, was conducted to the hospital for lunatics, and for more than six months kept chained in a dark cell, as in the good old times. At the end of this time, however, as he appeared to be no longer dangerous, his chains were removed, and he was subjected to milder treatment.
As soon as he recovered his liberty, a strange delusion took possession of him, which did not leave him until he died. He fancied himself a tight-rope dancer, and from morning to night danced with the gestures and movements of a man who holds a balancing-rod, and walks upon a cord.
If any one visiting the city of Orleans would take the trouble to inquire of M. Troisétoiles, landlord of the Hôtel Aux Clés de la Ville, in the Place du Marché, he would obtain a confirmation of the truth of this history, together with many other facts and circumstances, collateral and ramificatory, concerning the bride and bridegroom, their relations and friends, which we have not thought necessary to state. With regard, however, to the tragic event which we have last described, M. Troisétoiles will simply relate what is known to the world on the subject—namely, that the deputy-prosecutor, being injured in mind by overstudy and application to business, knocked out his wife's brains on her wedding-night. We, however, although we decline to mention our sources of information, have been enabled to give the private and secret history of the tragedy, for the truth of which we are equally able to vouch.
A bookseller in Orleans, sometime afterwards, conceived the idea of collecting and publishing a volume of the speeches which he had pronounced during his short but brilliant oratorical career. Three editions were exhausted successively, and not long since a fourth was announced.
DIAMOND-CUTTING.
The Koh-i-noor, the great diamond that, thanks to the still greater Exhibition, so many have seen, and so many more have heard of, is now in the hands of skilful diamond-cutters, that, unlike the sable beauties of Abyssinia, its charms may be augmented by a judicious reduction in magnitude and gravity. Cut at first with the view of preserving intact as much of the stone as possible, it never possessed the sparkling lustre derived from the scientific disposition of the several sides and angles, technically termed facets, of a well-polished diamond. It is now intended to be fashioned into a brilliant; that is, to have the form of two flattened pyramids joined at the base, the upper pyramid much flatter than the lower one. In England, the art of diamond-cutting has ceased to exist, but in Holland it still maintains its ancient pre-eminence; and from thence the cutters of the Koh-i-noor have been brought to perform an operation, which, taking into consideration the size of the stone, had never previously been accomplished in this country.
It is not known, with any degree of certainty, whether the ancient inhabitants of the East had any knowledge of the art of diamond-cutting; but it is at the same time very clear, that the nations of the West knew nothing of it till a very late period. Even to the latter part of the fifteenth century, the diamond was appreciated principally for its supposed talismanic properties and its hardness; and as that hardness prevented its hidden beauties from being brought to light by cutting and polishing, it was regarded more as a rare cabalistic curiosity than a precious ornament. Some diamonds, however, whose natural form and polish were more favourable to the development of their clouded brilliancy, foretold the splendour they would display were it possible to cut and polish them as other gems. Numerous attempts were made to attain this desired end, but all in vain, until, about 1460, Louis de Berghen, a young jeweller of Bruges, succeeded in cutting the first diamond.