view, with all the respect due to decency and
propriety, the clothes of the deceased hanging
beside it, and it was thus to remain for three
days. In case of the body being recognised,
those who identified it were to make their
declaration before the magistrate of the
quarter, or the nearest commissary of police,
and he having furnished the necessary paper,
the prefect of police would give an order for
the delivery of the remains and their interment
in the usual manner. Those who
claimed the corpse were expected, if it was in
their power, to pay the expenses attendant
upon finding and exposing it, and were
allowed to have the clothes and other effects
found upon the deceased. All the reports
relating to the bodies taken to the lower gaol
as well as the orders of interment, were to
be inscribed in a register kept for that purpose
at the prefecture of police; and a similar
book was to be kept at the lower gaol itself,
in which, day by day, were to be inscribed the
admission of dead bodies, their appearance,
the presumed cause of death, and the date of
their removal. When fragments of a corpse
were fished out of the Seine, those who
discovered them were to give intimation of
the fact to the nearest commissary of police,
who was to take the same steps with regard
to them as if the body had been found
entire.

This ordinance remained in force for four
years; but it being then thought advisable
to have a building expressly devoted to the
exposure of the dead, the present Morgue
was constructed close to the north-eastern
extremity of the bridge of St. Michel, on
the Marché Neuf. No change took place in
the regulations above cited, nor has any
material alteration been made in them since
the promulgation of the original ordinance.

The establishment of the Morgue was particularly
intended to apply to that class of
persons, respecting whose habits of life and
place of abode it was difficult to obtain such
information as would enable the authorities
to register their deaths in a proper manner;
and the object which the administration
hoped to attain by the institution, was that
of universal identification. This has never
been altogether possible, but great progress
has been made towards it. For instance, in
the year eighteen hundred and thirty, the
proportion of bodies recognised was not more
than four out of ten, while at present they
amount to nine-tenths of the whole number
exposed; with this material addition that,
whereas the bodies formerly remained for the
full period prescribed by law, and sometimes
even exceeded it, the average time within
which recognition now takes place is little
more than twenty-four hours.

This information, with what will further be
detailed, was communicated to me in a very
business-like, and I had almost said, a very
pleasant manner, by Monsieur Baptiste, the
intelligent greffier or clerk of the Morgue.

No "mysterious disappearance of a gentleman,"
or lady, such as with us produces an
advertisement in the Times, was the cause of
my "looking in" one fine sunny morning while
on my way, by the route which most people
take, to Nôtre Dame. I was simply passing
along the Marché Neuf when, from the open
door of a wine-shop, three or four men in
blouses, accompanied by a woman, suddenly
rushed out, and exclaiming loudly, "Ah! it is
he then!" ran hastily across the street and
dashed into the Morgue. I had often glanced,
with an involuntary shudder, at the cold-looking
vault-like building, and had always
hurried onward; but on this occasion a feeling
of curiosity made me pause. I asked
myself who it was that had excited the sudden
emotion which I had just witnessed? and, as
I put the question, I found I was proceeding
to answer it by following those who I had no
doubt were the relatives or friends of some
one newly discovered.

Passing through a wide carriage gate, I
entered a large vestibule, and, turning to the
left, saw before me the Salle d'Exposition,
where so many ghastly thousands, the victims
of accident or crime, had been brought for
identification after death. It was separated
from the vestibule by a strong barrier, which
supported a range of upright bars, placed a
few inches apart and reaching to the ceiling,
and through the interstices everything within
could be distinctly seen; this barrier ran
the whole length of the chamber, dividing
it into two nearly equal parts. It had need
to have been strong, if the grief of all who
pressed against it had equalled the passionate
sorrow of the woman who now clung to the
bar in her frenzied eagerness to clasp the
dead. I soon learnt, from her own sobbing
voice, that it was her son. The facts attending
his exposure were of every-day occurrence:
he had been fished out of the Seine, and there
he lay, livid and swollen; but, whether he
had accidentally fallen into the river, or had
committed suicide, there seemed to be nothing
to show. So at least it appeared to me;
but the mother of the drowned man — he was
under twenty, and she herself had scarcely
passed middle age— thought otherwise; for
every now and then she moaned forth a
female name, which the friends who stood
beside her endeavoured to hush, and from
this I inferred that the deceased had probably
acted under one of those impulses of
jealousy which, when it does not seek the
life of a rival, resolves to suppress its own.
But, come by his death how he might, the
identification was complete, and defeatured
as he was, his mother found the sad task
no difficulty. Indeed, the manner of exposure
offers every facility for recognition. The
clothes are hung up over the corpse in such
a manner that they can be readily recognised.
The body itself is placed on a dark slab,
slightly inclining towards the spectator, with
the head resting upon a sort of desk or