collateral or circumstantial events. It is the mal-practice of the
courts to confine evidence and discussion to the bounds of apparent
relevancy. Yet experience has shown, and a true philosophy will
always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of truth, arises
from the seemingly irrelevant. It is through the spirit of this
principle, if not precisely through its letter, that modern science
has resolved to calculate upon the unforeseen. But perhaps you do not
comprehend me. The history of human knowledge has so uninterruptedly
shown that to collateral, or incidental, or accidental events we are
indebted for the most numerous and most valuable discoveries, that it
has at length become necessary, in any prospective view of
improvement, to make not only large, but the largest allowances for
inventions that shall arise by chance, and quite out of the range of
ordinary expectation. It is no longer philosophical to base, upon
what has been, a vision of what is to be. Accident is admitted as a
portion of the substructure. We make chance a matter of absolute
calculation. We subject the unlooked for and unimagined, to the
mathematical _formulae_ of the schools.
"I repeat that it is no more than fact, that the larger portion of
all truth has sprung from the collateral; and it is but in accordance
with the spirit of the principle involved in this fact, that I would
divert inquiry, in the present case, from the trodden and hitherto
unfruitful ground of the event itself, to the contemporary
circumstances which surround it. While you ascertain the validity of
the affidavits, I will examine the newspapers more generally than you
have as yet done. So far, we have only reconnoitred the field of
investigation; but it will be strange indeed if a comprehensive
survey, such as I propose, of the public prints, will not afford us
some minute points which shall establish a direction for inquiry."
In pursuance of Dupin's suggestion, I made scrupulous examination of
the affair of the affidavits. The result was a firm conviction of
their validity, and of the consequent innocence of St. Eustache. In
the mean time my friend occupied himself, with what seemed to me a
minuteness altogether objectless, in a scrutiny of the various
newspaper files. At the end of a week he placed before me the
following extracts:
"About three years and a half ago, a disturbance very similar to the
present, was caused by the disappearance of this same Marie RogΩt,
from the parfumerie of Monsieur Le Blanc, in the Palais Royal. At the
end of a week, however, she re-appeared at her customary comptoir, as
well as ever, with the exception of a slight paleness not altogether
usual. It was given out by Monsieur Le Blanc and her mother, that she
had merely been on a visit to some friend in the country; and the
affair was speedily hushed up. We presume that the present absence is
a freak of the same nature, and that, at the expiration of a week, or
perhaps of a month, we shall have her among us again." - Evening
Paper - Monday June 23. {*17}
"An evening journal of yesterday, refers to a former mysterious
disappearance of Mademoiselle RogΩt. It is well known that, during
the week of her absence from Le Blanc's parfumerie, she was in the
company of a young naval officer, much noted for his debaucheries. A
quarrel, it is supposed, providentially led to her return home. We
have the name of the Lothario in question, who is, at present,
stationed in Paris, but, for obvious reasons, forbear to make it
public." - Le Mercurie - Tuesday Morning, June 24. {*18}
"An outrage of the most atrocious character was perpetrated near this
city the day before yesterday. A gentleman, with his wife and
daughter, engaged, about dusk, the services of six young men, who
were idly rowing a boat to and fro near the banks of the Seine, to
convey him across the river. Upon reaching the opposite shore, the
three passengers stepped out, and had proceeded so far as to be
beyond the view of the boat, when the daughter discovered that she
had left in it her parasol. She returned for it, was seized by the
gang, carried out into the stream, gagged, brutally treated, and
finally taken to the shore at a point not far from that at which she
had originally entered the boat with her parents. The villains have
escaped for the time, but the police are upon their trail, and some
of them will soon be taken." - Morning Paper - June 25. {*19}
"We have received one or two communications, the object of which is
to fasten the crime of the late atrocity upon Mennais; {*20} but as
this gentleman has been fully exonerated by a loyal inquiry, and as
the arguments of our several correspondents appear to be more zealous
than profound, we do not think it advisable to make them public." -
Morning Paper - June 28. {*21}
"We have received several forcibly written communications, apparently
from various sources, and which go far to render it a matter of
certainty that the unfortunate Marie RogΩt has become a victim of one
of the numerous bands of blackguards which infest the vicinity of the
city upon Sunday. Our own opinion is decidedly in favor of this
supposition. We shall endeavor to make room for some of these
arguments hereafter." - Evening Paper - Tuesday, June 31. {*22}
"On Monday, one of the bargemen connected with the revenue service,
saw a empty boat floating down the Seine. Sails were lying in the
bottom of the boat. The bargeman towed it under the barge office. The
next morning it was taken from thence, without the knowledge of any
of the officers. The rudder is now at the barge office." - Le
Diligence - Thursday, June 26. §
Upon reading these various extracts, they not only seemed to me
irrelevant, but I could perceive no mode in which any one of them
could be brought to bear upon the matter in hand. I waited for some
explanation from Dupin.
"It is not my present design," he said, "to dwell upon the first and
second of those extracts. I have copied them chiefly to show you the
extreme remissness of the police, who, as far as I can understand
from the Prefect, have not troubled themselves, in any respect, with
an examination of the naval officer alluded to. Yet it is mere folly
to say that between the first and second disappearance of Marie,
there is no _supposable_ connection. Let us admit the first elopement
to have resulted in a quarrel between the lovers, and the return home
of the betrayed. We are now prepared to view a second elopement (if
we know that an elopement has again taken place) as indicating a
renewal of the betrayer's advances, rather than as the result of new
proposals by a second individual - we are prepared to regard it as a
'making up' of the old amour, rather than as the commencement of a
new one. The chances are ten to one, that he who had once eloped with
Marie, would again propose an elopement, rather than that she to whom
proposals of elopement had been made by one individual, should have
them made to her by another. And here let me call your attention to
the fact, that the time elapsing between the first ascertained, and
the second supposed elopement, is a few months more than the general
period of the cruises of our men-of-war. Had the lover been
interrupted in his first villany by the necessity of departure to
sea, and had he seized the first moment of his return to renew the
base designs not yet altogether accomplished - or not yet altogether
accomplished by _him?_ Of all these things we know nothing.
"You will say, however, that, in the second instance, there was no
elopement as imagined. Certainly not - but are we prepared to say
that there was not the frustrated design? Beyond St. Eustache, and
perhaps Beauvais, we find no recognized, no open, no honorable
suitors of Marie. Of none other is there any thing said. Who, then,
is the secret lover, of whom the relatives (at least most of them)
know nothing, but whom Marie meets upon the morning of Sunday, and
who is so deeply in her confidence, that she hesitates not to remain
with him until the shades of the evening descend, amid the solitary
groves of the BarriΦre du Roule? Who is that secret lover, I ask, of
whom, at least, most of the relatives know nothing? And what means
the singular prophecy of Madame RogΩt on the morning of Marie's
departure? -- 'I fear that I shall never see Marie again.'
"But if we cannot imagine Madame RogΩt privy to the design of
elopement, may we not at least suppose this design entertained by the
girl? Upon quitting home, she gave it to be understood that she was
about to visit her aunt in the Rue des Dr⌠mes and St. Eustache was
requested to call for her at dark. Now, at first glance, this fact
strongly militates against my suggestion; - but let us reflect. That
she did meet some companion, and proceed with him across the river,
reaching the BarriΦre du Roule at so late an hour as three o'clock in
the afternoon, is known. But in consenting so to accompany this
individual, (_for whatever purpose -- to her mother known or
unknown,_) she must have thought of her expressed intention when
leaving home, and of the surprise and suspicion aroused in the bosom
of her affianced suitor, St. Eustache, when, calling for her, at the
hour appointed, in the Rue des Dr⌠mes, he should find that she had
not been there, and when, moreover, upon returning to the pension
with this alarming intelligence, he should become aware of her
continued absence from home. She must have thought of these things, I
say. She must have foreseen the chagrin of St. Eustache, the
suspicion of all. She could not have thought of returning to brave
this suspicion; but the suspicion becomes a point of trivial
importance to her, if we suppose her not intending to return.
"We may imagine her thinking thus - 'I am to meet a certain person
for the purpose of elopement, or for certain other purposes known
only to myself. It is necessary that there be no chance of
interruption - there must be sufficient time given us to elude
pursuit - I will give it to be understood that I shall visit and
spend the day with my aunt at the Rue des Dr⌠mes - I well tell St.
Eustache not to call for me until dark - in this way, my absence from
home for the longest possible period, without causing suspicion or
anxiety, will be accounted for, and I shall gain more time than in
any other manner. If I bid St. Eustache call for me at dark, he will
be sure not to call before; but, if I wholly neglect to bid him call,
my time for escape will be diminished, since it will be expected that
I return the earlier, and my absence will the sooner excite anxiety.
Now, if it were my design to return at all - if I had in
contemplation merely a stroll with the individual in question - it
would not be my policy to bid St. Eustache call; for, calling, he
will be sure to ascertain that I have played him false - a fact of
which I might keep him for ever in ignorance, by leaving home without
notifying him of my intention, by returning before dark, and by then
stating that I had been to visit my aunt in the Rue des Dr⌠mes. But,
as it is my design never to return - or not for some weeks - or not
until certain concealments are effected - the gaining of time is the
only point about which I need give myself any concern.'
"You have observed, in your notes, that the most general opinion in
relation to this sad affair is, and was from the first, that the girl
had been the victim of a gang of blackguards. Now, the popular
opinion, under certain conditions, is not to be disregarded. When
arising of itself -- when manifesting itself in a strictly
spontaneous manner -- we should look upon it as analogous with that
_intuition_ which is the idiosyncrasy of the individual man of
genius. In ninety-nine cases from the hundred I would abide by its
decision. But it is important that we find no palpable traces of
_suggestion_. The opinion must be rigorously _the public's own_; and
the distinction is often exceedingly difficult to perceive and to
maintain. In the present instance, it appears to me that this 'public
opinion' in respect to a gang, has been superinduced by the
collateral event which is detailed in the third of my extracts. All
Paris is excited by the discovered corpse of Marie, a girl young,
beautiful and notorious. This corpse is found, bearing marks of
violence, and floating in the river. But it is now made known that,
at the very period, or about the very period, in which it is supposed
that the girl was assassinated, an outrage similar in nature to that
endured by the deceased, although less in extent, was perpetuated, by
a gang of young ruffians, upon the person of a second young female.
Is it wonderful that the one known atrocity should influence the
popular judgment in regard to the other unknown? This judgment
awaited direction, and the known outrage seemed so opportunely to
afford it! Marie, too, was found in the river; and upon this very
river was this known outrage committed. The connexion of the two
events had about it so much of the palpable, that the true wonder
would have been a failure of the populace to appreciate and to seize
it. But, in fact, the one atrocity, known to be so committed, is, if
any thing, evidence that the other, committed at a time nearly
coincident, was not so committed. It would have been a miracle
indeed, if, while a gang of ruffians were perpetrating, at a given
locality, a most unheard-of wrong, there should have been another
similar gang, in a similar locality, in the same city, under the same
circumstances, with the same means and appliances, engaged in a wrong
of precisely the same aspect, at precisely the same period of time!
Yet in what, if not in this marvellous train of coincidence, does the
accidentally suggested opinion of the populace call upon us to
believe?
"Before proceeding farther, let us consider the supposed scene of the
assassination, in the thicket at the BarriΦre du Roule. This thicket,
&nb
sp; although dense, was in the close vicinity of a public road. Within
were three or four large stones, forming a kind of seat with a back
and footstool. On the upper stone was discovered a white petticoat;
on the second, a silk scarf. A parasol, gloves, and a
pocket-handkerchief, were also here found. The handkerchief bore the
name, 'Marie RogΩt.' Fragments of dress were seen on the branches
around. The earth was trampled, the bushes were broken, and there was
every evidence of a violent struggle.
"Notwithstanding the acclamation with which the discovery of this
thicket was received by the press, and the unanimity with which it
was supposed to indicate the precise scene of the outrage, it must be
admitted that there was some very good reason for doubt. That it was
the scene, I may or I may not believe - but there was excellent
reason for doubt. Had the true scene been, as Le Commerciel
suggested, in the neighborhood of the Rue PavΘe St. AndrΘe, the
perpetrators of the crime, supposing them still resident in Paris,
would naturally have been stricken with terror at the public
attention thus acutely directed into the proper channel; and, in
certain classes of minds, there would have arisen, at once, a sense
of the necessity of some exertion to redivert this attention. And
thus, the thicket of the BarriΦre du Roule having been already
suspected, the idea of placing the articles where they were found,
might have been naturally entertained. There is no real evidence,
although Le Soleil so supposes, that the articles discovered had been
more than a very few days in the thicket; while there is much
circumstantial proof that they could not have remained there, without
attracting attention, during the twenty days elapsing between the
fatal Sunday and the afternoon upon which they were found by the
boys. 'They were all _mildewed_down hard,' says Le Soleil, adopting
the opinions of its predecessors, 'with the action of the rain, and
stuck together from _mildew_. The grass had grown around and over
some of them. The silk of the parasol was strong, but the threads of
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 27