Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/305

 and imprisonment, while it was often left to mere chance to prove the innocence of persons accused of capital crimes.—Besides, la Regnie was both hideous in appearance, and naturally spiteful in temper, so that he soon drew on himself the hatred of that public whose tranquillity he had been chosen to protect. The Duchess de Bouillon being interrogated by him, whether, at her meeting with the sorceress, she had seen the devil; she answered, "no; but methinks I see him now."

that frightful period when the blood of the suspected and guilty flowed in torrents upon the scaffold, so that at length the secret murders by poison had become more rare of occurrence, a new disturbance arose, which more than ever filled the city with terror and astonishment. Some mysterious band of miscreants seemed in league together, for the purpose of bringing into their own possession all the finest jewelry in Paris. No sooner had a rich ornament been purchased, than, however carefully it had been locked up, it vanished immediately, in a manner the most inconceivable. It was far more intolerable, however, that every one who ventured out at night with jewels on his person, was attacked on the streets, (or in dark courts and alleys,) and robbed of his property, while, though some escaped with life, scarcely a week passed away, in which several murders were not committed. Those who were fortunate enough to survive such an attack, deponed that they had been knocked down by a blow on the head, as resistlessly as if it had been a thunderbolt, and that on awakening from their stupefaction, they had found themselves robbed, and lying in a situation quite different from that where they had first received the blow. On the other hand, the person who had been murdered, and some of whom were found almost every second morning upon the streets, or in the dark entrances to houses, had all one and the same 26