Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/124

 cover animation. But all my cares were in vain. I now gave orders to dress the corpse, and let it lie three days in the same apartment. I had already had one instance of the illusory tricks of the Cabal, and was now resolved to leave nothing undone, to prevent a second deception. I made a secret mark on the body, and inspected it every hour to see if it had not been changed. The explosion of the gunpowder had so much disfigured her whole person, especially the face, that there was not one feature or lineament in it, which resembled those that characterized it when living. Hence it would have been very easy to put another corpse in her place. A scar however was now visible on her forehead, which I had never observed before, and which it would have been difficult to counterfeit.

To be the safer in what I was doing, I sent for some confidential tenants, who did not leave the body for a moment. Three days after, the symptoms of putrefaction growing too strong, the bier was screwed up in my presence, and each screw sealed with my seal;