disappeared--the other was nearly half decomposed and gone; the hands
were dreadfully lacerated, and told of a desperate struggle to escape:
worms were crawling about; all was putrid and loathsome. How did this
unfortunate young man come into so dreadful a position? was the
question that immediately occurred; and the only answer that could be
given was, that on the night of the cess-pool being emptied, the
porter remembered this young man coming home very late, or rather
early in the morning. He himself had forgotten to warn him of the
aperture being uncovered, indeed he supposed that it would have been
sufficiently seen by the lights left burning at its edge;--these had
probably been blown out by the wind, and the young man had thus fallen
in. That life should have been supported so long under such
circumstances, seems almost incredible: but it is no less curious than
true; for the porter was tried before the Correctional Tribunal for
inadvertent homicide, the facts were adduced in evidence, and
carelessness having been proved, he was sentenced to imprisonment for
several weeks, and to a heavy fine.
Of churches and religious establishments, there were plenty in and
about the Rue St Denis. Besides the great church of St Jacques,
mentioned before, there were in the street itself the churches of the
Holy Sepulchre, of St Leu, and St Gilles; of the Innocents; of the
Saviour; and of St Jacques de l'Hôpital: while of conventual
institutions, there were the Hospitals of St Catharine; of the Holy
Trinity; of the Filles de St Magloire; of the Filles Dieu; of the
Community of St Chaumont; of the Sœurs de Charité; and of the great
monastery of St Lazare. The fronts, or other considerable portions of
those buildings, were all visible in the street, and added greatly to
its antiquated appearance. The long irregular lines of gable roofs on
either side, converging from points high above the spectator's head,
until they met or crossed in a dim perspective, near the horizon, were
broken here and there by the pointed front, or the tapering spire of a
church or convent. A solemn gateway protruded itself at intervals into
the street, and, with its flanking turrets and buttresses, gave broad
masses of shade in perpendicular lines, strongly contrasted with the
horizontal or diagonal patches of dark colour caused by the houses. At
early morn and eve, a shrill tinkling of bells warned the neighbours
of the sacred duties of many a secluded penitent, or admonished them
that it was time to send up their own orisons to God. Before mid-day
had arrived, and soon after it had passed, the deeper tones of a
_bourdon_, from some of the parochial churches, invited the citizens
to the sacrifice of the mass or the canticles of vespers. Not seldom
the throngs of busy wordlings were forced to separate and give room to
some holy procession, which, with glittering cross at the head, with
often tossed and sweetly smelling censers at the side, with
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