The M... PUNISHED.

An adventure happened under the Regency in Paris, extraordinary enough to still be told with interest today; it offers on the one hand a secret debauchery, and on the other hand, three dreadful murders, the author of which was never discovered. And, as to your conjectures before we begin, as to what caused the catastrophe, and whether or not it was deserved, we can hope to elucidate; perhaps then it will disturb our readers less.

It is said that Mr. de Savari, an old boy, mistreated by nature [1], but full of spirit, of a pleasant society, and gathering the best possible company in his house on rue des Déjeuneurs, had envisioned that his house would be used by a peculair species of whore.

The women, who would exclusively want, under the shadow of the deepest intrigue, to enjoy the pleasures of voluptuousness without consequences, and found in him a certain number of associates ready to satisfy their desires.

Never anything resulted from these momentary intrigues, of which a woman collected only the flowers without running any risk from the thorns, if you take our meaning; those prickly problems which only too often accompany these arrangements, when sex becomes a matter of serving the public interest.

The woman would see the man with whom she had had dealings the day before at and about the next day, without seeming to know him and without him seeming to distinguish her from other women, so that there would be no jealousy in the household, no angry fathers, no separation, no convent; in a word, none of the fatal consequences of these sorts of affairs. It was difficult to find anything more convenient, and this plan would no doubt be dangerous to offer today; it would undoubtedly be feared that its presentation might arouse the idea of reviving it in a century in which the depravity of both sexes has crossed all known limits; if, that is, we did not at the same time present the cruel adventure which was the punishment of the one who had invented it.

Mr. de Savari, the author and executor of the project, lived an easy life, restricted though he was to a single valet and a cook (so as not to multiply the witnesses of the all-night comings and goings), saw a man of his acquaintance arrive at his house one morning to ask him for dinner.

"By all means," answered Mr. de Savari, "and to prove to you the pleasure you are giving me, I will order for you some of the best wine from my cellar!"

"One moment," said the friend as soon as the valet had received the order, "I want to see if La Brie is not deceiving us. I know the barrels, I want to follow him and see if he really will take the best!"

"Well, well," said the master of the house, grasping the joke as well as he could, "if it weren't for my cruel state, I would accompany you there myself, but I'll be content to see if that rascal really is having us on, eh?"

The friend went out, entered the cellar, grabbed a lever, knocked out the valet, went straight back up into the kitchen, put the stove on the tile, killed a dog and a cat he found in his path, and came back into M.'s apartment. This merciless stunner, without being disturbed, without feeling any remorse for the action he has just committed, quietly detailed, on the white page of a book he found on the table, how he did it. (We should further inform you: he doesn't touch anything, doesn't take anything with him, leaves the house, closes it up, and disappears.)

M. Savari's house was too crowded for this cruel butcher's shop not to have been promptly discovered; one knocks, no one answering. Of course, the master cannot be outside: the doors are broken down and one sees the dreadful state of the household of this unfortunate man.

Not content just to pass on the details of his action to the public, the phlegmatic murderer then placed, on a clock decorated with a skull and crossbones (the motto of which was: "Look upon it to settle your life"), a paper which read: "See his life, and you will not be surprised at its end."

Such an adventure soon made a sensation, and the investigators searched everywhere on the premises; however, the only thing they found relating to this cruel scene was an unsigned letter from a woman to Mr. de Savari, with the following words:

"We are lost, my husband has just found out everything! Think of the remedy; only Paparel can bring back his spirit, make him talk to him, otherwise there is no salvation to be hoped for!"

A. Paparel, treasurer of the extraordinary of the wars, a kind man and good company, was mentioned: he agreed that he saw Mr. de Savari, but that, of the more than one hundred people from the court and the town who went to his house, at the head of whom Mr. the Duke of Vendôme could be placed, he was one of those who saw him the least. Several people were arrested, and almost immediately released. At last enough was known to convince everyone that this affair had innumerable branches, and that by compromising the honor of the fathers and husbands of half the capital, it would also tarnish an infinite number of people of the first quality; and for the first time in life, in masterly minds, prudence replaced severity.

It was left at that, so that the death of this unfortunate man, too guilty to be pitied by honest people, could never find any avenger!

But if this loss was insensible to virtue, it is to be believed that vice was long afflicted, and that apart from the merry band that found so many myrtles to be gathered from the sweet child of Epicurus, the pretty priestesses of Venus who previously came daily to burn incense on the altars of love, had now to weep for the demolition of their temple.

A philosopher would say when reading this narrative: "If, of the thousand people who were perhaps touched by this adventure, five hundred were happy and the other five hundred were afflicted, the action becomes indifferent; but if the calculation gives eight hundred unfortunate beings, deprived of pleasures by this catastrophe, against only two hundred who gain from it, Mr. S., then the action becomes ...something more. De Savari was doing more good than harm, and the only guilty party was the one who immolated him to his resentment; I leave it to you to decide and quickly move on to another subject.

[1.] He was legless.