mined;
that it was possible that the Parliament had judged unjustly. This good
news came to him in March. But in September of that year there took
place those shocking massacres in the Paris prisons, which rank high
among the atrocities of the Revolution. At four o'clock on the afternoon
of September 4, the slaughterers visited the Salpetriere Prison, and
fifth among their victims fell the widow of Derues.

Dr. Castaing

There are two reports of the trial of Castaing: "Proces Complet d'Edme
Samuel Castaing," Paris, 1823; "Affaire Castaing," Paris, 1823.

I

AN UNHAPPY COINCIDENCE

Edme Castaing, born at Alencon in 1796, was the youngest of the three
sons of an Inspector-General in the department of Woods and Forests.
His elder brother had entered the same service as his father, the other
brother was a staff-captain of engineers. Without being wealthy, the
family, consisting of M. and Mme. Castaing and four children, was in
comfortable circumstances. The young Edme was educated at the College of
Angers--the Alma Mater of Barre and Lebiez--where, intelligent and hard
working, he carried off many prizes. He decided to enter the medical
profession, and at the age of nineteen commenced his studies at the
School of Medicine in Paris. For two years he worked hard and well,
living within the modest allowance made him by his father. At the end of
that time this young man of two or three-and-twenty formed a passionate
attachment for a lady, the widow of a judge, and the mother of three
children. Of the genuine depth and sincerity of this passion for a woman
who must have been considerably older than himself, there can be no
doubt. Henceforth the one object in life to Castaing was to make money
enough to relieve the comparative poverty of his adored mistress, and
place her and her children beyond the reach of want. In 1821 Castaing
became a duly qualified doctor, and by that time had added to the
responsibilities of his mistress and himself by becoming the father of
two children, whom she had brought into the world. The lady was exigent,
and Castaing found it difficult to combine his work with a due regard to
her claims on his society. Nor was work plentiful or lucrative. To add
to his embarrassments Castaing, in 1818, had backed a bill for a
friend for 600 francs. To meet it when it fell due two years later was
impossible, and desperate were the efforts made by Castaing and his
mother to put off the day of reckoning