Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 29, 2025
In the terror Jeanne Malassis must have felt on hearing her master's cries, she knocked over, as she rose, the table at her bedside, on which lay her watch, the only present the miser had given her in five years. The mainspring was broken by the shock, and the hands had stopped at two in the morning.
Probably because the book was published by Clement Malassis, and perhaps he was a forefather of that whimsical Frenchman, Poulet Malassis, who published for Banville, and Baudelaire, and Charles Asselineau. It was a bad reason. More likely the mere cheapness attracted me. Curiosity, not cheapness, assuredly, betrayed me into another purchase.
Asked if Auguste had left a will Castaing said no; but the next day he admitted its existence, and said that it was in the hands of Malassis. Monday, June 2, was the day fixed for the post-mortem; it was performed in the hotel at Saint Cloud. Castaing was still in the hotel under provisional arrest.
Pigache dissuaded him from this and left, saying that he would come again in the evening. Castaing said that that would be unnecessary, and it was agreed that Pigache should see the patient again at eight o'clock the next morning. During the afternoon Castaing sent a letter to Paris to Jean, Auguste's negro servant, telling him to take the two keys of his master's desk to his cousin Malassis.
The interrogatory was then directed to the death of Auguste Ballet. Castaing said that Auguste Ballet had left him all his fortune on account of a disagreement with his sister. Asked why, after Auguste's death, he had at first denied all knowledge of the will made in his favour and deposited by him with Malassis, he could give no satisfactory reason.
Malassis reassured him as to the validity of such a will, and gave him the necessary instructions for preparing it. On May 29 Castaing sent Malassis the will of Auguste Ballet with the following note, "I send you the will of M. Ballets examine it and keep it as his representative." The will was dated December 1, 1822, and made Castaing sole legatee.
During the afternoon Castaing left the hotel for some hours, and that same afternoon a young man about twenty-five years of age, short and fair, left a letter at the house of Malassis. The letter was from Castaing and said, "My dear friend, Ballet has just died, but do nothing before to-morrow, Monday. I will see you and tell you, yes or no, whether it is time to act.
Poor Jeanne Malassis' heroism, which the old miser, had she saved him, would certainly not have rewarded, was thought rash; the number of souls who admired it was small in comparison with those who said: "For my part, I should have stayed in my bed." The police found neither pen nor ink wherewith to write their report in the bare, dilapidated, cold, and dismal house.
In the other two holes, scarcely covered up, were the bodies of old Pingret and Jeanne Malassis, who had been buried with their clothes on. The poor girl had run to her master's assistance in her night-gown, with bare feet.
On the same day that the will was deposited with Malassis, Castaing and Auguste Ballet started to-gether on a little two days' trip into the country. To his friends Auguste seemed in the best of health and spirits; so much so that his housekeeper remarked as he left how well he was looking, and Castaing echoed her remark, saying that he looked like a prince!
Word Of The Day
Others Looking