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(The Emperor was then beginning to be distrustful of him). Fouché entered, and began to converse about some general topics relating to the police, and then he proceeded as follows:

"A very singular circumstance has taken place at the Hotel Pepin, Rue Saint-Eloi. About twelve days ago, a man named Rafin took up his abode there; owing to some suspicious circumstances which were communicated to the police, he has been made the object of special surveillance. He is well dressed, and good looking, except that there is a certain expression of fierceness in his countenance. In the day time, he visits several families in Paris, and, in the evening, he leaves his hotel at eleven o'clock precisely; sometimes he goes on foot, at other times in a fiacre; but he always proceeds to the same place, namely, the burial ground of Père-Lachaise, and, as soon as he arrives there, my agents lose sight of him. At four o'clock in the morning, he is again seen in the vicinity of the burial ground. He then resumes his way to the Hotel Pepin, and gets there before day light. These circumstances regularly recurring night after night, excited the astonishment of my people. Rafin is distinctly kept in view, and is dogged step by step from the moment of his leaving the hotel, until he arrives near Père-Lachaise. There he is always lost sight of. A party of police agents have been stationed in the interior of the burial place; but nothing has been discovered.'

"Duke of Otranto,' exclaimed the Emperor, this is a strange phantasmagorical story.... Do you suspect that Rafin is a vampire?

"That would be a rarity in France, Sire, in the nineteenth century.'

" "What do you think he is, then?"

"I cannot guess.'

" "Will you have him arrested?'

"He has committed no offence, and therefore I hesitated.'

"You are right. It is sufficiently painful to be compelled to fill our state prisons with maniacs, who take pleasure in running headlong to their own ruin. I do not approve of preventive measures. They are always tyrannical. With such a system, where can one stop....But VOL. I.-9

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The Police Baffled.

this is a very mysterious gentleman. Have his papers been examined during his absence?"

"Yes, Sire, and nothing suspicious has been found.’ "Is his passport correct?'

"The description of his person is not precisely accurate. There is even some appearance of erasure and alteration of the writing in some parts. We know not what to make of this man;-but we shall keep a vigilant eye upon him.'

"I was much surprised at this curious disclosure," continued Prince Cambacérès, "and some time afterwards, when Fouché happened to call on me, I thought of Rafin, and I inquired whether the mystery had ever been cleared

up.

"Prince,' said he, 'I could almost be tempted to believe that we are not in the nineteenth century; but in the ninth, the tenth, the eleventh, or even earlier. . . . There are some extraordinary impositions practised in this world." "What have you discovered?

"I will tell you. My brigade being not a little mortified by the way in which Rafin constantly eluded their vigilance, determined to take a decisive step: and, accordingly, one night they arrested him when within a few yards of Père Lachaise. At one blow he knocked down two of the police officers, who alleged that they had not been struck by a man's arm but by a bar of iron. The others surrounded and arrested Rafin. He was perfectly calm, and he showed by the light of one of the street lamps, the papers which he carried about with him; these papers consisted of a map of Paris, a passport, a certificate of his birth, and, in short, every thing that was requisite to entitle him to the privilege of nocturnal perambulation in our good city. As it was wished to take him by surprise, the police agents affected to be satisfied. He gave them an à boire in payment of the cudgelling he had inflicted, and all separated amicably. Some of the police officers, however, turned and followed Rafin, and, after watching him for some distance, they lost sight of him, as usual.

"At four o'clock one of the men, who were still on the watch, gave a signal to his comrades that he saw Rafin, and all hastened to his assistance. In order to put him off his

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guard, a peace officer was procured, and he arrested all the persons who happened to be passing by, (three or four in number,) and Rafin among the rest. They were all searched. In Rafin's pockets were found the same papers, which he produced a short time before, and nothing to which suspicion could attach. The men who searched Rafin, declared that they were nearly suffocated by the horrible odour which issued from every part of his body.

"Two days elapsed; and Rafin continued to go out every day. Among the persons he visited, there was a young girl who followed the business of a milliner. Inquiries were made about her, and it was ascertained, that though she had previously been a fresh, healthy, lively girl, she had, since Rafin had known her, become pale and sickly. At another of his visiting places, a widow who had been remarkably stout and ruddy, suddenly became pale and emaciated. On the third day, a young man about fourand-twenty called at the Hotel Pepin. He inquired for Rafin, and being informed, by the porter, that he was out, he appeared much vexed. He sat down and waited for him, and, in about an hour, Rafin returned home. The young man, as soon as he perceived him, sprang upon him and seized him by the collar. The prodigious strength of the nocturnal adventurer was overpowered by the fury of his assailant, who called him an assassin and a monster. Feeling himself unable to maintain the struggle, and that his strength was failing him, he drew his knife from his pocket, and stabbed Rafin in the side. It was distinctly seen that he gave him only one stab; four witnesses, who were present, bore testimony to this fact.

"Rafin groaned, relinquished his hold of his adversary, and fell dead. The young man fled, leaving his knife in Rafin's body. No one pursued him, owing to the consternation which the incident excited. A surgeon was sent for. Rafin was undressed, and it was discovered that he had six bleeding wounds, two in the throat, two in the right side, one in the abdomen, and one in the thigh. All present were confounded. Their testimony concurred unanimously. The young man seized Rafin, and, after a struggle with him, drew out his knife. He gave him only one stab, and left the knife sticking in the wound. But,

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Suspected Vampire.

instead of one wound, there were six; and, on examination, the knife was found to correspond with only one of the wounds, that in the side; the rest appeared to have been inflicted by poignards, swords, stilettos, or some other sharp weapon, in no way corresponding with the knife, which the surgeon extracted from the body of Rafin, and examined in the presence of the witnesses.

"His apartments were searched, but nothing was found except his clothes, and the papers I have already mentioned: neither money nor property of any description. The passports described him as a citizen of Strasburgh, but, beyond this, there was no clue to discovery. The local authorities could furnish no information, owing to the removal of the registers of Strasburgh during the revolution. Search was made for the young man who had stabbed Rafin. He was speedily found. The account he gave was as follows:He was paying his addresses to a young female, when Rafin became his rival, and was preferred to him. The girl soon fell into ill health. She complained of frightful nightmares, and affirmed that her blood was nightly sucked by a being of hideous appearance, but who nevertheless bore a resemblance to Rafin. She made this disclosure to the sister of her first lover, who became alarmed at the circumstance. The young man had that morning seen the object of his affection breath her last; and his feelings being powerfully excited, he flew to challenge Rafin. The latter seized him by the throat, and, finding himself nearly choaked, he drew out his knife, not with the design of killing him, but of merely disengaging himself from his grasp.

I

"The affair was laid before me,' pursued Fouché. was, of course, much astonished, and was puzzling myself to unravel the mystery, when another incident occurred more extraordinary than all the rest. The body of Rafin was deposited in an apartment on the ground floor of the Hotel Pepin, and was to be interred early on the following morning. At the hour appointed for proceeding to the burial place, what was the astonishment of the persons employed to convey the corpse, to discover on entering the room, that it was gone!-New rumours were afloat. It was by some suspected that body-snatchers had obtained entrance to the room. Active investigations were set on

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foot; but no discovery was made. About six weeks elapsed; and you may easily conceive the horror of the porter of the Hotel Pepin, and of the whole neighbourhood, when one day Rafin presented himself, and coolly asked for the key of his apartment to procure his clothes. An alarm was raised; he was secured, and questioned; and he made the following statement

"Some young medical students stole his body for the purpose of dissection. When about to commence their operation, the supposed corpse manifested some signs of life. They applied the proper remedies, and finally succeeded in restoring existence. But, as they had been guilty of the offence of abstracting the body, he (Rafin) had taken an oath not to betray them, and he added, that he would submit to every possible torture rather than be ungrateful to those who had rescued him from the grave. All this was plausible and possible enough; and the story was believed by every one, except myself.

"I gave orders to have Rafin arrested, and he was placed in confinement. I paid him a visit. He was strongly bound, and, in spite of his cries, supplications and resistance, I resolutely plunged into his flesh a surgical instrument which, without producing any injury, would cause an effusion of blood. When he perceived my object, he became furiously irritated, and made inconceivable efforts to attack me. He threatened me with his future revenge; but, heedless of his violence, I thrust the instrument into him. No sooner did the first drop of blood appear, than the six old wounds opened afresh. All efforts to stop the bleeding proved fruitless-and Rafin died.

"Eleven persons,' continued Fouché, 'were present at the scene I have just described. Our amazement was inconceivable. We are in the nineteenth century, and we beheld before us a vampire, a blood-sucker. I had expressly summoned MM. Cuvier, Fourcroy, Cadet and Portal. They witnessed the fact, and they were astounded!

I must acknowledge, however, that they afterwards declared themselves inclined to regard the affair as a police trick,.. .... a new mode of getting rid of a dangerous individual. They professed their faith in poison, but not in witchcraft, and the silence they have observed, must be