“Nine conscripts who had for a time concealed themselves, but who were at last discovered, being determined not to serve, encouraged each other rather to die, and voluntarily ended life by drowning themselves together.
“I was passing _le Pont des Tuileries_ after dark, and saw a man surrounded by other men. They had deterred him on the bridge from jumping over; but they could not prevail on him to tell his name, or to go home. He appeared to be determined in his purpose; the only resource they had was, at last, to commit him to the guard; but unless his state of mind could be altered, safety like this was but merely temporary.
“Another evening, on the same bridge, and about the same hour, a woman, standing near the centre parapet, attracted my attention by her look, and manner in which she seemed to be examining the river. I stopped; she desisted, but did not remove. I was uncertain what her intentions might be, and she appeared to shun notice. Two other passengers, guessing my doubts, halted; but either their fears were not so strong as mine, or their patience was less; they stood a few minutes and left. I felt as if I did not dare to go, yet could not decide how to act, from the fear of doing wrong. At length the woman moved towards the end of the bridge, and I was obliged to leave her to her fate. I was not certain her intentions were ill; to have charged her with such might deeply have insulted her. I walked home, however, in a most dissatisfied state of mind; at one minute, proving to myself I could not act otherwise, and at another, making self-accusations for having deserted the duties of humanity.
“The number of suicides that really happen in Paris must exceed, no man can say how much, those that are actually known. The bodies exposed at _La Morgue_ are most of them brought from _St. Cloud_; the distance to which by water must be above three, perhaps four miles. At the bridge of _St. Cloud_ the fishermen nightly spread their nets; and in the morning, with the fish, these bodies are drawn up; but as an old inhabitant of _St. Cloud_, whom I strictly questioned on the subject, assured me the nets were only suffered to be down a stated number of hours, according to the season, certainly not upon an average half a day; and in proof of what he said, he observed to me that this regulation must take place, or the navigation of the river would be impeded. Hence, by the most moderate calculation, the number of bodies that escape the nets must at least equal the number of those that are caught.