How Melodrama Was Eclipsed by Truth
Coincidences in Paris Court
Official’s Attempt to Convict His Unrecognized
Son Was Interrupted by Wife
He Deserted Many Years Before.
Coincidence—chance, play a tremendous part in human history. Fate is another name for the same thing; so is luck. All these words are merely our puny euphemisms for X, the unknown quantity.
Not a day passes but the story of a remarkable coincidence is brought to public notice. A stranger incident never occurred, however, than this one, the account of which we have unearthed in an old copy of the Chronique de Paris.
A youth of about nineteen was brought to trial for having broken the window of a baker’s shop and stolen a two-pound loaf.
The Judge—“Why did you steal the loaf?”
Prisoner—“I was driven by hunger.”
“Why did you not buy it?”
“Because I had no money.”
“But you have a gold ring on your finger; why did you not sell it?”
“I am a foundling; when I was taken from the bank of a ditch, this ring was suspended from my neck by a silken cord, and I kept it in the hope of thereby discovering at least who were my parents; I cannot dispose of it.”
The procureur du roi (king’s attorney) made a violent speech against the prisoner, who was found guilty, and sentenced to imprisonment for five years. Immediately upon this, a woman, more worn down by poverty than age, came forward and made the following declaration:
“Gentlemen of the Jury: Twenty years ago a young woman was married to a young man of the same town, who afterward abandoned her. Poor and distressed, she was obliged to leave her child to the care of Providence. The child has since grown up, and the woman and the husband have grown older; the child in poverty, the woman in misery, and her husband in prosperity. They are all three now in court. The child is the unfortunate prisoner whom you have just pronounced guilty; the mother is myself; and there sits the father!” pointing to the king’s attorney.