The Eclair newspaper vouches for a most romantic little story
concerning M. Thiers. For twenty years, it is said, a bouquet of violets has been every morning placed on his window-ledge, or even the chimney-piece of his bedroom, by "an unknown hand." Even when he was arrested on the morning of the Coup d'Etat (December 2,1851), and was sent to prison, the bouquet, it is said, arrived every morning at the prison. But M. Thiers has in vain tried to trace the donor, and has now given up the attempt, and quietly accepted the romance, mystery and all. We suppose M. Thiers never attempted to get a good detective's opinion on the origin of the violets? It is apt to turn out that these persistent mysteries are very closely connected with the person to whom they occur. Violets in December must come out of a forcing-house. Indeed, we might have guessed that the gift could be traced home to M. Thiers himself, assisted of course by his servant, only then we should have expected at least snowdrops or lilies of the valley.
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