The Man With The Broken Ear by Edmond About

Fougas had left Paris for Berlin the day after his audience. He took three days to make the trip, because he stopped some time at Nancy. The Marshal had given him a letter of introduction to the Prefect of Meurthe, who received him very politely, and promised to aid him in his investigations. Unfortunately, the house where he had loved Clementine Pichon was no longer standing. The authorities had demolished it in 1827, in cutting a street through. It is certain that the commissioners had not demolished the family with the house, but a new difficulty all at once presented itself: the name of Pichon abounded in the city, the suburbs, and the department. Among this multitude of Pichons, Fougas did not know which one to hug. Tired of hunting, and eager to hasten forward on, the road to fortune, he left this note for the commissioner of police:

"Search, on the registers of personal statistics and elsewhere, for a young girl named Clementine Pichon. She was eighteen years old in 1813; her parents kept an officers' boarding-house. If she is alive, get her address; if she is dead, look up her heirs. A father's happiness depends upon it!"