The Mystery of Marie Roget
A SEQUEL TO "THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE."
There are ideal series of events which run parallel with the real ones. They rarely coincide. Men and
circumstances generally modify the ideal train of events, so that it seems imperfect, and its consequences
are equally imperfect. Thus with the Reformation; instead of Protestantism came Lutheranism.
- Novalis.2 Moral Ansichten.
THERE are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who have not occasionally
been startled into a vague yet thrilling half-credence in the supernatural, by coincidences
of so seemingly marvellous a character that, as mere coincidences, the intellect has been
unable to receive them. Such sentiments --- for the half-credences of which I speak have
never the full force of thought --- such sentiments are seldom thoroughly stifled unless by
reference to the doctrine of chance, or, as it is technically termed, the Calculus of
Probabilities. Now this Calculus is, in its essence, purely mathematical; and thus we have
the anomaly of the most rigidly exact in science applied to the shadow and spirituality of
the most intangible in speculation.
1. Upon the original publication of "Marie Roget," the foot-notes now appended were considered
unnecessary; but the lapse of several years since the tragedy upon which the tale is based, renders it
expedient to give them, and also to say a few words in explanation of the general design. A young girl,
Mary Cecilia Rogers, was murdered in the vicinity of New York; and, although her death occasioned an
intense and long-enduring excitement, the mystery attending it had remained unsolved at the period when
the present paper was written and published (November, 1842). Herein, under pretence of relating the fate
of a Parisian grisette, the author has followed in minute detail, the essential, while merely paralleling the
inessential facts of the real murder of Mary Rogers. Thus all argument founded upon the fiction is
applicable to the truth: and the investigation of the truth was the object.
The "Mystery of Marie Roget" was composed at a distance from the scene of the atrocity, and with no
other means of investigation than the newspapers afforded. Thus much escaped the writer of which he
could have availed himself had he been upon the spot, and visited the localities. It may not be improper to
record, nevertheless, that the confessions of two persons, (one of them the Madame Deluc of the narrative)
made, at different periods, long subsequent to the publication, confirmed, in full, not only the general
conclusion, but absolutely all the chief hypothetical details by which that conclusion was attained.
2. The nom de plume of Von Hardenburg.
The extraordinary details which I am now called upon to make public, will be found to
form, as regards sequence of time, the primary branch of a series of scarcely intelligible
coincidences, whose secondary or concluding branch will be recognized by all readers in
the late murder of Mary Cecila Rogers, at New York.
When, in an article entitled "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," I endeavored, about a
year ago, to depict some very remarkable features in the mental character of my friend,
the Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin, it did not occur to me that I should ever resume the
