Here the old gent to whom I spoke paused his narrative. I interjected 
at this pause "and is this tale really a fact?"
     "I vouch safe on the sole of my father it is indeed the truth.  But let me 
take up the thread of the tale where I left off.
     The student was driven to near madness for some time by these 
bizarre events.  He inquired with the authorities about the maid, who he 
learned was named Martineque Du Chance, and was the innocent daughter 
of some minor nobility in the province of Burgundy.  She had been swept 
into the maelstrom of the Revolution and sent to her untimely and unjust 
death at the tender age of 17.
     At this juncture I interrupted the elderly gentlemen with "Indeed we 
see such cruelties perpetrated upon innocence to this day and the 
senselessness of it is enough to drive a strong man mad."  
The elderly gentlemen continued "T'is true but on occasion such 
tragedies can bear fruits with a tenderness that defies their origin.  In this 
case the student continued his studies, but the memory of his "bride", 
Martineque, played bitterly, frightfully and sweetly on his mind.  After some 
months of wrestling with these disparate feelings he came at last to see his 
brief interlude with Martineque as an island of kind compassion, sanity and 
warmth that had defied the merciless and cold flow of time.  He came to feel 
that he had been touched by a grace that provided meaning to his and 
Martineque's lives.  He came to thank God that he had not passed by the 
wretched figure on the steps to the guillotine that night.  By proffering 
kindness, he found the love of the soul to which he it been drawn across the 
boundaries of time.  He decided that the innocent soul of Martineque had 
been left to wander the earth that one night to find what she had been denied 
by the cruel fate of her tragic end - the love of the man who destiny (albeit 
gone awry) had ordained for her.  It was destinies small way of setting 
matters right.
     The student was so moved by the kind, though brief, reprieve granted 
to he and Martineque that his studies took on a theological bent.  In his stay 
in Paris he tended to Martineque's grave site and had a marker placed with 
the simple epetalf "forever beloved".  He would regularly bring fresh 
flowers, sit by her grave and relate to Martineque the happenings of his life.  
Upon his return to Germany he entered into theological training and became 
the rector of a church in the tall pines of the Tahnhauser mountains near Bad 
Soden.  Eventually he married a good German girl.  He told her of his first 
love as a student in Paris who died tragically.  He never mentioned however, 
the bizarre chronology of her death and the birth of their love.  From time to 
time he (sometimes with his wife) would visit Paris and would place flowers 
on her grave.  His wife recognized that Martineque had set her husband on 
the path of kindness and service that had brought him to her.  They had two 
children, a boy and a girl.  The good reverend would occasionally comment 
that he could see not just he and his wife, but also a hint of Martineque in 
them.  The good Rev.'s wife passed away in old age before him.  On his own 
death bed he drew his son close and related the full story to him with the 
admonition that he remember it and passage on at times when he judged 
someone might value it.  
     Exhausted and somewhat mystified by this tale I said to the elderly 
man "do you mean to tell me that this tale is true?  How heard you of it?"
     "Why from the lips of my father of course, the good reverend., on his 
death bed" said he with a peaceful smile.  And with this the elderly 
gentlemen slowly turned flowers in hand, and headed down de rue toward a 
now quite aged Paris cemetery.