torily for his whereabouts on the 27th, and furnished what appeared to the judge a per feet alibi. But how was it possible to reconcile the apparent innocence of Lesurques and Gucsno with the identification, so precise and per sistent, by the women Santon and GrosseTete? How could it be that Lesurques was not guilty, when to the evidence of these two women was added that of many others, among whom were Champeaux, an innkeeper at Licursaint, and his wife, who declared that he was certainly the large blonde, who having broken the links of his spur had repaired them at their house with a piece of coarse white thread? As for Courriol, everything proved his guilt. He could give no satisfactory account of his employment or of the property found in his possession. He denied everything until his mistress, Madelaine Breban, con founded him by her confessions. This girl, whom Daubanton told that perfect frankness could alone save her from an accusation of complicity in the crime, declared that on the 27th of April Courriol departed early in the morning. He took some clothes in a valise and his pistols, saying as he left her that he was going into the country. The next day, as he did not return, she became alarmed, and was about to seek Bernard to obtain news of him, when he, Bernard, came to tell her that Courriol was waiting for her at the Hdtel de la Paix. Courriol wished her to bring him a complete change of cloth ing. She made a package of the desired articles, and hastened to the H6tel de la Paix. There, in the room of a man named Dubosc, she found Courriol, who had on nothing but a shirt. The next day Courriol changed his quarters; ten days afterward they started for Troyes. This girl added that she had seen Bruer and Richard many times at Courriol's apartments; that she had seen Guesno only once, and that she had never seen Lesurques. She thought she recognized the sabre found at the place of the assassination as belonging to Courriol. She gave the
names of the persons with whom Courriol was most intimate; they were Dubosc, Durochat, Roussy, and Vidal. Matters were in this condition when the case was taken from Daubanton, and on the 22d of May was referred to the criminal tribunal of Melun. This was a most unfortunate occurrence for Lesurques. The impression made upon the magistrate at Paris by the attitude of the prisoners Lesurques and Guesno, so different from that of their alleged accomplices, did not exist in the mind of the magistrate at Melun. Nearer the scene of the crime, and more desirous to make a terrible example, he relied upon the evidence of the local wit nesses, without troubling himself with the evidence offered by the defendants. There had been five assassins at Le Closeau; they presented him with five prisoners (Bernard and Bruer had been also arrested for com plicity in the affair); these were then the assassins. That is all that this magistrate of Melun took into consideration. The trial was about to commence before the criminal tribunal of Melun, when the accused, availing themselves of a right ac corded by law, demanded to be taken before the criminal tribunal of Paris. The president of this tribunal was M. Jerome Gohier. This judge from the very outset saw in all the accused only guilty criminals. The act of accusation presented at Melun left him no doubt as to Lesurques, and the accusing declarations of the wit nesses from Lieursaint and Montgeron an nulled in his mind all the evidence obtained in Douai and Paris tending to prove an alibi. The witnesses upon this point num bered fifteen, and were positive in their statements. But the witnesses who testi fied to the presence of Lesurques at Lieur saint and Montgeron showed the same certainty and persistence. The witnesses for Lesurques were treated with great harshness and severity by the judge, and some of them were even terrified into modifying their evidence, and stating
