Causes Célèbres. was it a true statement of fact? In either case, the magistrates knew where to look for an explanation. As was natural, they had summoned Lefret, and before them he did not dare to reassert his accusation. However, the germ had fructified; the flames had spread. And this statement of Lefret was of greater weight than any evi dence, and the prejudice born from it estab lished itself firmly in the minds of all. What would a cool, unprejudiced judge have done? He would have endeavored to ascertain what secret motive had prompted Lefret to make this statement, so quickly abandoned by him; he would have demanded of this man an explanation of an accusation which per haps had for its end the putting of justice upon a false track. The magistrates did nothing of the kind. If they had they would have learned that on the very night of the crime several neigh bors saw at the house of Lefret two guns, one of which was known to belong to him. They would have learned that a short time before Lefret had bought some lead, for the purpose, as he said, of making weights for his clock. The ball found in the body of the victim bore the marks of numerous blows of a hammer; it had been modelled cold, and very roughly. At the house of Verdure, on the contrary, no one had ever seen any firearms, and no one could say that Verdure had ever bought powder or lead. On the evening before the murder Verdure went to the mill to have three bushels of wheat ground; he was in great spirits; he played upon Lefret's violin, and remained there until late at night. Le fret himself related some of his (Verdure's) innocent jokes. If they had taken the further trouble to ascertain, they would have learned that Le fret himself, on that same evening, was pen sive, silent, and dejected; while the father, upon the point, as they said, of killing his daughter, was gay and jovial. Lefret, seated upon the bed, his head resting upon his hands, his eyes fixed, and his whole appear23
ance distracted, seemed like a man com pletely engrossed by some absorbing thought. That was not all. Immediately after tes tifying, Lefret disappeared. That ordinarily would be an indication of crime. Lefret abandoned a wife and two children who were dependent upon him for support. Verdure, on the contrary, refused four times to share the privileges of his companions in captivity, who were allowed almost absolute freedom. He remained alone in his cell, the door of which was open, chained there only by a sense of his innocence. Assured by this extraordinary conduct of a prisoner accused of such a crime, the concierge placed no other guard over Verdure save his own honor; and he carried his confidence in him to such an extent that when business called him away, he installed Verdure in his place. What a difference between this calm, dig nified attitude and the flight of Lefret! One objection was, however, always op posed to the partisans qf the innocence of Verdure and his family. Rose had been assassinated before the very door of their house. How was it that neither the father nor any of the children had heard the two reports of the gun? Was it not more rea sonable to suppose that they had shot the victim in the house and then carried the body outside to avoid suspicion? That was the only indication of the guilt of the Verdures. A fragile foundation for so grave an accusation! If they had desired to seek for the truth carefully and calmly, the truth would have made itself apparent. A neighbor, a simple and irreproachable man, would have informed the judges that on the night of the crime, about eleven o'clock, as he was going out of his house, he heard the report of a gun which was fired, apparently, near the ditch in front of Ver dure's house. Immediately after the report he heard a plaintive voice, — that, no doubt, of the person who had been shot. Further, if the crime had been committed in the house of Verdure, the shot must have been fired in close proximity to the victim,
