assuring the girl I would return for it in the morning. "Somehow, at this point my courage failed me. I told my friends I could go no farther; at the same time, however, point ing out to them Communes Wood, which lay but a few paces distant. In two hours the men returned, bringing some clothes and a pair of gold earrings, which they gave me for my wife. I inquired what they had done with the girl? ' Oh,' said one, ' she got two blows on the head, and one in the stomach. She made no great outcry.' I then went home for a spade; and the men buried her here, as you see. "Marie Pichon would inevitably have suf fered the same fate, had not my two em ployers failed me at the appointed place. I did not wish to do her any harm. On the contrary, finding the men absent, I wished to get rid of her and, to frighten her, threw my arms (not a cord, as she affirms) round her neck. I was glad to see her run away. 'At least,' I thought, 'they'll not get this one! ' "Some days later, finding an inquiry on foot, I judged it prudent to destroy the ef fects of the girl Bussod and those of Pichon, and, assisted by my wife, buried them ac. cordingly in the wood des Rouillonnes. "Now I have told all. I have nothing more to add." It is almost needless to mention that the two mysterious persons on whom he affected to lay the burden of these atrocious crimes had no real existence. Unable to resist the proof of his own complicity, Dumollard saw no hope of escape save in conjuring up some individual more guilty than himself. The trial commenced on the 29th of Jan uary, 1862, at the assizes of the Ain, sitting at Bourg : the woman Dumollard being included in the act of accusation. The proceedings commenced at ten o'clock, under the presidency of M. Marillat, of the Imperial Court of Lyons; the ProcureurGeneral on his right, the Procureur-Imperial on his left, and the magistrates of
Bourg, Trevoux, and Montluel on the bench behind. A short pause, and the prisoner ap peared, escorted by four gendarmes, his wife following. "There he is! There he is! " murmured the assembly. "Yes, here I am! " retorted the prisoner, waving his hat, as a popular candidate might at an election. He was placed on a bench at a little dis tance from his wife, and had the appearance of a hale rustic of fifty or thereabouts; his hair, beard, and mustache thick and dark; his nose aquiline; eyes blue, round, and very prominent; his whole expression singu larly calm and self-possessed. The swelling on his upper Hp, by which he had been more than once identified, was very apparent. He had told the jailer that it was occasioned by the sting of a poisonous fly. The phrenological development of this man presented some extraordinary traits. The skull, enormously large at the base, sloped upward and backward, until it termi nated almost in a cone, — a point too acute to be appreciated without passing the hand through his thick hair. The organs of destructiveness, circumspection, and self-reli ance exhibited the most marked develop ment. In front the skull, rapidly receding, presented, indeed, a " forehead villanous low." From the root of the nose to the root of the hair, it did not exceed three inches. The organs of comparison, causality, ideality, etc., were all but imperceptible; nay, in some instances, presented an actual depres sion. In a word, the cruel, brute-like char acter of this head was due rather to the absence of almost evcty good feature than to the extreme development of the bad. It was a type of skull commonly found among nations yet beyond the pale of civilization. The jury having been impanelled and the indictment read, the examination of wit nesses began. Nearly seventy answered to their names, and their testimony more than substantiated the horrible charges laid at the
