bout it. But Bordin and he exchanged looks
which mutually enlightened them.

"The gist of the case is there," thought the old notary.

"They've laid their finger on it," thought the notary.

But each shrewd head considered the following up of this point useless.
Bordin reflected that Grevin would be silent as the grave; and Grevin
congratulated himself that every sign of the fire had been effaced.

To settle this point, which seemed a mere accessory to the trial and
somewhat puerile (but which is really essential in the justification
which history owes to these young men), the experts and Pigoult, who
were despatched by the president to examine the park, reported that they
could find no traces of a bonfire.

Bordin summoned two laborers, who testified to having dug over, under
the direction of the forester, a tract of ground in the park where
the grass had been burned; but they declared they had not observed the
nature of the ashes they had buried.

The forester, recalled by the defence, said he had received from the
senator himself, as he was passing the chateau of Gondreville on his way
to the masquerade at Arcis, an order to dig over that particular piece
of ground which the senator had remarked as needing it.

"Had papers, or herbage been burned there?"

"I could not say. I saw nothing that made me think that papers had been
burned there," replied the forester.

"At any rate," said Bordin, "if, as it appears, a fire was kindled on
that piece of ground some one brought to the spot whatever was burned
there."

The testimony of the abbe and that of Mademoiselle Goujet made a
favorable impression. They said that as they left the church after
vespers and were walking towards home, they met the four gentlemen
and Michu leaving the chateau on horseback and making their way to
the forest. The character, position, and known uprightness of the Abbe
Goujet gave weight to his words.

The summing up of the public prosecutor, who felt sure of obtaining a
verdict, was in the nature of all such speeches. The prisoners were the
incorrigible enemies of France, her institutions and laws. They thirsted
for tumult and conspiracy. Though they had belonged to the army of Conde
and had shared in the late attempts against the life of the Emperor,
that magnanimous sovereign had erased their names from the list of
_emigres_. This was the return they made for his clemency! In short, all
the oratorical declamations of the Bourbons