er had intended to leave him.
"Why, when first asked if you had received anything from Auguste, did
you say you had received nothing?" was the question.

"It was a thoughtless statement," was the answer. "Why," pursued the
President, "should you not have admitted at once a fact that went to
prove your own good faith? If, however, this fact be true, it does not
explain the mysterious way in which Auguste asked Prignon to raise for
him 100,000 francs; and unless those 100,000 francs were given to you,
it is impossible to account for them. It is important to your case that
you should give the jury a satisfactory explanation on this point."
Castaing could only repeat his previous explanations.

The interrogatory was then directed to the death of Auguste Ballet.
Castaing said that Auguste Ballet had left him all his fortune on
account of a disagreement with his sister. Asked why, after Auguste's
death, he had at first denied all knowledge of the will made in his
favour and deposited by him with Malassis, he could give no satisfactory
reason. Coming to the facts of the alleged poisoning of Auguste Ballet,
the President asked Castaing why, shortly after the warm wine was
brought up on the night of May 30, he went up to the room where one of
the servants of the hotel was lying sick. Castaing replied that he was
sent for by the wife of the hotel-keeper. This the woman denied; she
said that she did not even know that he was a doctor. "According to
the prosecution," said the judge, "you left the room in order to avoid
drinking your share of the wine." Castaing said that he had drunk half
a cupful of it. The judge reminded him that to one of the witnesses
Castaing had said that he had drunk only a little.

A ridiculous statement made by Castaing to explain the purchase of
morphia and antimony in Paris on May 31 was brought up against him.
Shortly after his arrest Castaing had said that the cats and dogs about
the hotel had made such a noise on the night of May 30 that they had
disturbed the rest of Auguste, who, in the early morning, had asked
Castaing to get some poison to kill them. He had accordingly gone all
the way, about ten miles, to Paris at four in the morning to purchase
antimony and morphia to kill cats and dogs. All the people of the
hotel denied that there had been any such disturbance on the night in
question. Castaing now said that he had bought the poisons at Auguste's
request, partly to kill the noisy cats and do