eet him on hired
horses; and lastly Bernard, who had procured the horses, and took part
in the subsequent distribution of plunder. For this crime, in which
five assassins and one accomplice shared, _seven_ individuals, within
the space of four years, mounted the steps of the guillotine. Justice,
therefore, killed one man too many: her sword fell upon one who was
innocent; nor could he have been one of these six individuals, all of
whom confessed their crime. The innocent man was Lesurques, who had
never ceased to declare that he was not guilty; and all his alleged
accomplices disavowed any knowledge of him. How then came this
unfortunate creature to be implicated in an affair that was to confer
so sad an immortality upon his name? Fatality so contrived that, four
days before the crime, Lesurques, who had left Douai with an income of
eighteen thousand livres, and had come to Paris that he might give a
better education to his children, happened to be lunching with a
fellow-townsman named Guesno when Couriol came in and was invited to
join them. Suspicion having at once fallen upon Couriol, the fact of
this lunch was sufficient to cause Guesno to be put under arrest for a
moment; but as he was able to prove an alibi, the judge, Daubenton,
immediately set him at liberty. Only, as it was late, Daubenton told
him to come the following day to fetch his papers.

"In the morning of the eleventh Floreal, Guesno, on his way for this
purpose to the Prefecture of Police, met Lesurques, whom he invited to
accompany him; an invitation which Lesurques, who had nothing special
to do, accepted. While they were waiting in the antechamber for the
magistrate to arrive, two women were shown in who had been asked to
attend in connection with the affair; and they, deceived by Lesurques'
resemblance to Dubosq, who had fled, unhesitatingly denounced him as
one of the assassins, and unfortunately persisted in this statement to
the end. The antecedents of Lesurques pleaded in his favour; and among
other facts that he cited to prove that he had not left Paris during
the day of the eighth Floreal, he declared that he had been present at
certain dealings that had taken place at a jeweller's named Legrand,
between this last and another jeweller named Aldenoff. These
transactions had actually taken place on the eighth; but Legrand, on
being requisitioned to produce his books, found that he had by a
clerical blunder inscribed them under the da