the beginning; she did not
dissuade the chief leader of all, Rifoel, since executed, although
through her guilty influence upon him she might have done so. She
made her waiting-woman, the girl Godard, an accomplice. As for
Leveille, he took an active part in the actual perpetration of the
crime by seeking the axe the brigands asked for.

The woman Bourget, Vauthier, the Chaussards, Pannier, the woman
Lechantre, Mallet and Ratel, all participated in the crime in
their several degrees, as did the innkeepers Melin, Binet,
Laraviniere, and Chargegrain.

Bourget has died during the investigation, after making a
confession which removes all doubt as to the part played by
Vauthier and the woman Bryond; if he attempted to extenuate that
of his wife and his nephews Chaussard, his motives are easy to
understand.

The Chaussards knowingly fed and lodged the brigands, they saw
them armed, they witnessed all their arrangements and knew the
object of them; and lastly, they received the plunder, which they
hid, and as it appears, stole from their accomplices.

Pannier, the former treasurer of the rebels, concealed the woman
Bryond in his house; he is one of the most dangerous accomplices
of this crime, which he knew from its inception. In him certain
mysterious relations which are still obscure took their rise; the
authorities now have these matters under investigation. Pannier
was the right hand of Rifoel, the depositary of the secrets of the
counter-revolutionary party of the West; he regretted that Rifoel
introduced women into the plot and confided in them; it was he who
received the stolen money from the woman Bryond and conveyed it to
Rifoel.

As for the conduct of the two gendarmes Ratel and Mallet, it
deserves the severest penalty of the law. They betrayed their
duty. One of them, foreseeing his fate, committed suicide, but not
until he had made important revelations. The other, Mallet, denies
nothing, his tacit admissions preclude all doubt, especially as to
the guilt of the woman Bryond.

The woman Lechantre, in spite of her constant denials, was privy
to all. The hypocrisy of this woman, who attempts to shelter her
assumed innocence under the mask of a false piety, has certain
antecedents which prove her decision of character and her
intrepidity in extreme cases. She alleges that she was misled by
her daughter, and believed that the plun