te of the ninth. He
thought the best thing he could do would be to scratch out the nine and
convert it into an eight. He did this with the idea that he would
thereby save his fellow-townsman Lesurques, whom he knew to be
innocent, whereas he actually succeeded in ruining him. The alteration
and substitution were easily detected; from that moment the prosecution
and the jury declined to place the least confidence in the eighty
witnesses for the defence called by the accused; he was convicted and
his property confiscated. Eighty-seven days elapsed between his
condemnation and execution, a delay that was altogether unusual at that
period; but grave doubts had arisen as to his guilt.

"The Directorate did not possess the right of reprieve; they felt it
their duty to refer the case to the Council of Five Hundred, asking
'whether Lesurques was to die because of his resemblance to a
criminal?' The Council passed to the Order of the Day on the report of
Simeon; and Lesurques was executed, forgiving his judges. And not only
had he constantly protested his innocence, but at the moment the
verdict was given Couriol had cried out, in firm tones, 'Lesurques is
innocent!' He repeated this statement both on the fatal hurdle and on
the scaffold. All the other prisoners, while admitting their own
guilt, also declared the innocence of Lesurques. It was only in the
year IX. that Dubosq, his double, was arrested and sentenced.

"The fatality that had attacked the head of the family spared none of
its members. Lesurques' mother died of grief; his wife went mad; his
three children languished in insignificance and poverty. The
government, however, moved by their great misfortune, restored to the
family of Lesurques, in two instalments, the five or six hundred
thousand francs which had been so iniquitously confiscated; but a
swindler robbed them of the greater part of the money. Sixty years
elapsed; of Lesurques' three children two were dead: one alone
survived, Virginia Lesurques. Public opinion had for a long time
already proclaimed the innocence and the rehabilitation of her
unfortunate father. She wanted more; and when the law of the 29th June
1867 was passed, authorising the revision of criminal judgments, she
hoped that the day had at last come when she might proclaim this
rehabilitation in the sanctuary of justice; but, by a final fatality,
the Court of Appeal, arguing on legal subtleties, declared by its
decree of 17th