s
telling her about the ghost, and to seeing the excavation of the
packet, were now arrested, while Auguier remained in prison.
Marguerite now denied her original deposition, she had only spoken
to oblige Mirabel. One Etienne Barthelemy was next arrested: he
admitted that he had 'financed' Mirabel during the trial, but denied
that he had suborned any witnesses. Two experts differed, as usual,
about Auguier's receipt; a third was called in, and then they
unanimously decided that it was not in his hand. On February 18,
1729, Auguier was acquitted, Mirabel was condemned to the torture,
and to the galley, for life. Marguerite Caillot was fined ten
francs. _Under torture_ Mirabel accused Barthelemy of having made
him bring his charge against Auguier, supplying him with the forged
receipt and with the sham document, the summons to restore the gold
to Madame Placasse. Oddly enough he still said that he had handed
sacks of coin to Auguier, and that one of them was tied up with the
gold-coloured ribbon. Two of his witnesses, _under torture_, stuck
to their original statements. They were sentenced to be hung up by
the armpits, and Barthelemy was condemned to the galleys for life.

It is a singular tale, and shows strange ideas of justice. Once
condemned to the galleys, Mirabel might as well have made a clean
breast of it; but this he did not do: he stuck to his bags and
gold-coloured ribbon. Manifestly Mirabel would have had a better
chance of being believed in court if he had dropped the ghost
altogether. It is notable that Sir Walter probably gave his version
of this affair from memory: he says that Mirabel 'was non-suited
upon the ground that, if his own story was true, the treasure, by
the ancient laws of France, belonged to the crown'.

Scott's next case is very uninteresting, at least as far as it is
given in Howell's State Trials, vol. xii. (1692), p. 875.

A gentleman named Harrison had been accused of beguiling a Dr.
Clenche into a hackney coach, on pretence of taking him to see a
patient. There were two men in the coach, besides the doctor. They
sent the coachman on an errand, and when he came back he found the
men fled and Clenche murdered. He had been strangled with a
handkerchief. On evidence which was chiefly circumstantial,
Harrison was found guilty, and died protesting his innocence. Later
a Mrs. Milward declared that her husband, before his death,
confessed to her that he and a man named Co