212 
SINGULAR TRIAL. 
his cabinet was filled with persons ready to swear. Among these 
persons were two women from the environs of the place where the 
crime had been committed. For some time they fixed their eyes on 
Guesno and Lesurques, who were waiting for admission. They 
requested soon after that they might be shewn into the cabinet of 
M. Daubauton ; they were admitted, and assured M. D. that they had 
just recognized in the antechamber two men who had been concerned 
in the assassination of the courier. The judge exhorted them not to 
yield to false conjectures, and represented to them the improbability 
of their declaration ; but they still persisted in it. Tt was indeed diffi- 
cult to believe that two culprits should thus of their own accord throw 
themselves into the hands of justice. Nothing, however, could induce 
these women to desist. The magistrate therefore saw himself neces- 
sitated to arrest two honest men, who were entirely unconscious of the 
danger which threatened them. The deposition of these women 
against Guesno was inexcusable, for he did not resemble any of the 
real culprits ; but it may be justified in the case of Lesurques, for, by 
a terrible fatality, he bore a great resemblance to one of the robbers 
described as the principal agent, or one of the accomplices, in the 
assassination. Recourse was had to the description of the person ; 
it was found exact. Lesurques was asked for his carte de surete. He 
could only produce one belonging to his father, who bore the same 
name as himself. So many circumstances appearedoverwhelming. The 
judicial officer began to entertain suspicions, and Lesurques and 
G uesno were accused with Courriol, whom we have already mentioned ; 
Bernard, who furnished the assassins with horses ; Richard, at whose 
house a part of the stolen goods were deposited, in order to undergo 
examination ; and a Sieur Bruer, whom an innkeeper of Lieursaint 
thought he recognized, was quickly declared innocent. 
At the moment that Lesurques underwent this afflicting trial, he had 
just finished the furnishing and decorating of his lodgings. On the 
ill-fated day of his arrest he had left them gaily; he had only slept 
there one night, and he was never to enter them again. Information 
was sought after with all that ardour which animated the magistrates 
in those times, when the roads were infested with robbers, when the 
couriers were frequently stopped, and the money of the state taken 
by force. 
As soon as the arrest of Lesurques was made public, the conster- 
nation and grief of his family, his friends, and all the town of Donai, 
were extreme. All were impatient to give him some marks of the 
lively interest they took in his fate. The least reflection was sufficient 
to convince the mind, that a man who possessed a fortune of 10,000 
francs, who till the present moment had enjoyed the most honourable 
reputation, who came to settle at Paris with his wife and children, 
who hired lodgings at the house of M. Motuet, a well-known notary, 
and occupied himself in furnishing them, never could have left his 
country to come and assassinate the Courier of Lyons on the road of 
Melun. The sura stolen from the Courier was 14,000 francs in cash, 
and 7 millions in assignats, which, in 1796, might be equal to from 
5 to 6000 francs. The number of culprits marked out for justice 
were six, including the man who furnished the horses. It was then 
