will he go? " " Oh! Gay will not be alive father approached his son, who was com in a week." pletely overcome. With tears streaming The day after the death of old Gay she from his eyes, he grasped his boy's hand saw Lesnier wearing shoes stained with and said in a loud, ringing voice, " Go, my blood. On the 22d of November, the day son! your father still believes you innocent!" that Daignaud claimed to have been stopped This is the drama promised to the reader. in the woods, Lesnier complained to her Who has not seen many a similar one in the that he had received a blow on his side Court of Assizes? A vulgar, ignoble crime, from which he suffered severely. inspired by the basest of motives, demon There was in this last statement a perfect strated by the strongest evidence; a guilty agreement with the story of Daignaud, who man justly punished! Ah, no! All this has said that in defending himself he struck one been only an error and a lie. This con of his assailants with an umbrella. demned man is not guilty; all this denounc ing evidence is a horrible imposture; these Acting upon these statements which sup ported the declarations of so many of the numerous and overwhelming proofs are illu witnesses as to the criminal hopes and the sions of justice, the odious artifices of the violent character of Lesnier, the authorities real criminal. When the father heard the terrible sen accumulated a mass of overwhelming proba tence pronounced upon his son, his cry, bilities against him. By a decree dated the 24th of May, 1848, "Your father still believes you innocent!" the accused were sent before the Court of was not a mere formal expression of con Assizes of the Gironde; and the 30th of June solation. In his heart he took a solemn oath to rescue his son from this unmerited the father and son appeared before that tri bunal, accused of robbery, arson, and murder. punishment, and to rehabilitate him in the The principal witnesses for the prosecution eyes of all j to unmask the true guilty one. were, of course, Daignaud and Marie Ces- We shall see how he kept this oath. The condemned man remained alone. sac. The former repeated the story he had previously told, and positively identified the The first night he slept calmly, but his son as one of his assailants, but could not awakening was terrible. The iniquity of his sentence raised in him transports of rage. swear as to the father. Marie Cessac ap peared extremely nervous and ill at ease, He struck the walls of his cell with his and gave her testimony in an incoherent clinched fists; he cursed the lying wit nesses, he cursed his judges. For several and disconnected manner. It was neces days his life was only a succession of blind sary to read to her the statements previ ously made by her, and she then reiterated ragings and complete prostrations. He felt that he was becoming mad. and persisted in these declarations. Les One day his father obtained permission to nier, the son, carefully followed every state ment, and closely watched every movement visit him, and this interview did him good. made by her. She carefully avoided meeting " I promise you," said the old man, sol emnly, " that as long as a drop of blood re his eyes. After a short deliberation, the jury brought mains in my old veins, I will never rest until in a verdict acquitting the father and finding I have found the murderers of old Gay." On the 3d of July, 1848, Lesnier wrote the son guilty of arson and murder, with ex tenuating circumstances. In conformity to to his father : — this verdict the father was discharged, and "Do not torment yourself further. My greatest young Lesnier was condemned to hard labor sorrow is on account of your grief; but I implore for life. you, I entreat you, never to blush before men on On hearing this sentence pronounced, the account of the condemnation of your son. I am
