had heard, as well as the footman, what Mr Hayes had declared at supper, as to the having a sum of money about him; and he went to the chamber of the deceased with the same dreadful intentions as the servant. He was struck with amazement on beholding himself anticipated in the crime. He could not believe his senses; and in turning back the bed-clothes to assure himself of the fact, he in his agitation dropped his knife on the bleeding body, by which means both his hands and the weapon became bloody. These circumstances Bradford acknowledged to the clergyman who attended him after sentence, but who, it is extremely probable, would not believe them at the time.

Besides the graver lesson to be drawn from this extraordinary case, in which we behold the simple intention of crime so signally and wonderfully punished, these events furnish a striking warning against the careless, and, it may be, vain display of money or other property in strange places. To heedlessness on this score the unfortunate Mr Hayes fell a victim. The temptation, we have seen, proved too strong for two persons out of the few who heard his illtimed disclosure.

THE LYON COURIER.

In the month of April 1796-or, according to the dates of the French republic, in Floreal of the year 4-a young man, named Joseph Lesurques, arrived in Paris with his wife and his three children from Douai, his native town. He was thirty-three years of age, and possessed a fortune of 15,000 livres (£600) per annum, inherited from his own and his wife's relations. He took apartments in the house of a M. Monnet, a notary in the Rue Montmartre, and made preparations for permanently residing in Paris and educating his children. One of his first cares was to repay one Guesno, proprietor of a carrying establishment at Douai, 2000 livres he had formerly borrowed. On the day following, Guesno invited Lesurques to breakfast. They accordingly went to No. 27, Rue des Boucheries, in company with two other persons, one of whom, a gentleman of the name of Couriol, was invited in consequence of his calling on the third party just as they were sitting down to breakfast. The party remained at table until nearly twelve o'clock, when they proceeded to the Palais Royal, and after having taken coffee at the Rolonde du Caveau, separated.

Four days afterwards (on the 27th April), four horsemen, mounted on good but evidently hired horses, were observed to ride out of Paris through the Barriere de Charenton, as if on a party of pleasure. They all wore long cloaks, as was then the fashion, and sabres hanging from their waists. One of the party was Couriol.

Between twelve and one o'clock the four horsemen arrived at the pretty village of Mongeron, on the road to Melun and Burgagne.

One of the party had galloped forward to order dinner at the Hotel de la Poste, kept by Sieur Evrard: after dinner, they asked for pipes and tobacco, and two of them smoked. They paid their bill, and went to the casino of the place, where they took four cups of coffee. Shortly afterwards, they mounted their horses, and following the road, shaded by beech-trees, which leads from Mongeron to the forest of Lenart, they proceeded at a foot pace towards Lieursaint, a picturesque village in the midst of a grove.

They arrived at Lieursaint about three o'clock in the afternoon, and there made another long halt. The horse of one of the party had lost a shoe, and another of them had broken the chain of his spur by collision with a friend's horse. This one stopped at the beginning of the village, at the cottage of a woman named Chatelin, a lemonade-seller, and requested her to give him coffee, and supply him with some coarse thread to mend the chain of his spur. This woman immediately complied with his double request; and as the traveller was not very skilful in mending the chain, she called her servant, one Grossetete, who accordingly mended the chain, and assisted in putting the spur on the boot. The three other horsemen during this time had dismounted at one Champeaux's, an innkeeper, and took something to drink, while he conducted the horse and horseman to the village smith, a man named Motteau. When the horse was shod, the four travellers went to the café of the woman Chatelin, where they played some games at billiards. At half-past seven o'clock, after taking a stirrup-cup with the innkeeper, to whose house they returned for their horses, they mounted and rode off towards Melun.

On going in, Champeaux saw on a table a sabre, which one of the travellers had forgotten to put in his belt: he wished his stable-boy to run after them, but they were already out of sight. It was not until an hour afterwards that the traveller to whom the weapon belonged, and who was the same who had mended his spur, returned at full galop for it. He then drank a glass of brandy, and set off at full speed in the direction taken by his companions. At this moment the mail courier from Paris to Lyon arrived to change horses. It was then about half-past eight o'clock, and the night had been for some time dark. The courier, after having changed horses, and taken a fresh postilion, set out to pass the long forest of Lenart. The mail at this period was a sort of postchaise, with a large trunk behind containing the dispatches. There was one place only open to the public, at the side of the courier. It was on that day occupied by a man about thirty years of age, who had that morning taken his place to Lyon in the name of Laborde, silk merchant.

The next morning the mail was found rifled, the courier dead in his seat, with one wound right through his heart, and his head cut nearly off; and the postilion lying in the road, also dead, his head cut open, his right hand divided, and his breast wounded in three

places. The postilion's wounds were evidently inflicted by sabres, wielded by two persons. One horse only was found near the carriage. The mail had been robbed of 75,coo livres in assignats, silver, and bank bills.

The officers of justice, in their researches, immediately discovered that five persons had passed through the barrier of Rambouillet, proceeding to Paris between four and five o'clock in the morning after the murder. The horse ridden by the postilion was found wandering about the Place Royale; and they ascertained that four horses, covered with foam, and quite exhausted, had been brought about five o'clock in the morning to a man named Muiron, Rue des Fosses-Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, by two persons who had hired them the evening before. These two persons were named Bernard and Couriol. Bernard was immediately arrested; Couriol escaped. In the course of the inquiry, it became evident that the criminals must have been five in number. A description was obtained of the four who had ridden from Paris and stopped at Mongeron and Lieursaint, from the many persons with whom they had conversed on the road. A description was also obtained of the man who had taken his place with the courier under the name of Laborde, from the person at the coach-office, and from those who had seen him take his seat.

Couriol was traced to Chateau Thierry, where he lodged in the house of one Bruer, with whom, too, Guesno, the carrier of Douai, was also staying. The police proceeded there, and arrested Couriol : in his possession was found a sum, in assignats, drafts, and money, equal to about a fifth of what had been taken from the mail. Guesno and Bruer were also taken into custody, but they proved alibis so distinctly, that they were discharged as soon as they arrived in Paris.

The Bureau Central intrusted to one Daubenton, the Juge de Paix of the division of Pont-Neuf, and an officer of the judicial police, the preliminary investigations in this affair. This magistrate, after discharging Guesno, had told him to apply at his office the next morning for the return of his papers, which had been seized at Chateau Thierry; at the same time he had ordered a police-officer, named Heudon, to set out immediately for Mongeron and Lieursaint, and to bring back with him the witnesses, of whom he gave a list, so as to have them all together the next day at the central office ready to be examined.

Guesno, being desirous to obtain his papers as soon as possible, left home earlier than usual; just before he reached the central office, he met his friend Lesurques. They conversed together, and Guesno having explained the cause which took him to the office of the Juge de Paix, proposed that he should accompany him. They went to the office, then at the hotel now occupied by the Prefect de Police; and as Citizen Daubenton had not yet arrived, they sat

down in the antechamber, on purpose to wait his arrival, and be more speedily released.

About ten o'clock the Juge de Paix, who had entered his room by a back door, was interrupted in his perusal of the documents, before examining the witnesses, by the officer Heudon, who said: 'Among the witnesses there are two, the woman Santon, servant of Evrard the innkeeper at Mongeron, and the girl Grossetete, servant of the woman Chatelin, the lemonade-seller at Lieursaint, who declare in the most precise manner that two of the assassins were waiting in the antechamber. They said they could not be mistaken, as one of them had waited at the dinner of the four travellers at Mongeron, and the other had conversed with them at Lieursaint, and had remained more than an hour in the room while they played at billiards.

The Juge de Paix, not believing this improbable statement, ordered the two women to be introduced separately. He then examined each of them, when they energetically repeated their statement, and said that they could not be mistaken. He then, after warning the women that life and death depended on their answers, had Guesno brought into his room. 'What,' said the Juge, 'do you want here?' 'I come,' replied Guesno, 'for my papers, which you promised to restore to me yesterday. I am accompanied by one of my friends from Douai, my native place. His name is Lesurques. We met on the road, and he is waiting for me in the other room.'

The Juge de Paix then ordered the other person pointed out by the two women to be introduced. This was Lesurques. He conversed with him and Guesno for a few minutes, requested them to walk into another room, where the papers would be brought to them, and privately told Heudon not to lose sight of them. When they had left the room, the magistrate again asked the women if they persisted in their previous declarations; they did persist; their evidence was taken down in writing; and the two friends were immediately arrested.

From this time the proceedings were pressed on with great rapidity. Guesno and Lesurques, when confronted by the witnesses, were recognised by almost all. The woman Santon asserted that it was Lesurques who, after dinner at Mongeron, wished to pay in assignats, but that the tall dark man (Couriol) paid in silver. Champeaux and his wife, the innkeepers at Lieursaint, recognised Lesurques as the man who had mended his spur and returned for his sabre. Lafolie, the stable-boy at Mongeron, the woman Alfroy, a florist at Lieursaint, all recognised him. Laurent Charbant, a labourer who had dined in the same room with the four horsemen, deposed that he was the one who had spurs affixed to his boots hussar fashion.

On the day of his arrest, Lesurques wrote to his friend the following letter, which was intercepted and added to the legal documents :

'My friend, since my arrival in Paris I have experienced nothing but troubles, but I did not expect the misfortune which now overwhelms me. Thou knowest me, and thou knowest whether I am capable of degrading myself by crime; yet the most frightful of crimes is imputed to me. I am accused of the murder of the courier to Lyon. Three men and two women, whom I know not, nor even their abode (for thou knowest that I have never left Paris), have had the assurance to declare that they remembered me, and that I was the first who rode up on horseback. Thou knowest that I have never mounted a horse since I arrived in Paris. Thou wilt see of what vital import to me is such testimony as this, which tends to my judicial assassination. Assist me with thy memory, and try to remember where I was and what persons I saw in Paris-I think it was the 7th or 8th of last month-so that I may confound these infamous calumniators, and punish them as the laws direct.'

At the bottom of this letter were written the names of the persons he had seen on that day: Citizen Tixier, General Cambrai, Mademoiselle Eugenie, Citizen Hilaire, Ledru, his wife's hairdresser, the workmen engaged on his apartments, and the porter of the house. He concluded by saying: Thou wilt oblige by seeing my wife often, and trying to console her.'

Lesurques, Guesno, Couriol, Bernard, Richard, and Bruer were tried before the criminal tribunal: the first three as authors or accomplices of the assassination and robbery; Bernard for having supplied the four horses; Richard for having concealed Couriol and his mistress Madeleine Breban, and for having concealed and divided all or part of the stolen property; Bruer for having received Couriol and Guesno into his house at Chateau Thierry. In the course of the trial, the witnesses who pretended to recognise Guesno and Lesurques persisted in their declarations. Guesno and Bruer produced evidence that completely cleared them. Guesno proved his alibi in the most distinct manner, and thus insured his acquittal. Lesurques called fifteen witnesses, all citizens, exercising respectable professions, and enjoying the esteem of the public. He appeared at the bar with remarkable confidence and calmness. The first witness for the defence was Citizen Legrand, a countryman of Lesurques, a wealthy silversmith and jeweller. He testified that, on the 8th, the very day the crime was committed, Lesurques passed one part of the morning with him. In addition, Aldenof, a jeweller, and Hilaire Ledru Chausfer, affirmed that they had dined with the prisoner on the same day at his relation's, Lesurques, in the Rue Montorquiel. They stated, that after dinner they went to a café, and after taking some liqueur, had seen him to his own house.

The painter Beudart added, that he meant to have dined with his friends, but that being on duty as a National Guard, he could not arrive in time, but that he had been at Lesurques's house the same evening in uniform, and had seen him retire to rest. In support of