SOME STRANGE TRIALS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIII, Issue II, 14 July 1894, Page 30

SOME STRANGE TRIALS.

A JUDICIAL MURDER—THE TRUE STORY OF THE LYONS MAIL.

H E following trial shows what terrible conseKgSTI qnences may ensue from people being too positZJ BCI tive * u identifying others as the perpetrators of crimes when they have only had the opportunity

of seeing the supposed criminals on one occasion, and that but for a short time.

In 1796. Joseph Lesurques, a young man of independent means, was residing at Douai. He was married to a lady of good family, and had three children. Being desirous of giving his little ones the educational advantages of the capital, he removed to Paris. He had only been there a short time when one day be breakfasted with an old acquaintance from Douai named Guesno, and there met a gentlemen named Couriol. In those days the mails were conveyed in a sort of postchaise, in charge of a courier and a postillion. At the back of the chaise was what resembled a large leather trunk, and into this receptacle the letters were thrown. Only one passenger could travel with the mail, and he sat by the official in charge on the box seat. A day or two after the meeting between Lesurques, Guesno, and Couriol, a person giving the name of Laborde, and describing himself as a silk merchant.booked bis seat on the Lyons mail for the 27th April. On the morning of the 27th April four horsemen rode out of Paris. They were all wearing cloaks, and carrying sabres suspended from their belts. There was nothing peculiar in this, for not only was it the fashion of the day to go armed, but the country was still in an unsettled state, just e covering from the violence of the sanguinary revolution into which it had been plunged At one o’clock the party reached the village Mougeron, and had dinner at the Hotel de la Porte. After dining, and resting for an hour, they continued their journey, and rode into the village Lieursaint at three o’clock. One of the party had broken the chain of his spur, and as he passed a cafe he asked the mistress, who was standing at the door, to give him a piece of strong thread to fasten the spur. With this request she at once complied, but, observing he was making rather a bungle of the job, she called her servant, who mended the chain and put the spur on the boot. In the meantime, the three other horsemen had gone to the village inn, and, as one of the horses had lost a shoe, the landlord took it to the farriers whilst the travellers were regaling themselves in his parlour. Later on, all four went to the cafe where the spur chain had been mended, and there partook of coffee, and played two or three games of billiards. They then returned to the inn, had a drink, and at half-past seven, wishing the landlord good night, trotted away in the direction of Melon. The innkeeper, with his hands under his apron, stood in the roadway in front of his house, and watched the horsemen until they were lost to sight by a turn of the road. A queer lot of fellows they seemed, starting out on a journey just at a time when other people would be putting up for the night. When he entered his parlour, the first thing that met his eyes was a sabre lying on the table. He picked it up and ran out, expecting that the owner would be seen returning for it, but as this was not the case, he took the weapon indoors and hung it up. About an hour afterwards one of the four (the one who had had his spur chain mended) galloped up to the inn for his sabre. The landlord brought it out, and as the horseman was buckling it on he ordered a glass of brandy, which having drank, he set off again at full speed. Within a few minutes of his departure the Lyons mail arrived at the same inn. The horses were changed, a fresh postillion mounted, and at half past eight the mail rattled away, with the passenger Laborde seated on the box by the side of the courier. Some farm labourers going to work at daybreak the next morning came upon a frightful scene of bloodshed. The mail was standing in the middle of the road, the courier was still seated on the box, stabbed through the heart, and his head nearly severed from his body. A little further, lying in the road, literally slashed to pieces, was the corpse of the postillion, one horse was by the roadside, the other horse and Laborde the silk merchant had disappeared. The mail had been robbed of assignats (which were public notes or bills issued by the Revolutionary Government of France) to the extent of 75,000 livres, besides a quantity of silver and miscellaneous valuables.

At four o’clock on the morning after the murders, five horsemen galloped into Paris, and shortly afterwards two men, named Bsrnard and Couriol, took four of the horses to a livery stable, where they had hired them the day before, and later on the same morning a horse was found without anyone in charge of it in another part of the city. As soon as the intelligence of the robbery and murders reached Paris, the circumstances of the arrival of five horsemen, the return of the four horses to the stable, and the finding of the stray one, which was recognized as belonging to the mail, pointed to the five horsemen as being the thieves and murderers ; and as Bernard and Couriol were known to be of the number, the police at once attempted to effect their capture. Bernard was arrested, but Couriol escaped. A hot pursuit was now instituted, and Couriol was traced to the house of a man named Bruer, where, strangely enough, Guesno was also staying. The police, in their zeal to bring the offenders to justice, did not pause to make inquiries, but arrested Couriol, Bruer, and Guesno on the charge of murder. Bruer and Guesno, however, were able to satisfy the examining magistrate that they could not possibly have been with the assassins, and they were discharged. The magistrate, being busy that day, told Guesno to call the next morning for his papers, which had been seized at the time of the arrest. The following morning Guesno accordingly started for the police-office. On his way there he met his friend Lesurques, and told him of the affair and of his lucky escape, adding that he might walk with him up to the police court. Lesurques, thinking nothing of the circumstance, did so. The magistrate had not arrived, and Guesno and Lesurques sat down, with several other persons, in the waitingroom.

As soon as the magistrate was in his private room a detective came in and informed him that there were two women in the waiting room—one the servant who had at-

tended the four horsemen at dinner at Mougeron, and the other the servant at the cafe at Lieursaint who had mended the spur-chain, and who afterwards saw all four playing at billiards. Both these women stated that two of the assassins were sitting in the waiting room at the court, meaning Guesno and Lesurques. The magistrate sent for the women and carefully interro gated them. They were positive in their identification, and thereupon Guesno and Lesurques were arrested and formally charged with the double murder and robbery. The evidence against Lesurques was overwhelming. He was recognised by nearly all the witnesses in the case. Amongst others, the gill who waited at dinner at Mougeron, and the stable boy at the same place, the innkeeper at Lieursaint, and his wife, a labourer who dined in the same room with the four horsemen, and the servant who had mended the spur chain, one and all declared that they had no doubt about his being one of the four horsemen. On the day of his arrest Lesurques wrote a letter to a friend, which was intercepted by the police. He said :

Mr Friend.—Since my arrival in Paris I have experienced nothing but troubles; but 1 did not expect the misfortune which now overwhelms me. Thou knowest me. and thou knowest whether I am capable of degrading myself by crime, vet the most frightful of crimes is imputed to me. lam accused of the murder of the courier to Lyons. Three men and two women, whom I know not. or even their abode (for thou knowest 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 I have never mounted a horse since I arrived in Paris. Thou wilt see of what vital importance to mo 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 Sth of last month—so that I may confound these infamous caluminiators and punish them as the laws direct. Thou wilt oblige by seeing my wife often and trying to console her.

In due course Lesurques, Guesno, Couriol, Bernard, Richard, and Bruer were put upon their trial, the first three on the charge of robbery and tnur ier, Bernard for supplying the horses, Richard for concealing Couriol and dividing the stolen property, and Bruer for receiving Guesno and Couriol into his house. The witnesses at the trial were as positive in their identification of Lesurques as they had been at the police court. Guesno and Bruer called a large number of witnesses on their behalf to show that they could not possibly have had a hand in the crime.

Lesurques made a powerful defence, and called no less than fifteen witnesses to prove that he could not have been one of the four horsemen.

It became, therefore, a question of oath against oath, the witnesses for the prosecution swearing that he was undoubtedly present, while those for the defence were just as certain that he was in Paris during the whole time. The speeches finished, the jury had just retired to deliberate, when a woman called from the back of the court that she had something of importance to tell the judge. On being brought forward, she stated that her name was Brebau, the mistress of Couriol, and she wanted to tell the Court that there was a mistake about Lesurques. He was innocent, having been mistaken for one of the party who had escaped, named Dubosq. The judge, having heard all that Brebau had to say, rejected her evidence. After a short interval the jury returned into court, and, according to the law of those days, announced the punishment which each person found guilty was to receive. Lesurques, Couriol, and Bernard were to die. Richard was to undergo four years’ labout in irons, and Guesno and Bruer were to be discharged. Lesurques, standing up, exclaimed, • I am innocent of the crimes imputed to me. Ah, citizens, if murder on the highway be atrocious, to execute an innccent man is not less a crime.’

Couriol then arose, and said, ‘I am guilty. I own my crime, but Lesurques is innocent.’ This declaration he repeated four times, and after being removed to his c 11, wrote a letter to the judge, in which he said, ‘ I never knew Lesurques. The resemblance of Dubrsq has deceived lhe witnesses. ’

The statements of Brebau and Couriol, together with Lesurques’ asseverations of innocence, made the judges waver, and they applied to the • Directory ’ for a reprieve. The members of that body had no power, and the matter had to be referred to the Legislature. The question submitted for the consideration of these supposed representatives of the people was a very plain one. It was, • Ought Lesurques to die on the scaffold because he resembles a criminal’’ And amazing as it is to relate, those miserable nonentities, who for years had kept France in constant commotion with their blatant prate about liberty, equality, and fraternity, returned the answer that to annul a sentence legally pronounced by a jury would subvert all ideae of justice and of equality before the law, and that Les surques, although innocent, must die because the jury had so said I 11

Thus the unfortunate Lesurques was left to perish without hope on this side of the grave. On the day of his execution he wrote to bis wife :

‘My dear friend, we cannot avoid our fate. I shall, at any rate, endure it with the courage which becomes a man. I send some locks of my hair; when the children are older divide it amongst them. It is the only thing I can leave them.’

Couriol and Lesurques were conveyed to the scaffold in the same cart. The former cried out to the crowds as he passed along : • I am guilty, but Lesurques is innocent.’ On rearching the guillotine, Lesurques, addressing the executioners, said, ‘ I pardon my judge, an ! the witnesses whose mistake has murdered me. I die protesting my innocence.' A moment more and the unhappy man was launched into eternity. Before his death Couriol appears to have made all the reparation in his power for the crimes he had committed by a full confession, in which he gave the names of the real parties concerned. In this he stated that the passenger Laborde was a man named Durochat. About two years after Lesurqnrs’ death Durochat was at rested on another charge, and ultimately confessed bis complicity in the attack on the mail, and stated that the guilty parties were

Couriol, Rossi, Vidal, Dubosq, and himself. Durochat was tried and sentenced to death, and in due course executed. Before his execution he said, • I heard there was a fellow named Lesurques condemned for these murders ; but to tell the truth, I never knew the fellow, either at the planning of the business or at its execution, or at the dividing of the spoil. ’ Abont the same time Vidal was arrested, and after a while Dubosq was captured. Before, however, Dubosq could be tried he effected his escape from prison. Vidal was tried and executed.

Towaids the end of 1801 Dubosq was recaptured and arraigned for the murders and robbery of the mail. The terrible and irreparable mistake was now manifest. Some of the witnesses who had sworn so positively to Lesurques admitted they were in error. Dubosq was the man they bad seen on the fatal day, and Lesurques was, as he had all along declared, innocent of the charge brought against him. Dubosq was condemned, and executed on the 22ud February, 1802 I'he last of the gang, Rossi, escaped to Madrid ; but, on the app'ication of the French Government, he was surrendered. He was convicted and sentenced to death. Before his execution he placed a paper in the hands of the priest who attended him. The document contained these words : ‘I declare that the man Lesurques is innocent, but this declaration, which I give to my confessor, is not to be published until six months after my death.

Thus was Lesurques judicially murdered. Of his innocence there cannot exist the shadow of a doubt, for, in addition to the declarations of the prisoners and the ad mis sions of the witnesses, 'here s the established fact that only five men were concerned in tt e crime (the four horsemen and the passenger Laborde), yet six were gullotined. The sixth man must of necessity have been innocent, and that man was Lesurques On the execution of Lesurques his property was forfeited to the State. His widow for years tried to get the sentence reversed, which would have had the effect of clearing her husband’s memory of the stain and also ensuring a return of his property. Or the r istoration of the Monarchy the King granted Madame Lesurques a portion of the estate ; but, so far as is known, complete justice was never done to the poor woman or her children.