to a doctor. Dehap did not visit at the house; and brothers played in the dining-room till halfbut he established himself in the neighbourhood, past two. Her brother went first to bed, and soon found means of continuing his love traversing the saloon, and so reaching his room passages with the young heiress. There was a by a door opposite to that of Cécile's. Madama wood behind the doctor's house, and to this Ponterie-Escot then bethought her that she had wood Cécile was summoned by the report of a need of some linen stored in a press in Cécile's gun. Dehap had not the good feeling to keep room. She went to the door, but found it, cohis proceedings a secret. Ere long there was a trary to custom, locked within. Cécile," she "scandale." Cécile was brought home in exclaimed, "let me in." "Yes, mamma!" said disgrace. She pleaded in excuse, that she hoped Cécile, but did not obey immediately. In a few that when her father saw the steadfastness of seconds the door was unlocked and the mother ⚫ the love on both sides, he would consent to the started back in dismay on seeing a man's head, proposed marriage. Dehap had told her that the head of Dehap, appearing through the he had prayed in vain to be admitted to her curtains of one of the beds. Cécile was standpresence as a recognized suitor. Her fathering in the middle of the room. Madaine Ponteriedeclared that there had been no proposed marriage at all. At the dictation of her relatives she wrote a letter to Dehap, finally repudiating him; and, at the dictation of her private feelings, another, in which she protested that the first had been extorted from her against her will. The two letters were despatched at the same time. The interrupted correspondence was soon renewed. The father and mother of the young Dehap, said the Ponterie-Escots, abetted their son in his infamous proceedings. Cécile too was not without a confidant in the household at Meynard. One Jean Faure, a kind of Softy, carried her letters to her lover. At one time he had been caught in the act, reprimanded, and warned. But he lacked either the wit or the integrity to obey the orders of his master, and the transfer of letters continued. Although Cécile was kept a close prisoner at Meynard, many in the neighbourhood knew that her prison was not wholly impervious to her pretended lover. Her own near relatives were the persons who suspected least that all their precautions had

been taken in vain.

Such was the state of affairs, when, at the beginning of the year 1807 (it must be remembered that we are repeating the account of the Ponterie-Escot family) - Cécile began to exhibit a morbid dislike to her younger sister, Mademoiselle Eugénie. She quarrelled with her incessantly. She made it impossible that they should live peaceably together. So their mother came to the conclusion that it would not be well for the two sisters to continue to inhabit the saine bed-chamber.

The principal rooms at Meynard were on the ground-floor. The saloon looked out on the garden, and communicated with the room occupied by Mademoiselle Cécile. This bedroom was only separated from that of the master and mistress of the house by a wooden partition. It was lighted by two windows, one opening on the garden, the other on a roadway, the latter raised some four mètres from the lane. It contained two beds. The garden was shut in by a wall, in which there was a gate. At the other side of the wall was a wood of elms.

On the evening of the 26th February, said the Ponterie-Escots, the family sat down, after their evening meal, to play a rubber at whist. Cécile declined to join in the game, and at 9 o'clock Her father and mother

retired to her own room.

Escot gave a loud shriek. Her husband and
her children rushed into the room. The man on
the bed snatched up a pistol from the second
bed, and pointing it at the intruders said, “El
bien !" The infuriated father (so said the
Meynard family) sprang on him-knocked
his pistol arm, and seized his throat with a grasp
of fierce strength. The sons, running in half-
undressed, wrenched the pistol from the weakened
grasp of Dehap. In a moment, so vigorous
was the attack of the elder Ponterie-Escot, his
victim gave a hoarse rattle and fell to the ground
insensible. The details of the scene of horror
and confusion can easily be supplied. The main
points to notice are, of course, the alleged sur
prise of Debap in the bed-room; and the
menace with the pointed pistol. No sooner had!
Dehap fallen-apparently a corpse-than his
slayer despatched the younger Ponterie-Esco
and Jean Faure, the half-witted servant, to inform
the authorities at La Force. But no sooner
were they out of the house than it was discovered
that Dehap was not yet dead, but had swooned.
Ponterie-Escot placed him on the bed, sent for
two men-servants, ordered him to be clothed
the garments which were lying about the room,
and to be carefully watched. During the night
the messengers to La Force returned with the
news that the judge would not come till day.
Then M. Ponterie-Escot wrote off letters to the
family of the wounded man, apprising them of
the event, and requesting that a compete
surgeon might be sent without delay. As his
strength revived, Dehap became more and m
unmanageable. Then it was that his keepers
found it necessary to bind his hands and feet,
and to tie him to the bed. So he was fouri
when the juge de paix arrived in the morning.

Seen in this light, the story makes the slayer the victim and the object of pity. Such was no means the opinion of the mass of t community.

There was an examination of the corpse. T surgeons employed stated that there were for bruises on the neck-one on the right side, t on the left, one in the middle. One only outf the five members of the faculty dissented fr the conclusion that the wounds were the print one hand. All agreed that the bandages a cords used to confine the struggling man ban done him no serious injury. All agreed, too, that certain mutilations which some imaginative

could be an aggravation of murder), Maître | from the error that has misled you. Mark that not Dennée began by congratulating himself and his only is there not the smallest foundation of proof, clients on the starting of this notion. "You but that the unhappy Cécile herself, in the have told us yourselves," he said, "how much absence of her father, free from all suspicion of confidence you put in your principal point. You restraint, has declared to the interrogating feel that it will not touch the accused, and it is magistrate, that at that time she had ceased to something to find at the very beginning a correspond with Dehap; that she had not justification suggested by the officer charged with written to him since Christmas. But, it is the prosecution." Having given a vivid recital urged, if she did not write, she sent messages of the discovery and death of the deceased, by Faure the servant. It has been extracted according to the version of his clients, Dennée from this witness, with some difficulty, that continued: "It is only too true that a man has he was the go-between-that he did convey been killed, and the accused is the first to acknow- messages. But his endeavour to deny this to ledge that death was the result of his violent the court, shows that he had denied it to his action. But law, in accordance with reason, master. He was afraid to confess his fault in recognizes the possibility of homicide without the face of the severe threats held out against crime. The ordinary rule, one of the few with him by the Sieur Ponterie in case of such a out an exception, is that there can be no crime dereliction of his duty. One fact will prove without intent; this the law lays down distinctly, clearly enough that Faure carried on the corresand so requires, that in the case of every accusa-pondence without the knowledge of his master. tion preferred before a jury, the question of You remember that Cécile, to recover the letters intent should be argued. So the law denies of Dehap, wrote one at the dictation of her that there is crime in a homicide committed father: you remember that she wrote a second involuntarily; or in homicide committed in self-in pencil, to show that the first was not her free defence, or in defence of another. In these act. These two letters were sent together, and cases the homicide, so far from incurring a pe- by the hands of Faure. Now it is plain that the nalty, is declared justifiable (légitime). Homicide Sieur Ponterie, endeavouring to break off all becomes an atrocity when it is committed with correspondence, was very far from knowing anypremeditation. Then it is termed murder. In thing of this second letter. It is obvious that this case alone is it punishable with death. It the servant must have carried on the correspon is in this last category that it is attempted to dence without the privity of the head of the rank the deed of the Sieur Ponterie. It is family. Everything tends to disprove the maintained that Dehap was not surprised in possibility of the Sieur Ponterie's knowing anythe chamber of Cécile. It is maintained that the thing about the continuance of the correspondence Sieur Ponterie, forewarned of Dehap's visit, between his daughter and the deceased. But waylaid him in the shrubbery of the garden, the notion of premeditation is strengthened by assailed him there, and then led, dragged, or the condition of the torn clothes; contradicting, carried him to the chamber of his daughter, we are told, the statement of Dehap being in order to convict him of an outrage which he discovered in bed. There are considerable had not attempted. And what are the proofs discrepancies in the evidence on this point. Some brought forward to support this hypothesis? say the clothes were in one state, some in another. None, absolutely none. It rests on certain The Sieur Vignac alone noticed the inside of suppositions which we shall proceed to examine the waistcoat torn, and the collar unsewed. He, presently, on certain alleged improbabilities in the close friend of the deceased, and Tavaux, the story of Dehap's allowing himself to be another warm partizan of the Dehap family, are surprised in the bedroom. Of the pretended the only authorities for the overcoat being "new" letter, intercepted by Cécile's father, no witness or "nearly new." The first witnesses, among has been found to establish even the existence. them the juge de paix, declared it to be conThere is not the slightest ground for supposing siderably worn. But after all, of what import that it was either written or sent; and yet it is is the state in which the clothes were found in persistently quoted, on the authority of the letter the house of Chignac (whither the deceased had in the Journal de l'Empire.' Unhappy old been carried from Meynard)? Might they not man! (he addresses the elder Dehap) it is im- have been torn there, whether wilfully or by possible that you should have penned a libel so chance? Might not these rents have been made foully calumnious! its flowery phrases could in the transit from Meynard to La Force-in never have been written by a heart-broken father. laying the deceased in the cart-in taking him Let me believe that you gave your signature out-in depositing him in the house-in dress without reflection-that, overwhelmed by your ing him-in undressing him? The only point grief, you were made the victim of some dis-worth consideration is the condition in which honest hand: I will not believe that you could stain your last days by an imposture contrived to found on an imaginary murder the horrible hope of a judicial murder. And you, who have believed in the existence of this letter of Cécile's, intercepted, opened, resealed by her father-you who have been thus convinced of premeditation on the part of the accused-return

the clothes were found at Meynard. There everything was examined, because the injured man was dressed bit by bit: there no rent was found in the waistcoat only the shoulder of the shirt, and the tail of the coat, were torn. Is it then true, as we are told, that these tears are necessa rily connected with a struggle in the garden? Dehap walking in the night through hedges

contingencies of a crime? And if it was a folly on the part of the first to leave his clothes in careless disorder, would the second have been so foolish as not to dispose them in the manner most likely to suggest a corroboration of his own story? But, it is urged again, the window was open; Dehap, instead of disclosing himself to Madame Ponterie, might have so escaped; he could not have left it open but with that intention. I reply, Dehap was undressed, even to his stockings. Surprised in such a state it is easy to

and ditches, climbing walls, and pushing through trees, they might well tear his coat: and these tears point to murder! What reasonable man could draw such an inference? And observe, gentlemen, that Dehap received no wound in any part of his body corresponding with the alleged rents. No wound or contusion was found in the back part of his body. And since these tears were to be put in evidence against my clients, what has become of the clothes? They have disappeared. And it is hardly likely that they would have been mislaid through careless-imagine that he could not run away. His unness. Why are they not forthcoming? It is the relatives and the friends of Dehap who have made away with them. You may be sure, sirs, that if they could have been used to advantage against the accused, they would not have gone down with their wearer to the grave. Another ground for the argument of the prosecution is the fact that Dehap's hat was found rubbed. What! an ill-brushed hat is to prove the murder of its owner! There is no question of any wound in the head and it was not till it had been all night in the room that it was found by the juge de paix on February 27. But after it had left the head of Dehap, might it not have been in many hands? Is it not probable that in the confusion of that awful night it was picked up and handled and dropped? Yes, it dropped in that room, and nowhere else. We have an irresistible proof. It has been testified that the hat was stained by dust-a significant circumstance. That dust proves that it was dropped in the room. Had Dehap been assaulted in the garden, the hat falling in soft soil on a rainy night would have shown marks not of dust, but of mud. I have shown improbabilities in the theory of the prosecution. But it is urged that the statements of the accused are improbable. Is it probable, we are asked, that a rash villain should have dared to introduce himself, at an hour when the family were still awake, into a room adjoining the saloon, where the least noise could be heard? It was precisely the time when the attempt could be made with least danger. Once let the father and mother have retired to rest, and it would have been impossible. Their room is separated from that of Cécile only by a thin partition. A little later, and the house would have been wrapt in profound silence, when every noise would have been audible. There was not so much to fear while the family were playing and talking in the saloon. It was then easy not to be heard. Neither time nor place, then, is improbable. But is it likely, it is continued, that Dehap would have left his clothes scattered all over the room, his boots between the two beds, his coat in one place, his watch and hat in another? Ah, sirs! had the wretched man been gifted with prudence it would not have been only how to place his clothes that he would have thought-rather how to avoid a quarrel-how to rein an immoderate passion. And why should more foresight and reflection be expected in a young libertine, burning to satisfy his desires, than in a cold-blooded assassin calculating the

happy accomplice, having once replied to her mother, might think that there was more danger in disobeying than in not keeping her waiting; and, as Cécile said, on her examination, they had both lost their heads. But we are authorised in supposing that another idea, audacious no doubt, but still not less extraordinary, may have struck the infatuated young man. The witness Meslon, whom all parties seem to acknowledge to be unimpeachable, deposes that, after the departure of Sieur Ponterie for La Force, he asked to see Cécile Ponterie, his niece. He found her lying down, and, having upbraided her for what she had done, asked her why, before she opened the door to her mother, she had not dimissed Dehap by the way he had come. She replied: "I tried to get him to do so, but he refused;' adding, 'Who could have thought that this would happen?' On being asked if he had been often, she answered: Only too often!' Note these words with care, gentlemen of the jury: they will give you a key to the sudden idea formed in the young man's brain. He is not the first who has wished to be surprised in such circumstances as would force consent to his wishes. And it would be vain to object that the window, left open for flight, is inconsistent with this hypothesis. The idea was very probably the thought of a moment. At all events the open window militates strongly against the notion that Dehap was assaulted in the garden and then conveyed to Cécile's room. If it was so-if Dehap did not come himself into Cécile's room; if vile assassins dragged him thither, the simplest road for them to have taken would have been by the door, through the saloon, and so into Cécile's bedroom. But, then, why should they have opened the window? Can you see the least use in their so doing? Once in the room, so far from opening the window, would they not carefully have shut it, in order to finish their work in secret? If, on the other hand, they threw or dragged him in by the window-although I can see no motive in a master's preferring the window of his house to the door-there would still have been the same probability that their first care would have been to have shut it after them. But, if by inconceivable inadvertence they had neglected to shut it, if by that negligence they feared discovery, at least they would be careful not to reveal a fact likely to tell against themselves; and yet we have no evidence for the window being open except the declaration of the accused themselves. So the circum

the slaughter! He covers that innocent daughter with disgrace! He disgraces, too, four other unhappy creatures-his children and his wife, and makes up his mind to live for the fu ture, his brow self-branded with shame! Ah, sirs, nature never gave birth to the monster whom I have described. Monster do I say? I should say five! The father, the mother, the son, the two daughters, all except the wretched Cécile, are a set of savages, for all aided in the invention or the execution of the diabolical plot!"

With a few more indignant paragraphs on the question of premeditation, Dennée quitted that part of his argument, assuming it clearly proved that, the act under dispute not being premedi tated, was not "assassinat," but "homicide;" and if a homicide, he went on to contend, then involuntary; even though voluntary, still “légitime" or justifiable.

stance of the open window-perfectly con- that he drags his victim!-there that he finishes sistent with the hypothesis that Dehap introduced himself into the room-is inexplicable on the theory of a premeditated assault committed in the wood or the garden. But a further reason is advanced why Dehap did not go of his own accord into Cécile's room, and Morillon and the Sieur Blanc, recollecting Dehap's report of his interviews with Cécile, even of those by night, assert him to have assured them that he took care never to go into the house, because he could see her without." Here the advocate laid great stress upon the testimony of Cécile herself, in order to point out the extreme unlikelihood of this last suggestion being consistent with the facts of the case. "If there is one fact," he continued "which cannot be denied, it is that interviews had taken placethat an interview had taken place on this night in the chamber of Cécile. But if, when the evidence goes against you, you fall back on likelihood or probability, follow me, I beg you, the chain of improbabilities which fetters the theory of a premeditated assassination in the garden. First: What is this new sort of assassins who lie in ambush unarmed? If Dehap was attacked outside the house, if they lay in wait to surprise him, he should have been pierced by a sword, struck by a bullet, or felled by a club. Have you often heard of murderers going unarmed to surprise a man likely to be armed? Secondly: If you suppose Ponterie to be an assassin, you should allow him some craft in the concealment of his crime. At all events, the most dangerous, the most inconceivable of all follies, would be to preserve a witness who could disclose the whole. No, gentlemen; a murderer wouldn't have left any remains of life in Dehap; for could he calculate, when he saw a returning spark of consciousness, how soon it would expire? Could he hope that Dehap would never recover his speech? And if Dehap had been caught in a trap, was it not certain that he would proclaim the murder in all its damning details? You know the marks made upon the neck of Dehap by the hand If he inflicts death, the act which seized him, you know that that hand was is not that of reason, but of despair; and withapplied to his naked throat. Dehap, I appre-out reason there is no will. (It is curious to hend, would not have been naked in the wood notice the different theories of psychology proor in the garden. There it would have been pounded by counsel on different sides of a queshis neckerchief which would have been grasped, tion). You cannot say, then, gentlemen, that and you know that it was his bare throat. This the homicide of Delap was voluntarily com alone would have been enough to dispose mitted; and where there is no volition there is of the assault outside. But, gentlemen, it is not no crime. But should a transport of uncononly in all these details that there is improba- trollable rage seem in your eyes a volition, even bility; there is another-apprehended already in that case you must conclude that the act by the heart of every father. Ponterie, we are which followed that volition was justifiable. told, seized Dehap in the garden or in the wood. In homicide légitime,' says the law, there is There he is master of the situation. He can no crime; and it defines such homicide to be dispose of his victim without compromising the that which is indispensably necessary to the honour of his daughter, who sleeps silent and defence of self or others.' Was there indispen innocent in her chamber, ignorant of the crime sable necessity of defence in the case of the devised and accomplished. The place belongs Sieur Ponterie ? Was his defence justi to him, the night is dark, his sons and his fiable? That pistol with which Dehap was servants are at his orders. Can he not de-armed-it has been contended that it was prostroy all traces of his crime? Instead of so doing, it is to the chamber of his daughter

"The homicide was justifiable, if it resulted from that fearful grasp into which, in the face of the seducer's pistol, Ponterie poured all his indignant spirit. It is admitted that the cords by which Dehap was tied had nothing to do with his death. One only of the surgeons had pretended that there had been other violence besides compression; and the procés-verbal had contradicted that one. The four ecchymoseis on the throat, the imprint of three fingers and a thumb, told their own tale. If there had been more hands there would have been more bruises. If the one hand or another had repeated the attack, the bruises would not have been so distinct. This single deed of Ponterie's had nothing to do with his will. Picture to yourselves the situation of the unhappy father at the moment of his entry into the room of his daughter! Everything is calculated to prevent reflection, to scatter reason, to breed rage. It is not he who acts: all his moral faculties are chained: he has no will; an invincible instinct hurries him on. In the violence of his transport he does not reason from causes to effects: foresees no results.

vided to give a love-signal. A ridiculous supposition, because the whole family would have