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Towards the end of the year 8 four years after the murder of the courier of Lyons Dubosq was arrested for robbery; and was transferred to Versailles, there to be judged by the Tribunal Correctionnel. The president ordered that he should wear a flaxen peruke, and be confronted with the witnesses from Mongeron and Lieursaint, who now unanimously declared that he was the man they had seen.
Against the positive testimony of the six witnesses who asserted him to have been at Mongeron and Lieursaint on the 8th Floreal, he had brought a mass of testimony to prove an alibi. Citoyen Legrand, a rich jeweller and goldsmith, compatriot of Lesurques, was first examined.
The description of the four horsemen who rode from Paris, stopping at Mongeron and Lieursaint, was furnished with as much precision as concordance by the various witnesses who had seen and spoken to them on the road, and in the inns and cafes.
At three o'clock they remounted their horses, and following the road, shaded by stately elms, which leads from Mongeron to the forest of Lenart, they reached Lieursaint; where they again halted. One of their horses had cast a shoe, and one of the men had broken the little chain which then fastened the spur to the boot.
"Amongst the witnesses," said he, "now waiting in the antechamber, are two women one, la femme Santon, servant to Evrard the innkeeper at Mongeron the other, la fille Grossetete, servant to Madame Chatelain the limonadiere at Lieursaint, who assert in the most positive manner, that two of the assassins are there, waiting like them to be admitted.
These women declare that they cannot deceive themselves, for one of them served the four travellers at Mongeron, and the other spoke to them at Lieursaint, and stayed an hour in the billiard-room while they were playing."
The crowd retired with a general conviction that Lesurques had perished guiltless; and several of the judges were seriously troubled by the doubts which this day had raised in their minds. Many of the jury began to repent having relied so on the affirmations of the witnesses from Mongeron and Lieursaint, precise as they had been.
Between twelve and one, the four horsemen arrived at the pretty village of Mongeron, on the road to Melun. One of them had preceded them at a hand-gallop to order dinner at the Hotel de la Poste, kept by the Sieur Evrard. Having paid their bill, they proceeded to the Cassino, where they took their cafe.
The magistrate was then forced to receive their depositions in writing, and to order the arrest of Guesno and Lesurques. From the moment of their arrest, the examination proceeded with great rapidity. Guesno and Lesurques were confronted with the witnesses brought from Mongeron and Lieursaint, and were recognised by all of them! She was positive as to Lesurques being the man.
Lafolie, groom at Mongeron, and la femme Alfroy, also recognised him; and Laurent Charbaut, labourer, who dined in the same room with the four horsemen, recognised Lesurques as the one who had silver spurs fastened by little chains to his top-boots. This combination of testimony, respecting one whom they had seen but a few days before, was sufficient to leave little doubt in the mind of any one.
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