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Couriol continued his declarations of Lesurques's innocence to the foot of the scaffold; and, after a final appeal, he, too, delivered himself to the executioner. The drop fell on a guilty neck, having before been stained with the blood of two innocent men.
And not only had he constantly protested his innocence, but at the moment the verdict was given Couriol had cried out, in firm tones, 'Lesurques is innocent! He repeated this statement both on the fatal hurdle and on the scaffold. All the other prisoners, while admitting their own guilt, also declared the innocence of Lesurques.
It was Madelaine Breban, the mistress of Couriol. Brought before the President, she declared that she knew positively Lesurques was innocent, and that the witnesses, deceived by an inexplicable resemblance, had confounded him with the real culprit, who was called Dubosq.
Fatality so contrived that, four days before the crime, Lesurques, who had left Douai with an income of eighteen thousand livres, and had come to Paris that he might give a better education to his children, happened to be lunching with a fellow-townsman named Guesno when Couriol came in and was invited to join them.
M. Daubenton, the magistrate who had first ordered the arrest, went home a thoughtful man, and determined to lose no opportunity of getting at the truth, which the arrest of the three accomplices mentioned by Couriol could alone bring to light. Two years passed on without affording any clue to the conscientious magistrate.
To this declaration of Couriol was joined that of Madelaine Breban, who, after the judgment, returned to renew her protestation, accompanied by two individuals, who swore that, before the trial, she had told them Lesurques had never had any relations with the culprits; but that he was a victim of his fatal likeness to Dubosq.
MM. Lesurques, Guesno, Couriol, Bernard, Richard, and Bruer, were summoned before the tribunal of justice; the three first as authors or accomplices of the murder and robbery Bernard as having furnished the horses Richard as having concealed at his house Couriol and his mistress, Madelaine Breban, as having received and concealed part of the stolen goods and Bruer as having given Couriol refuge at Chateau-Thierry.
The breakfast passed off gaily, in spite of the sombre Couriol; and after two hours' conviviality, they adjourned to the Palais Royal, where, after taking their cafe at the Rotonde du Caveau, they separated.
It was known that four horses covered with foam had been conducted at about five in the morning to the stables of a certain Muiron, Rue des Fosse's, Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, by two men who had hired them the day before: these men were Bernard and Couriol; the former of whom was immediately arrested, the second had, with the other accomplices, taken flight.
In passing from the prison de la Conciergerie to the Place de la Greve, where the execution took place, Couriol, placed beside Lesurques in the cart, cried out to the people in a loud voice, "Citoyens, I am guilty! I am guilty! but Lesurques is innocent."
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