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Updated: June 3, 2025
It was only in the year IX. that Dubosq, his double, was arrested and sentenced. "The fatality that had attacked the head of the family spared none of its members. Lesurques' mother died of grief; his wife went mad; his three children languished in insignificance and poverty.
Four times he reiterated this declaration; and, on entering his prison, he wrote to the judge a letter full of sorrow and repentance, in which he said, "I have never known Lesurques; my accomplices are Vidal, Rossi, Durochat, and Dubosq. The resemblance of Lesurques to Dubosq has deceived the witnesses."
It is now forty years since the innocence of Lesurques has been established, and little has been done towards the rehabilitation of his memory, the protection of his children, and the restitution of his confiscated goods! Forty years, and his wretched widow has only recently died, having failed in the object of her life! Forty years has the government been silent.
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.
He did this with the idea that he would thereby save his fellow-townsman Lesurques, whom he knew to be innocent, whereas he actually succeeded in ruining him.
Finally, the workmen employed in the apartment that Lesurques was having fitted up, deposed that they saw him at various times during the 8th and 9th Floreal.
Beudart, a painter, deposed that he was invited to the dinner, with Lesurques and his friends, but that, as one of the national guard, he was that day on service, and so was prevented attending; but that, he had gone to Lesurques that very evening in his uniform, and had seen him go to bed. In support of his deposition he produced his billet de garde, dated the 8th.
At the epoch of the trial of Lesurques, it came out that several persons, amongst them an inspector of the administration des postes, had seen the false Laborde at the moment that he was awaiting the mail, and had preserved a distinct recollection of his person.
On arriving at the platform of the guillotine, already stained with the blood of Bernard, Lesurques exclaimed, "I pardon my judges; I pardon the witnesses through whose error I die; and I pardon Legrand, who has not a little contributed to my judicial assassination. I die protesting my innocence." In another instant he was no more.
She wanted more; and when the law of the 29th June 1867 was passed, authorising the revision of criminal judgments, she hoped that the day had at last come when she might proclaim this rehabilitation in the sanctuary of justice; but, by a final fatality, the Court of Appeal, arguing on legal subtleties, declared by its decree of 17th December 1868 that no cause had been shown for re-opening the case, and that Virginia Lesurques had not made good her claim to revision."
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