he was going to do. He went behind us on the
verandah where we were sitting, and placed a
large ring of metal on the ground. All of us
naturally turned round to see what he was at,
but as I had smelt a rat, I at once turned round
again towards the basket, and was just in time
to catch my lady bolting out from behind the
screen and running off. Had I not seen this,
she would have gone round the outhouses, and,
while we were looking at the jugglers, would
have come behind us and stood by the magic
ring.

A NEW PAGE FOR THE CRIMES CÉLÈBRES.

WITHIN the last few weeks there has occurred
in the south of France a very extraordinary
criminal trial.

In the valley of Harize, within some three
hundred yards of the village of Labastide de
Besplas, from which it is divided by its own
enclosed gardens, stands, surrounded by ancient
trees, a building of considerable size, but falling
into utter neglect and decay, called the Château
de Baillart, or Baillard. The edifice, divided
into several blocks, surrounds a court-yard, upon
which open the doors of the entrance-hall, the
kitchen and stables. At about seventy-five yards'
distance from the château is another building,
intended for the use of the principal servants of
the house, but only the second set of stables
which are attached to it look northwards
towards the dwelling, the windows of the servants'
apartments giving south on the high-road
between Daumazan and Montesquieu. Amid the
desolation of this half-ruined mansion had lived
for many years its last proprietor, Monsieur
Bugdad de Lassale, an old noble, to whose
family it had belonged for generations. He
had never married, and had reached the age of
seventy-four, living in total solitude, in the midst
of the most miserable penury and privations,
though possessed of an income that, in those
richly fertile regions, where the necessaries and
many of the luxuries of life are so cheaply
procured, was considered as a large fortune. To
conceal the fact of his wealth, the whole of
which he kept in closets and drawers about the
old house, seemed to be the chief care and
anxiety of his life. He denied himself the most
ordinary comforts; he suffered his house to fall
into dreary disrepair, he pleaded poverty to
every appeal for alms or assistance, alleging
that he was obliged to save every penny to pay
the portions of two old sisters, to whom he gave
nothing whatsoever until shortly before his
death: he even grudged, as it appeared, the
expenses necessary to turn to good account his
valuable lands, which, for want of proper tillage,
yielded nothing like the harvests they were
capable of producing. Aware of the danger of
keeping this quantity of money about him, yet
unable to make up his mind to invest, or place
it in security, he lived in the constant dread of
robbery, and kept everywhere within his reach
fire-arms, swords, sword-canes, and weapons of
defence of various kinds.

In the house with him lived his three servants,
Jean Lacanal, coachman; Pélagie Bycheire,
housemaid; and Raymonde Bergé, cook. In
the building already mentioned as near the house,
resided a sort of farm-bailiff, grown old in the
service, and his wife. On the morning of Friday,
the 26th of February—note the date—the bailiff,
on going to his work, observed with some surprise
that all the shutters of the chateau were closed.
Finding ou his return at nine o'clock that they
still remained closed, he went into the courtyard
and called Pélagie; receiving no answer,
he entered the kitchen, where no fire had been
lighted, and thence proceeding to the stable, he
found pools and splashes of blood, and in a dark
corner a corpse, which he supposed to be that
of his master. Raising an alarm, the maire, the
curé, and the juge de paix were soon on the
spot, and on further search being made the
following details were brought to light. In the
stable lay the body of Pélagie Bycheire, and in
the wood-house close by that of Jean Lacanal,
which had evidently been dragged thither from
the stable. Proceeding into the house, there
were found in the large room occupied by the
two women, M. de Lassale, lying on his back,
dead, and in one of the beds the fourth victim,
Raymonde Bergé. Fearfully had the poor
creature struggled for life; she had evidently
striven to shelter herself by wrapping the
curtains about her, for these were cut and
hacked all over, and finally she seems to have
tried to get between the bed and the wall, her
body, from which the head was nearly separated,
lying there, and the bed-clothes being marked
with the muddy feet of the assassin, who must
have clambered over to reach her. On this bed
were found a moustache comb and a white
pencil. All the corpses were horribly mutilated;
the heads and upper parts of the bodies especially
were literally hacked and gashed all over, as if
the murderer had had a savage delight in indulging
an unnecessary ferocity. The instrument
used seems to have been a hatchet, or butcher's
chopper, but it was not forthcoming.

Robbery was evidently the motive of the
crime. A secrétaire and a chest of drawers
had been forced open and rifled; and though it
is supposed that in these M. de Lassale had at
least two thousand pounds in money, none
whatever remained, and on the floor lay several
little bags, such as are used for holding gold.
The robbers, however, whether satisfied with
what they had secured, or unable to carry away
more, had left untouched two closets in the same
room, containing between two and three thousand
pounds in gold and silver; nor had a further sum,
of between forty and fifty pounds, been taken,
nor had the plate been touched, nor some twelve
hundred pounds concealed in the room of Jean
Lacanal, and found after the preceding sums
had been discovered. Horrible to relate, the
murderers had carried up food and drink, and,
with a wanton atrocity difficult to conceive, had
chosen, of all the rooms in the house, that in