which lay the mangled corpses of their victims
wherein to sup. The traces of their bloody
feet (which do not seem to have been compared
with the shoes of the two accused, or examined
in any way) showed that they had escaped by
the kitchen and by the avenue to the high
road.

Suspicion at once pointed to a man who had
passed some time at Labastide the preceding
October: a stranger, of whom nothing was
known. After a short absence he had returned
in December, and was frequently seen in the
neighbourhood of the Château Baillart, where,
it was said, he had made himself acquainted
with Pélagie Bycheire, whose lightness of
conduct and habits of intemperance would render
her an easy prey.

The description of this man seemed to tally
with the appearance of one known by the name
of Pujol, at Montesquieu, where he went every
evening to buy bread, and whose strange
appearance and manners had alarmed the baker's
daughter who served him. On the 14th of
February had been discovered, at five kilometres
from Labastide, a hiding-place in the middle of
a straw-stack, in which were a cabas, or sort of
flat bag, a comb, and some other small objects
comprehended in an et cætera. This cachette,
supposed to be that of the strange individual
who came every evening to buy bread at
Montesquieu, being discovered, he made another,
afterwards also detected, two kilometres nearer
the Château Baillart. The description of the
so-called Pujol was found in all respects to
correspond with that of a notorious criminal, twice
condemned at the assizes of Ariège for assaults
and robbery of church plate, and lately
pursued for having escaped from prison. Finally
arrested as a vagabond under the name of
Baubad or Boabad, he had related the most
marvellous histories of his career with more
than southern braggadocio. He was born, he
said, at Mandchourie, of unknown parents,
thence taken among the Caffres, who were at
war with the Hottentots; taken prisoner by
the latter, he was sold to a planter of Louisiana,
named Gaston; escaping from slavery, he
became a trapper, and after a hundred marvellous
adventures by flood and field, he came to France,
where, according to his own account, he was
the victim of a series of unmerited persecutions,
which had rendered him a vagabond and
misanthrope, but, of course, wholly innocent of any
evil in act or intention towards his persecutors.
Arrested on the present charge, and finding
that little heed was given to so aprocryphal a
biography, he acknowledged that his name was
Jacques Latour, and casting off the mask of
patient endurance, he burst forth into the most
ferocious and cynical professions of hatred and
enmity to the human race, and contempt for
human life.

His appearance is described as presenting a
mingled expression of cunning, ferocity, and
ceaseless anxiety. His accent strongly
Languedocian, his manner violently excitable, his flow
of words excessive, and not without a certain
passionate eloquence; he wrote even better than
he spoke, and after the commencement of the
trial, rejected with insult the counsel named to
defend him, refusing any assistance, and replying
to the charges brought against him, often
with great ingenuity, attacking the witnesses
for the prosecution in the most furious language,
and becoming at times so violent, that only the
threat of removing him and judging the case in
his absence could control him.

His plausibility, when he could exercise sufficient
prudence to keep down his rage for boasting,
was remarkable. To every accusation he
had a ready and apparently sufficiently probable
reply; but when removed from the court to his
cell his passion for gasconade made him
continually betray himself, and when reminded of
his assertions in court, he would burst into fits
of wild exultant laughter at the manner in which
he considered he had taken in the court and
audience, and relate story after story of his
prison experiences, his escapes and his adventures,
his life of a hunted fugitive among caves,
woods, and mountains, mingling truth and falsehood
into an inextricable maze.

The proofs brought against him were as
follows: his antecedents; his having been seen
about the Château de Baillart; the comb found
on the bed of Raymonde Bergé, which was said
to be the one, or like the one, known to belong to
Latour (the pencil was not recognised); and the
fact of his having, after the murder, a considerable
number of bank-notes, with some of which
he proposed to buy a field in the neighbourhood.

Strangely in contrast to Jacques Latour, was
the second prisoner, Audouy, commonly known
as Hercule Lutteur. A man of great size and
prodigious strength, his appearance and
manners, from first to last, indicated nothing but
the most placid amiability, mixed with
something of the dulness of comprehension not
unfrequently attendant upon unusual physical
force. He is said to bear a considerable
resemblance to Alexandre Dumas; his countenance
is indicative of perfect good humour
and gentleness, his voice agreeable, and his
antecedents had in them nothing to lead to
any suspicion against his character. His
profession had been that of a gymnast and performer
of feats of strength, and in this capacity he
travelled about the south, visiting the different
fairs and fêtes, and known everywhere as
Hercule, rather than under his real name.

A curious instance of the nature of the man
is the fact that, when awakened from his sleep
in the middle of the night by the officers sent to
arrest him, he not only made not the slightest
attempt to escape or defend himself, but calmly
offered his hands to be ironed, without even
inquiring the cause of his arrest!

And now, mark the evidence on which this
man is condemned to hard labour for life.
The murder was committed on the night of the
25th of February. Next morning, at seven
o'clock, Audouy is declared by four witnesses
at Foix, ten leagues, or about thirty miles from