friendly and familiar with humble folk."
Although in all this there were strong grounds
of suspicion, nevertheless considerable difficulties
existed. At the time of the murder, Besson
was recovering from a severe attack of smallpox;
and it is curious that Madame de
Marcellange had had that disease at nearly the
same date, as if one had caught it of the other.
Several witnesses stated that on the 1st of
September Besson could scarcely walk. Now
it takes two hours and a half to reach Chamblas
from Le Puy on foot. Beyond this, nothing
further could be learned from the peasantry.
The reason gradually oozed out. "We will hold
our tongues until Jacques Besson and Marie
Boudon are arrested. They would serve us as
they served M. de Marcellange."

A shepherd lad, André Arzac, employed at
Chamblas, had let fall strange expressions
during his master's life time, but persistently
refused to explain their meaning; their
tendency, however, coincided with that gentleman's
fears. At last a peasant farmer, Claude
Reynaud, mentioned that on the very day of
the murder, at sunset, a man in a white blouse
and striped olive-green velveteen trousers,
armed with a double-barrelled gun, had
cautiously traversed his piece of land. Claude,
concealed behind a tree, had recognised him as
Jacques Besson. Two other inhabitants of the
commune had seen him cross the fields in the
direction of the chateau. Twenty minutes
before they heard the shot, they had noticed
his entering the wood which encircles Chamblas.
The silence of the dogs was now explained. The
murderer had frequented the house; he also
knew the supper hour and the place by the fireside
which M. de Marcellange always occupied.

On the 19th of November Jacques Besson
was arrested. The public seemed to have a
load taken off its mind. A witness deposed to
hearing Jacques say to one of his brothers (they
were eight in all, the terror of the neighbourhood),
"Either he or I must be put out of
the way;" and to another, " It will be all over
in a fortnight or three weeks."  More evidence
of this sort might have been collected, but for
the inveterately mean and mercenary character
of the witnesses.

In that locality everything was bought and
sold; the peasantry knew no motive but money.
They considered the investigation as a struggle
between the two families; the highest bidder
would command the evidence. The widow
openly patronised the man whom public rumour
pointed out as her husband's murderer,
furnishing him in prison with various indulgences.
She sent him there his own comfortable bed,
under the pretext that he had not recovered
from his illness; she also constantly supplied
his meals, to the disgust of all aware of the
fact. When reproached with the scandal, her
excuse was, " I always thought Jacques Besson"
(she ventured no stronger expression), " innocent
of the crime imputed to him."

After an inquiry that lasted nineteen months,
a first trial took place at the Assizes of the Upper
Loire. It merely served to clear the ground
of the falsehoods accumulated by corruption
and terror The great results of the judicial
inquiry were obtained at the second trial, which
was held in the Assize Court of the Puy de
Dome, on the 22nd of August.

                                III.

AT this trial, it was proved in evidence that M.
de Marcellange had said that he would have been
happy with his wife, but for Besson and the
femine de chambre. He was sorry at not having
had a post mortem examination of his children,
because he was sure his wife had had them
poisoned. He said, "I can understand their
hating me; but what had the poor children
done to be put out of the way?" He laid all
the fault of their separation on his mother-in-
law, whom one of her own relations had called
"the fatal mother-in-law." He complained
that at the house at Le Puy, Jacques Besson
was better treated than himself. The servants
insolently refused to obey his orders; they
insulted him even in the presence of the ladies,
who encouraged them in their behaviour by
taking no notice of it. He felt assured that he
would be murdered, and that before long;
mentioning Besson, Marie Boudon, and another
person, as the objects of his suspicion.

It was proved that Madame de Marcellange
had said, " I have received a letter from my
husband, but have not read it. If I heard that
he, the carriage and horses, had all been shot
over a precipice, I should not be sorry."
Another time, looking into a barn, she said, " I
should be delighted to see my husband threshed
as they are threshing that corn." At the death
of her second child, she said, " He is just as
well dead as alive. How badly he would have
been brought up!"

It was proved that after an altercation with
Marie Boudon, she (Marie) said to M. de
Marcellange, " You are lucky in having such a wife;
in her place, I should take the law into my own
hands." Afterwards she said to him, " Mind
what you are about, monsieur; you are a
stranger here, and something you do not want
may happen to you." One day when people
were talking of Claude Reynaud's having met
Jacques Besson near Chamblas on the evening
of the 1st of September, a miller who was
present said, " Claude will hold his tongue; for
if he don't there are two or three who will look
after him." While the lawsuit for a separation
was going on, the ladies sent a had woman to
M. de Marcellange, under pretence of changing
some money in gold. While she was there, two
men were posted to watch and report what had
happened.

Other strange facts were brought to light.
Mathieu Besson, one of the prisoner's brothers,
asked a neighbour what he thought would be
the result of the trial. The answer was, " They
will cut off Jacques's head." To which
Mathieu replied, " The ladies made him do it. It
will be a disgrace to our family."

One day Jacques was in a thoughtful mood.
An acquaintance asked what he was thinking
about. He answered, " I am thinking that I