former mistress, Madame Dumesnil (a relation,
be it remembered, of Monsieur Revel's),
in the situation she occupied before she came
to Caen; of robbing Madame Duparc; and of
robbing the shopwoman from whom she had
bought the piece of orange-coloured stuff, the
purchase of which is mentioned in an early
part of this narrative.

There is no need to hinder the progress of
the story by entering into details in relation
to this second atrocious charge. When
the reader is informed that the so-called
evidence in support of the accusation of theft
was got up by Procurator Revel, by
Commissary Bertot, and by Madame Duparc,
he will know beforehand what importance
to attach to it, and what opinion to entertain
on the question of the prisoner's innocence or
guilt.

The preliminary proceedings were now
considered to be complete. During their
progress, Marie had been formally interrogated,
in her prison, by the legal authorities.
Fearful as her situation was, the poor girl
seems to have maintained self-possession
enough to declare her innocence of poisoning
and her innocence of theft firmly. Her
answers, it is needless to say, availed her
nothing. No legal help was assigned to her;
no such institution as a jury was in existence
in France. Procurator Revel collected the
evidence, Procurator Revel tried the case,
Procurator Revel delivered the sentence.
Need the reader be told that Marie's irresponsible
judge and unscrupulous enemy had
no difficulty whatever in finding her guilty?
She had been arrested on the seventh of
August, seventeen hundred and eighty-one.
Her doom was pronounced on the seven-
teenth of April, seventeen hundred and eighty-
two. Throughout the whole of that interval
she remained in prison.

The sentence was delivered in the following
terms. It was written, printed, and placarded
in Caen; and it is here translated from the
original French:

"The Procurator Royal of the Bailiwick and
civil and criminal Bench and Presidency of
Caen, having taken cognizance of the
documents concerning the trial specially
instituted against Marie-Françoise-Victorie-
Salnion, accused of poisoning; the said
documents consisting of an official report of
the capture of the said Marie-Françoise-
Victorie-Salmon on the seventh of August
last, together with other official reports,
&c.,

"Requires that the prisoner shall be declared
duly convicted,

"I. Of having, on the Monday morning of
the sixth of August last, cooked some hasty
pudding for Monsieur Paisant de Beaulieu,
father-in-law of Monsieur Huet-Duparc, in
whose house the prisoner had lived in the capacity
of servant from the first day of the said
month of August; and of having put arsenic
in the said hasty-pudding while cooking it,
by which arsenic the said Monsieur de Beaulieu
died poisoned, about six o'clock on the
same evening.

"II. Of having on the next day, Tuesday, the
seventh of August last, put arsenic into the
soup which was served, at noon, at the
table of Monsieur and Madame Duparc, her
employers, in consequence of which all those
persons who sat at table and eat of the said
soup were poisoned and made dangerously
ill, to the number of seven.

"III. Of having been discovered with arsenic
in her possession, which arsenic was found on
the said Tuesday, in the afternoon, not only
in the pockets of the prisoner, but upon the
mattress of the bed on which she was resting;
the said arsenic having been recognised
as being of the same nature and precisely
similar to that which the guests discovered
to have been put into their soup, as also to
that which was found the next day, in the
body of the aforesaid Monsieur de Beaulieu,
and in the saucepan in which the hasty-
pudding had been cooked, of which the aforesaid
Monsieur de Beaulieu had eaten.

"IV. Of being strongly suspected of having
put some of the same arsenic into a plate of
cherries which she served to Madame de Beaulieu,
on the same Tuesday morning, and again
on the afternoon of the same day at the
table of Monsieur and Madame Duparc.

"V. Of having, at the period of Michaelmas,
seventeen hundred and eighty, committed
different robberies at the house of Monsieur
Dumesnil, where she lived in the capacity of
servant, and notably of stealing a sheet, of
which she made herself a petticoat and an
apron.

"VI. Of having, at the beginning of the
month of August last, stolen, in the house of
Monsieur Huet-Duparc, the different articles
enumerated at the trial, and which were
found locked up in her cupboard.

*' VII. Of being strongly suspected of stealing,
at the beginning of the said month of August,
from the woman Lefévre, a piece of orange-
coloured stuff.

"For punishment and reparation of which
offences, she, the said Marie-Françoise-Victorie-
Salmon, shall be condemned to make atonement,
in her shift, with a halter round her
neck, holding in her hands a burning wax
candle of the weight of two pounds, before
the principal gate and entrance of the church of
Saint Peter, to which she shall be taken and led
by the executioner of criminal sentences, who
will tie in front of her and behind her back,
a placard, on which shall be written in large
characters, these words:— Poisoner and
Domestic Thief. And there, being on her
knees, she shall declare that she has wickedly
committed the said robberies and poisonings,
for which she repents and asks pardon of
God and Justice. This done, she shall be led
by the said executioner to the square of the
market of Saint Saviour's, to be there fastened
to a stake with a chain of iron, and to be