"A well!!!"

Then follows the general palaver. In the ceremonious greetings of the Africans, also, there is a tediousness kindred to something that white men occasionally cultivate for purposes of ceremony. Two Sawahali have met, and thus they say How do you do? A. "The State ?" B. "The State is good." A. "I seize the feet." B. "How hast thou eaten and slept ?" A. "I have made my reverential bow." B. "The State?" A. "It is good." B. "Like unto gold?" A. "Like unto gold." B. "Like unto coral ?" A. "Like unto coral." B. "Like unto pearl ?" A. "Like unto pearl." B. "In happiness, farewell!" A. "In happiness let us meet, if Allah pleases!" B. "Hum!" A. "Hum!" (drawn out like the German's So-0-0).

These tedious ceremonies Mr. du Chaillu found also among his equatorial negroes. But in the personage to whom most ceremony is due -an African king-there is a special way of exciting relish for the reverence that is to come. Both Mr. du Chaillu and Captain Burton, writing of the west and of the east, met with occasion for describing it. Captain Burton, in the Land of the Moon, writes, that "the chief was travelling towards the coast as a porter in a caravan. When he heard of his father's death, he at once stacked his load and prepared to return home and rule. The rest of the gang, before allowing him to depart, beat him severely, exclaiming, partly in jest, partly in earnest, Ah! now thou art still our comrade, but presently thou wilt fine, flog, torture, and slay us!'" So when one of Mr. du Chaillu's negro friends, Njogoni, was voted king, some spat in his face, others beat him with their fists; some kicked him, others pelted him with abominations; whilst the unfortunates who could not join in this exercise, assiduously cursed him, his brothers and sisters, his parents, grand-parents, and his remotest ancestors. When an especially severe cuff or toeing was applied, the applicant exclaimed, "You are not our king yet; for a little while we will do what we please with you. By-and-by we shall have to do your will:" this being the authorised coronation ceremony of an absolute king.

THE LESURQUES ROMANCE.

tance forfeited by Lesurques's condemnation; but the justice of society was clearer-sighted than the justice of the law. Out of the rehabilitation which came from public opinion came a new romance. His friends thought so, and have never ceased working diligently to that end; from the day of his execution to the present day, "the suit from beyond the tomb," as the French call it-a very curious processhas been carried on ever since.

Lesurques had not been dead seven days, when M. Jarry, the magistrate at Besançon-he who arrested Dubosc-wrote earnestly to the citizen Siméon, saying: "Lesurques is innocent. Labour for the rehabilitation of his memory.' But the citizen Siméon was not likely or willing to accept the task offered to him by M. Jarry; for it was through him that Lesurques's appeal to the Five Hundred had been rejected, and was it to be expected that he would be more just to the dead than he had been to the living? The success of the appeal would have brought discredit on the new-born institution of trial by jury, of which institution the citizen Siméon was the warm supporter; and in those days of men for ideas, and not ideas for men, it was thought better that a life should be sacrificed than that a political principle should be doubted. The citizen Siméon kept M. Jarry's letter secret, as well he might; and it was only discovered in 1833 by the then Minister of the Interior, M. le Comte de Montalivet, who delivered it up to the Keeper of the Seals. But even when trial by jury had been thoroughly established, and when M. le Comte Siméon could have borne lightly on his broad and venerated shoulders any mistakes which the young citizen commissioner might have committed, we find him hypocritically confessing to M. de Salgues, who had then taken up the affair, that Lesurques was innocent, and the next moment writing a secret order to the director of police to seize the documents which this same M. de Salgues had published; also commanding that he and the eldest daughter of Lesurques should be threatened with imprisonment if they were troublesome and importunate. So good old M. Jarry lost his time in appealing to the mercy or love of truth of the stern citizen deputy; and still the memory of Lesurques lay under the official ban, and the smallest of the stones was not rolled away from the tomb of the innocent dead.

In 1804, Beroldi, or Rossi, the last of the assassins of Excoffon, paid with his head the forfeit of his crimes. Two days before his execution he gave his confessor a written statement admitting his guilt, and emphatically declaring the innocence of Lesurques. This statement was not published for six months; but was then Most romances end when the tomb encloses taken up by the widow, and a cousin of Lesurtheir heroes; but the interest of the Lesurques ques, as one of the grounds for the "suit beromance-partly described in number one hun-yond the tomb" which they meditated. dred and thirty-three of this journal-was not to their demand for a copy of the various abated even after dark Fortune had done her papers connected with the trial, the court, on worst on the fair man. To his children was be- the 9th Fructidor, year XII., made answer: queathed shame, dishonour, and a name for "You are not a party to the process; you have ever tarnished, instead of their rightful inheri- | no concern or interest in it. The principles of

But

our legislation in criminal matters do not authorise your demand for revision." Two years after, MM. Caille and Daubanton, addressing the Emperor, Napoleon the First, answered this decision by the argument, that, "The rehabilitation of an innocent man, condemned and executed, is a public right. If a law does not exist which regulates the modes by which this is obtained, such a law ought to be made." Napoleon was struck by these words; and ordered a report of the whole matter to be laid before him. Then it seemed for a moment as if the strange fate pursuing the family would be baffled. But, unfortunately, he appointed the Imperial Procureur, M. Giraudet, to draw up the report; and M. Giraudet, who had been the chief attorney in the trials of Vidal, Dubosc, and Rossi, had his forensic reputation also to protect; M. Giraudet denying that he had ever made a mistake in identity, counselled the "rejection of the demand for revision."

Again, in 1809, the Emperor ordered a new report from the then young and unknown magistrate M. de Belleyme; with what legal conclusions no one knows; but that Lesurques's innocence was held to be clearly established even then is proved by the fact that no honourable man, or body of men, would accept his confiscated lands; for the Legion of Honour refused them; so did the Senate; so did M. le Comte de Jacqueminot-whose answer was very noteworthy. He was offered these lands as a senatorial dotation, but he replied in his place: "I respect misfortune too much to receive property stained with innocent blood, and which ought to be restored to the family of the victim." "In stead of this, it was confiscated to the Treasury, "which never piques itself on sensibility," says Henry d'Audigier, sarcastically.

Lyons was of the clearest evidence." So M. Legoux replied to M. Dambray "that there were too many objections to giving up the documents ;" and all was said. When Louis the Eighteenth came back, after the fateful Hundred Days, the Duc de Berry, passing through Douai, received the magnates of the city in the old way of loyalty and supplication; and the magnates of Douai, among other things, prayed his royal highness to obtain the restoration to the widow and her orphans of the old family house of the Lesurques's, which no one would buy or inhabit. This little bit of kindness the duke faithfully performed: and behold, in 1817, just twentyone years after the official murder of the poor "fair man," the first small stone rolled away from the tomb of his good name.

In 1821, M. de Salgues for the first time got hold of, and published, all the papers, reports, evidence, letters, &c., connected with this strange affair, referring to M. Siméon, as we have seen, and getting in reply the assertion of Lesurques's innocence, backed by the secret order to the police to seize his publication, and even arrest his person if he became too troublesome. The daughter, Mélanie, afterwards Madame Danjou, whose name often occurs in these wearisome proceedings, thought that perhaps she might soften their old enemy by a personal interview. She presented herself at his house, was received, and announced; but M. Siméon, who was standing leaning against the chimney-piece when the door was opened, made an insolent gesture of impatience and disrespect, and abruptly turning his back left the room as soon as her name was pronounced. Shall we do him justice if we say that his conscience troubled him? or was it that his heart was hardened, like a certain Pharaoh The following year (1811), the eldest daughter of old time, and "he would not let the children of Lesurques, and her young brother, aged of Israel go ?" In this same year the king's eighteen, went to the Tuileries to present a peti- attorney, M. Doué d'Arc, reporting on the tion to the Emperor, then busied in reviewing Lesurques affair, expressed his sorrowful his troops. "Good! my children. Return again conviction that Lesurques had died the victim in three days and I will answer you," said of a fatal error; and on the 14th of DecemNapoleon, kindly. The young creatures left full of hope; and again the pale struggling star seemed as if it was about to break forth from the clouds; but when next they saw the Emperor, his mind had changed; he had seen into the matter, he said, and did not find their complaint just he could not grant what they demanded. There was no help for it. The young girl simply expressed her belief that later his imperial majesty would see his mistake; the boy took service in his army, and perished, as has been said, in Russia. So time went on, until the abdication was signed at Fontainebleau; when, with a new government, came new hopes and new endeavours. M. Dambray, minister to Louis the Eighteenth, transferred the request of the family for a copy of the process to M. Legoux, procureur or attorney-general, who in his turn relegated it to the public attorney at Versailles. That attorney was M. Giraudet; and his answer was, "that the co-operation of Lesurques in the assassination of the Courier of

ber, still in this same year of 1821, M. le Comte de Valence declared in the senate" that the verdict of the Year Four was sullied with a fatal error, and that the innocence of the condemned, acknowledged and proclaimed by the grand jury of public opinion, demanded the revision of the sentence, and official rehabilitation." The next day, M. le Comte de Floirac said, in the Chamber of Deputies, that "never had the innocence of an accused been better proved;" and he moved for the "solemn reparation" due to the memory of Lesurques. The Duc de Berry was to have carried a petition to the king to this effect, when that fatal folly of the fanatie Louvel once more threw the whole matter into doubt and delay. In 1822, M. de Salgues published his famous Memoir, addressed to the king; and in 1823, M. LOUIS MÉ- QUILLET took up the cause, and consecrated his life to the task of obtaining recognition, justice, and restitution for the name and family of Lesurques.

For forty years this brave, humane, and in

M. Méquillet took his advice, and, provided with a letter of introduction, went straight to M. Allard, of whom he demanded to see and examine the original deed, in re Lesurques. The notary, doubting nothing, got down the box in which it was kept, and put it into M. Méquillet's hands. He had no soon glanced at it, than he uttered a cry of joy, and cried out, "A forgery! I discover a forgery!" M. Allard looked to where he pointed, and there, unnoticed hitherto, were evident traces of some chemical agent— and of writing effaced.

M. Méquillet returned at once to Paris, aud M. Mérilliou-the Lesurques' advocate in this matter-beseeching him to lodge a charge of forgery against the marquise and her agents; but while the advocate hesitated, proposing a new journey to Amiens, and a more critical examination of the deed, in came M. Coquart,

domitable advocate has battled with all sorts of founded her claim. He looked at it, examined obstacles, and withstood all sorts of evil in- it attentively in all its bearings, then gravely fluences. His first good deed was to obtain, gave as his opinion that there was falsehood and through M de Villèle, the restoration of two forgery somewhere; and advised M. Méquillet hundred and twenty-four thousand francs-to go immediately to the house of M. Allard, about nine thousand pounds-which, though notary at Amiens, in whose care would most utterly insufficient according to the amount of probably be found the original document. property confiscated, was yet a pleasant addition to people whose income was of the meagrest and most inadequate. But this grant had no sooner been made, than suddenly a claimant appeared in the person of the rich old Marquise de Folleville, who gave herself out as creditor for sixty-two thousand francs; and here was her notary, the sieur Coute, who would vouch for the same, holding as he did the deed of transfer and acknowledgment. The matter came to a trial, and the family was cast. Two appeals and two decrees completed their ruin. All their money went, their furniture was sold by auction, and once more the star which had shone so palely and for such a brief moment, sank back into the abyss, with the dark clouds rushing over it This process lasted six years; and when Madame de Folleville's advocate, M. Mauguin, showed the deed of the 22nd May, 1792, by which Joseph Lesurques acknow-impelled by curiosity and professional zeal ledged to have received twenty-one thousand six hundred livres from Madame de Folleville in part payment for an estate which he had never purchased, he cried out in court, "Family of assassins! family of thieves!" and no one felt that he was more harsh than true. Seven years after the beginning of this lawsuit, a very small and unimportant business affair took M. Méquillet to Valenciennes. The diligence stopped on the way to dine the passengers at the Hotel du Grand Saint Martin, at Péronne, and while the rest of the seventeen travellers were placing themselves at table, M. Méquillet went into the 'office" to wash his hands. When he returned, only one place was vacant-the chair nearest to the master of the hotel, M. Forget. The traveller and the master began to talk. "Does not the Marquise of Folleville live near here ?" asked M. Méquillet.

66

Yes, she lives in the beautiful château of Manancourt, and if you have any business with her I pity you," said the master of the hotel; going on to relate how, a fortnight before, she had sued a certain family of the name of Devaux for three hundred and fifty thousand francs, and was on the point of gaining her cause, when M. Coquart, the counsel for the defendants, discovered a forgery in the deed-got the case remanded to the next day-and received that same evening a hundred thousand francs for his clients on condition of stopping the affair at once. On this hint, M. Méquillet put off his journey to Valenciennes, and went at once to M. Coquart, explaining who he was, and why any evidence of villany in Madame la Marquise, though villany connected with a family until now unheard of, was of singular interest and importance to him, the advocate, defender, and guardian of the Lesurques. M. Coquart asked to see a copy of the deed on which Madame de Folleville

against his crafty old opponent; and both together went back to Amiens, where they found fourteen signs of falsification-enough to sink a whole Chancery of causes.

The lawsuit of eight years' standing had now entered into a new phase, and the several advocates and attorneys began a duel for life or death; but the age, wealth, and position of the marquise bore her up triumphantly, while the ill fortune of the Lesurques family and the terrible accusation of the past, sank them with scarce a hope of recovery. M. Haussmann, the chemist, lounging into the court while the trial was proceeding, heard the decision gravely pronounced that matters must remain as they were; the deed need not be reported on, for "it would be impossible to revive writing effaced by chemical agents." M. Haussmann knowing this to be an error-but lawyers are never very famous for scientific knowledge or accuracygot hold of Darcet and Baron Thénard, and both agreed with him that effaced writing could be restored. On the strength of this declaration Gay-Lussac, Chevreul, and Chevallier were called in, and the deed, on which hung so much both of interest and importance, was submitted to modes of trial which seemed as though they would destroy not only all proofs of forgery but of everything else. Plunged into a jar of acid, it was rubbed and pulled and tested and triedthe representatives of the Lesurques standing there breathless and in agony, expecting every moment to see the only link between them and penury fade away altogether, writing, forgery, parchment, and all. But the experts knew their work. At first came faint lines of black; then odd broken-backed, interrupted letters; then whole words; and soon all the lost writing was restored. The old marquise was again unmasked and repulsed. But the plaintiffs did

not recover damages; the hand of fate lay too heavily on them for any scraps of supererogatory good fortune to slip through her fingers; yet if they might only recover their own, and conquer their rights, they scarcely asked for the extra grace of benefits."

During the last sittings of the court on this trial, M. Mérilhou spied out the notary Coute sitting by M. Mauguin, the advocate on the Folleville side. He had slunk in, keeping within the shade, but the quick eyes of the lawyer discovered him, and showing him to the judge, he cried aloud: "Behold him-the forger -forger by habit and profession!"

Coute started, and turned pale, then fell swooning to the ground.

matter was again brought before the public and the legislature. On the 25th of January, M. de Laboulie, reporter of the commission appointed to examine a petition from the family, declared that "the innocence of Lesurques is incontestable, that it is not enough to proclaim it, that the decree of 1796 must be quashed, and the rehabilitation proceeded with." Then a commission was named to revise the whole procedure, and propose terms of reparation; and on the 19th of March the Assembly took into consideration the proposition of two of its members, which proposition was "the modification of the article (443) in the Criminal Code, by which all retrospective interference is denied to his relatives." At the close of 1851 came the coup d'état, and the "affaire Lesurques" must needs give way before the more important and stirring public matters which then convulsed France and stirred Europe.

"Take out that man," said the president. In eight days' time Coute the forger was dead. Madame de Folleville did not long survive him. Six years after this, on the 10th of May, 1834, the Chamber of Deputies, on the motion of M. For six years M. Méquillet was absent from Humann, voted the family a further sum of two France, and the cannon of Sebastopol drowned hundred and fifty-two thousand one hundred the voices of a few private victims whose wrongs francs; and in 1845, the deputies of the depart-dated back more than sixty years; but now the ment of the Nord, in a letter signed also by two hundred and thirty-eight other deputies, demanded from the government the restitution of the whole property, and the return to peace and honour of the Lesurques family-the family of one "whose innocence has been mathematically demonstrated." A copy of this petition was sent to Louis Philippe by the hands of Marshal Soult; and M. Méquillet still preserves the original, with its two hundred and thirty precious autograph signatures: many of men long since dead and cold in their graves, and some of men whom after years have rendered world-famous and of immortal renown.

brave old man has returned to his post; France is at peace-for the moment-and a supreme endeavour is being made both by the veteran and by other friends of the family-Henry d'Audigier and Jules Favre, as was said in our first report-to get the matter settled, and the last stones rolled away from the tomb of Lesurques. Perhaps the present emperor will perfect what so many have hitherto only half done, and reinstate the family of the wrongfully condemned. A law to this effect is the real point at issue. If it can be obtained, the "affaire Lesurques" is at an end; if rejected, it will be difficult to do for one exceptional case what is denied as of general right. Besides, the article 443 must first be abrogated before the "logic" of our neighbours will entertain the right of appeal in the family at all. But the battle has been a brave one, and M. Méquillet, now an old man of eighty, has earned for himself a reputation for courage and benevolence equal to any hitherto obtained by the most famous advocates of the innocent oppressed.

NEW WORK

Once more they seemed to be near the goal. The Keeper of the Seals and M. Faustin Hélie took them warmly in hand; but a mere technical mistake-the substitution of "probable error" for "acknowledged error"-set the whole matter adrift, and undid all the work that had gone before. It was during this time of loss and annoyance, when M. Méquillet and Madame Danjou were working hard to get the mistake rectified, that M. Meilheurat said to Madame Danjou-the daughter who had been so constant and persevering throughout-" Madame, BY SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON. we are not sure that your father was innocent;" a speech both false and cruel, for of late years the innocence of Lesurques had been proved and acknowledged everywhere. It was too much for the overtaxed spirit, which had fought for justice so long and nobly, to bear. Something in it crushed her beyond her power of hope and endurance; and perhaps with the malady of her mother upon her, she flung herself into the Seine, and, true or false, the report goes, that her body floated to exactly opposite the Chamber of Deputies, where it was recovered and recognised.

But though the fine-natured woman was dead, M. Méquillet still remained; and in 1851 the

NEXT WEEK

Will be continued (to be completed next March)

A STRANGE STORY,

BY THE

AUTHOR OF "MY NOVEL," "RIENZI," &c. &c.

On THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, will be published, price Fourpence,

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FORMING THE

EXTRA DOUBLE NUMBER
FOR CHRISTMAS.

The right of Translating Articles from ALL THE YEAR ROUND is reserved by the Authors.

Published at the Office, No. 26. Wellington Sheet, Strand. Printed by C. WHITING, Beaufort House, Stad.

ALL THE YEAR ROUND.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1861.