The director of the Troyes jury was formerly secretary of one of the committees of the Convention, a friend of Malin, to whom he owed his present place.  This magistrate, named Lechesneau, had helped Malin, as Grevin had done, in his work on the Code during the Convention.  Malin in return recommended him to Cambaceres, who appointed him attorney-general for Italy.  Unfortunately for him, Lechesneau had a liaison with a great lady in Turin, and Napoleon removed him to avoid a criminal trial threatened by the husband.  Lechesneau, bound in gratitude to Malin, felt the importance of this attack upon his patron, and brought with him a captain of gendarmerie and twelve men.

Before starting he laid his plans with the prefect, who was unable at that late hour, it being after dark, to use the telegraph.  They therefore sent a mounted messenger to Paris to notify the minister of police, the chief justice and the Emperor of this extraordinary crime.  In the salon of Gondreville, Lechesneau found Mesdames Marion and Grevin, Violette, the senator’s valet, and the justice of peace with his clerk.  The chateau had already been examined; the justice, assisted by Grevin, had carefully collected the first testimony.  The first thing that struck him was the obvious intention shown in the choice of the day and hour for the attack.  The hour prevented an immediate search for proofs and traces.  At this season it was nearly dark by half-past five, the hour at which Violette gave the alarm, and darkness often means impunity to evil-doers.  The choice of a holiday, when most persons had gone to the masquerade at Arcis, and the senator was comparatively alone in the house, showed an obvious intention to get rid of witnesses.

“Let us do justice to the intelligence of the prefecture of police,” said Lechesneau; “they have never ceased to warn us to be on our guard against the nobles at Cinq-Cygne; they have always declared that sooner or later those people would play us some dangerous trick.”

Sure of the active co-operation of the prefect of the Aube, who sent messengers to all the surrounding prefectures asking them to search for the five abductors and the senator, Lechesneau began his work by verifying the first facts.  This was soon done by the help of two such legal heads as those of Grevin and the justice of peace.  The latter, named Pigoult, formerly head-clerk in the office where Malin and Grevin had first studied law in Paris, was soon after appointed judge of the municipal court at Arcis.  In relation to Michu, Lechesneau knew of the threats the man had made about the sale of Gondreville to Marion, and the danger Malin had escaped in his own park from Michu’s gun.  These two facts, one being the consequence of the other, were no doubt the precursors of the present successful attack, and they pointed so obviously to the late bailiff as the instigator of the outrage that Grevin, his wife, Violette, and Madame Marion declared that they had recognized