the leader of the brigands told him to take the handkerchief off his head and recognize them; all these facts are strong presumptive evidence of collusion.

As for the woman Bryond and the notary Leveille, could any co-operation be more connected, more continuous than theirs?  They repeatedly furnished means for the crime; they were privy to it, and they abetted it.  Leveille travelled constantly.  The woman Bryond invented scheme after scheme; she risked all, even her life, to recover the plunder.  She lent her house, her carriage; her hand is seen in the plot from the beginning; she did not dissuade the chief leader of all, Rifoel, since executed, although through her guilty influence upon him she might have done so.  She made her waiting-woman, the girl Godard, an accomplice.  As for Leveille, he took an active part in the actual perpetration of the crime by seeking the axe the brigands asked for.

The woman Bourget, Vauthier, the Chaussards, Pannier, the woman Lechantre, Mallet and Ratel, all participated in the crime in their several degrees, as did the innkeepers Melin, Binet, Laraviniere, and Chargegrain.

Bourget has died during the investigation, after making a confession which removes all doubt as to the part played by Vauthier and the woman Bryond; if he attempted to extenuate that of his wife and his nephews Chaussard, his motives are easy to understand.

The Chaussards knowingly fed and lodged the brigands, they saw them armed, they witnessed all their arrangements and knew the object of them; and lastly, they received the plunder, which they hid, and as it appears, stole from their accomplices.

Pannier, the former treasurer of the rebels, concealed the woman Bryond in his house; he is one of the most dangerous accomplices of this crime, which he knew from its inception.  In him certain mysterious relations which are still obscure took their rise; the authorities now have these matters under investigation.  Pannier was the right hand of Rifoel, the depositary of the secrets of the counter-revolutionary party of the West; he regretted that Rifoel introduced women into the plot and confided in them; it was he who received the stolen money from the woman Bryond and conveyed it to Rifoel.

As for the conduct of the two gendarmes Ratel and Mallet, it deserves the severest penalty of the law.  They betrayed their duty.  One of them, foreseeing his fate, committed suicide, but not until he had made important revelations.  The other, Mallet, denies nothing, his tacit admissions preclude all doubt, especially as to the guilt of the woman Bryond.

The woman Lechantre, in spite of her constant denials, was privy to all.  The hypocrisy of this woman, who attempts to shelter her assumed innocence under the mask of a false piety, has certain antecedents which prove her decision of character