The Companions of Jehu | Page 4

the conductor and fired it into the midst of the assailants. As
this peaceful weapon, according to the custom, was only charged with
powder, no one was injured; but the occupants of the coach quite
naturally experienced a lively fear of reprisals. The little boy's mother
fell into violent hysterics. This new disturbance created a general
diversion which dominated all the preceding events and particularly
attracted the attention of the robbers. One of them flew to the woman's
side, reassuring her in the most affectionate manner, while
complimenting her upon her son's precocious courage, and courteously
pressed upon her the salts and perfumes with which these gentlemen
were ordinarily provided for their own use. She regained consciousness.
In the excitement of the moment her travelling companions noticed that
the highwayman's mask had fallen off, but they did not see his face.
The police of those days, restricted to mere impotent supervision, were
unable to cope with the depredations of these banditti, although they
did not lack the means to follow them up. Appointments were made at
the cafés, and narratives relating to deeds carrying with them the
penalty of death circulated freely through all the billiard-halls in the
land. Such was the importance which the culprits and the public
attached to the police.
These men of blood and terror assembled in society in the evening, and
discussed their nocturnal expeditions as if they had been mere
pleasure-parties.
Leprêtre, Hyvert, Amiet and Guyon were arraigned before the tribunal
of a neighboring department. No one save the Treasury had suffered
from their attack, and there was no one to identify them save the lady
who took very good care not to do so. They were therefore acquitted
unanimously.
Nevertheless, the evidence against them so obviously called for
conviction, that the Ministry was forced to appeal from this decision.

The verdict was set aside; but such was the government's vacillation,
that it hesitated to punish excesses that might on the morrow be
regarded as virtues. The accused were cited before the tribunal of Ain,
in the city of Bourg, where dwelt a majority of their friends, relatives,
abettors and accomplices. The Ministry sought to propitiate the one
party by the return of its victims, and the other by the almost inviolate
safeguards with which it surrounded the prisoners. The return to prison
indeed resembled nothing less than a triumph.
The trial recommenced. It was at first attended by the same results as
the preceding one. The four accused were protected by an alibi,
patently false, but attested by a hundred signatures, and for which they
could easily have obtained ten thousand. All moral convictions must
fail in the presence of such authoritative testimony. An acquittal
seemed certain, when a question, perhaps involuntarily insidious, from
the president, changed the aspect of the trial.
"Madam," said he to the lady who had been so kindly assisted by one of
the highwaymen, "which of these men was it who tendered you such
thoughtful attention?"
This unexpected form of interrogation confused her ideas. It is probable
that she believed the facts to be known, and saw in this a means of
modifying the fate of the man who interested her.
"It was that gentleman," said she, pointing to Leprêtre. The four
accused, who were included in a common alibi, fell by this one
admission under the executioner's axe. They rose and bowed to her
with a smile.
"Faith!" said Hyvert, falling back upon his bench with a burst of
laughter, "that, Captain, will teach you to play the gallant."
I have heard it said that the unhappy lady died shortly after of chagrin.
The customary appeal followed; but, this time, there was little hope.
The Republican party, which Napoleon annihilated a month later, was
in the ascendency. That of the Counter-Revolution was compromised
by its odious excesses. The people demanded examples, and matters
were arranged accordingly, as is ordinarily the custom in strenuous
times; for it is with governments as with men, the weakest are always
the most cruel. Nor had the Companies of Jehu longer an organized
existence. The heroes of these ferocious bands, Debeauce, Hastier,
Bary, Le Coq, Dabri, Delbourbe and Storkenfeld, had either fallen on

the scaffold or elsewhere. The condemned could look for no further
assistance from the daring courage of these exhausted devotees, who,
no longer capable of protecting their own lives, coolly sacrificed them,
as did Piard, after a merry supper. Our brigands were doomed to die.
Their appeal was rejected, but the municipal authorities were not the
first to learn of this. The condemned men were warned by three shots
fired beneath the walls of their dungeon. The Commissioner of the
Executive Directory, who had assumed the rôle of Public Prosecutor at
the trial, alarmed at this obvious sign of connivance, requisitioned