Neither the Directory nor the Consulate, neither the Empire nor the Restoration, paid attention to the widow's supplications for a revision of the sentence, that her husband's name might be cleared, and his property restored. In vain did M. Salgues devote ten years to the defence of the injured family; in vain did M. Merilhou, in an important _procès_, warmly espouse the cause; the different governments believed themselves incapable of answering these solicitations.
Since 1830 the widow again supplicated the _Tribune des Chambres_. Few sessions have passed without some members, particularly from the _dèpartment du Nord_, calling attention to the subject. All that has been obtained is a restitution of part of the property seized by the _fisc_ at the period of the execution.
Madame Lesurques has died unsuccessful, because a judicial error cannot be acknowledged or rectified, owing to the insufficiency of the Code. A French journal announces that the son and daughter of Lesurques, still living, pledged themselves on the death-bed of their mother to continue the endeavour which had occupied her forty long years--an endeavour to make the law comprehend that nothing is more tyrannous than the strict fulfilment of its letter--an endeavour to make the world at large more keenly feel the questionable nature of evidence as to personal identity in cases where the witnesses are ignorant, and where the evidence against their testimony is presumptive.