Prejudiced as they were against Lesurques, and suspicious of all testimony after the perjury they had already detected, the tribunal scarcely listened to Madelaine Breban; and the jury returned with their verdict, in consequence of which, Couriol, Lesurques, and Bernard were condemned to death; Richard to four-and-twenty years' imprisonment; Guesno and Bruer were acquitted.
No sooner was the sentence passed, than Lesurques rose calmly, and addressing the Judges, said, "I am innocent of the crime of which I am accused. Ah! citoyens, if it is horrible to murder on the high-road, it is not less so to murder by the law!"
Couriol, condemned to death, rose and said, "Yes, I am guilty--I avow it. But Lesurques is innocent, and Bernard did not participate in the murder."
Four times he reiterated this declaration; and, on entering his prison, he wrote to the judge a letter full of sorrow and repentance, in which he said, "I have never known Lesurques; my accomplices are Vidal, Rossi, Durochat, and Dubosq. The resemblance of Lesurques to Dubosq has deceived the witnesses."
To this declaration of Couriol was joined that of Madelaine Breban, who, after the judgment, returned to renew her protestation, accompanied by two individuals, who swore that, before the trial, she had told them Lesurques had never had any relations with the culprits; but that he was a victim of his fatal likeness to Dubosq. These testimonies threw doubt in the minds of the magistrates, who hastened to demand a reprieve from the Directory, which, terrified at the idea of seeing an innocent man perish through a judicial error, had recourse to the _Corps Législatif;_ for every other resource was exhausted. The message of the Directory to the Five Hundred was pressing; its aim was to demand a reprieve, and a decision as to what course to pursue. It ended thus: "Must Lesurques perish on the scaffold because he resembles a villain?"
The _Corps Législatif_ passed to the order of the day, as every condition had been legally fulfilled, that a particular case could not justify an infraction of decreed laws; and that, too, on such indications, to do away with a condemnation legally pronounced by a jury, would be to overset all ideas of justice and equality before the law.