Читать книгу Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 327, January, 1843 - Various - Страница 7

The 10th March 1797, Lesurques was led to the scaffold. He wished to be dressed completely in white, as a symbol of his innocence. He wore pantaloons and frock-coat of white cotton, and his shirt-collar turned down over his shoulders. It was the day before Good Friday, and he expressed regret that he had not to die on the morrow. In passing from the prison de la Conciergerie to the Place de la Grève, where the execution took place, Couriol, placed beside Lesurques in the cart, cried out to the people in a loud voice, "Citoyens, I am guilty! I am guilty! but Lesurques is innocent."

On arriving at the platform of the guillotine, already stained with the blood of Bernard, Lesurques exclaimed, "I pardon my judges; I pardon the witnesses through whose error I die; and I pardon Legrand, who has not a little contributed to my judicial assassination. I die protesting my innocence." In another instant he was no more.

Couriol continued his declarations of Lesurques's innocence to the foot of the scaffold; and, after a final appeal, he, too, delivered himself to the executioner. The drop fell on a guilty neck, having before been stained with the blood of two innocent men.

The crowd retired with a general conviction that Lesurques had perished guiltless; and several of the judges were seriously troubled by the doubts which this day had raised in their minds. Many of the jury began to repent having relied so on the affirmations of the witnesses from Mongeron and Lieursaint, precise as they had been. M. Daubenton, the magistrate who had first ordered the arrest, went home a thoughtful man, and determined to lose no opportunity of getting at the truth, which the arrest of the three accomplices mentioned by Couriol could alone bring to light.