Sentence of death was pronounced against the persons who had been concerned in the housebreaking as well as against those who had committed the murder, and it was carried into effect on all of them with the exception of Madame van N——, who died in prison. The wool-spinner alone exhibited any sign of penitence.
CHAPTER II.
CASES OF DISPUTED OR MISTAKEN IDENTITY.
Lesurques and the Robbery of the Lyons Mail—The Champignelles Mystery—Judge Garrow’s Story—An Imposition Practised at York Assizes—A Husband Claimed by Two Wives—A Milwaukee Mystery—A Scottish Case—The Kingswood Rectory Murder—The Cannon Street Case—A Narrow Escape.
LESURQUES.
THE most famous, and perhaps the most hackneyed, of all cases of mistaken identity is that of Lesurques, charged with the robbery and murder of the courier of the Lyons mail, which has been so vividly brought home to us through the dramatic play based upon it and the marvellous impersonation of the dual rôle, Lesurques-Duboscq, by Sir Henry Irving.
Lesurques was positively identified as a man who had travelled by the mail coach, and he was in due course convicted. Yet at the eleventh hour a woman came into court and declared his innocence, swearing that the witnesses had mistaken him for another, Duboscq, whom he greatly resembled. She was the confidante of one of the gang who had planned and carried out the robbery. But her testimony, although corroborated by other confederates, was rejected, and Lesurques received sentence of death. Yet there were grave doubts, and the matter was brought before the Revolutionary Legislature by the Directory, who called for a reprieve. But the Five Hundred refused, on the extraordinary ground that to annul a sentence which had been legally pronounced “would subvert all ideas of justice and equality before the law.”
Lesurques died protesting his innocence to the last. “Truth has not been heard,” he wrote a friend; “I shall die the victim of a mistake.” He also published a letter in the papers addressed to Duboscq: “Man in whose place I am to die,” he wrote, “be satisfied with the sacrifice of my life. If you are ever brought to justice, think of my three children, covered with shame, and of their mother’s despair, and do not prolong the misfortunes of so fatal a resemblance.” On the scaffold he said, “I pardon my judges and the witnesses whose mistake has murdered me. I die protesting my innocence.”
Four years elapsed before Duboscq was captured. In the interval others of the gang had passed through the hands of the police, but the prime mover was only now taken. Even then he twice escaped from prison. When finally he was put on his trial, and the judge ordered a fair wig, such as Lesurques had worn, to be placed on his head, the strange likeness was immediately apparent. He denied his guilt, but was convicted and guillotined. Thus two men suffered for one offence.