There were now great discrepancies as to the date and the circumstances of death. Some said it occurred on the 17th of January, 1788, some on the 18th, some again on the 19th. Other facts also were disputed. As to the second query, 18 witnesses swore that the claimant was Anne Buirette; 14 saw no resemblance between Anne Buirette and her, and among these was Anne Buirette’s own husband. As to the third point, 153 out of 224 witnesses declared positively that this was the Marquise herself; but 53 said either that she was not or that they had never seen the claimant, whilst among the number were several who had been satisfied as to her identity in the first instance.
These inquiries were followed by others as to handwriting, and many new and surprising facts came out. It was asserted by experts that the letters written before her alleged death by the Marquise and after it by the claimant were in one and the same hand; that the documents the claimant was said to have written or signed were forgeries, and must have been concocted with fraudulent intention.
Now, too, the claimant explained away the famous date of entry into prison, and laid it to her poor memory, enfeebled by so many misfortunes.
There seemed enough in all this to reverse the decision of St. Fargeau, but the Court of Bourges upheld it. The Procureur-Général pronounced his opinion, formed at the imperious demands of his conscience, that the claimant was not the Marquise de Douhault; more, that “between her and that respectable lady there was as much difference as between crime and virtue.”
The law was pitilessly hostile to the very end. On the revival of the case the claimant was successful in proving that she was certainly not Anne Buirette, but although she published many memoirs prepared by some of the most eminent lawyers of the day, and was continually before the courts during the Consulate and First Empire, she was always unable to establish her identity. The law denied that she was the Marquise de Douhault, but yet would not say who she was. To the last she was nameless, and had no official existence. When she died the authorities would not permit any name to be inscribed on her tomb.
JUDGE GARROWS STORY.
Our own criminal records abound with cases of disputed or mistaken identity. Among the most remarkable of them is the one which Judge Garrow was fond of recounting on the Oxford circuit. He described how a man was being tried before him for highway robbery, and the prosecutor identified him positively. The guilt of the accused seemed clear, and the jury was about to retire to consider their verdict, when a man rode full-speed into the courthouse yard, and forced his way into the court, with loud cries to stop the case; he had ridden fifty miles to save the life of a fellow-creature, the prisoner now at the bar.
This strange interruption would have been resented by the judge, but the new arrival called upon all present, especially the prosecutor, to look at him. It was at once apparent that he was the living image of the prisoner; he was dressed in precisely similar attire, a green coat with brass buttons, drab breeches, and top boots. The likeness in height, demeanour, and especially in countenance, was so remarkable that the prosecutor was dumbfoundered; he could no longer speak positively as to the identity of the man who had robbed him. All along, the prisoner had been protesting his innocence, and now, of course, the gravest doubts arose as to his guilt. The prosecutor could not call upon the second man to criminate himself, and yet the jury had no alternative but to acquit the first prisoner. In this they were encouraged by the judge, who declared that, although a robbery had certainly been committed by one of two persons present, the prosecutor could not distinguish between them, and there was no alternative but acquittal.