As for the conduct of the two gendarmes Ratel and Mallet, it deserves the severest penalty of the law.They betrayed their duty.One of them, foreseeing his fate, committed suicide, but not until he had made important revelations.The other, Mallet, denies nothing, his tacit admissions preclude all doubt, especially as to the guilt of the woman Bryond.
The woman Lechantre, in spite of her constant denials, was privy to all.The hypocrisy of this woman, who attempts to shelter her assumed innocence under the mask of a false piety, has certain antecedents which prove her decision of character and her intrepidity in extreme cases.She alleges that she was misled by her daughter, and believed that the plundered money belonged to the Sieur Bryond,--a common excuse! If the Sieur Bryond had possessed any property, he would not have left the department on account of his debts.The woman Lechantre claims that she did not suspect a shameful theft, because she saw the proceedings approved by her ally, Boislaurier.But how does she explain the presence of Rifoel (already executed) at Saint-Savin; the journeys to and fro;the relations of that young man with her daughter; the stay of the brigands at Saint-Savin, where they were served by her daughter and the girl Godard? She alleges sleep; declares it to be her practice to go to bed at seven in the evening; and has no answer to make when the magistrate points out to her that if she rises, as she says she does, at dawn, she must have seen some signs of the plot, of the sojourn of so many persons, and of the nocturnal goings and comings of her daughter.To this she replies that she was occupied in prayer.This woman is a mass of hypocrisy.Lastly, her journey on the day of the crime, the care she takes to carry her daughter to Mortagne, her conduct about the money, her precipitate flight when all is discovered, the pains she is at to conceal herself, even the circumstances of her arrest, all go to prove a long-existing complicity.She has not acted like a mother who desires to save her daughter and withdraw her from danger, but like a trembling accomplice.And her complicity is not that of a misguided tenderness; it is the fruit of party spirit, the inspiration of a well-known hatred against the government of His Imperial and Royal Majesty.Misguided maternal tenderness, if that could be fairly alleged in her defence, would not, however, excuse it; and we must not forget that consentment, long-standing and premeditated, is the surest sign of guilt.