The effrontery of a woman who posed as the Vicomtesse de Nays paved the way to further discovery. This pretended great lady, who was really the associate of thieves and the wife of one of Fossard’s friends, was on the best of terms with the Prefecture, and quite an intimate friend of the Prefect. She passed as a charitable person with many protégés, whom she was eager to befriend by obtaining places for them and supplying them with funds when temporarily in distress. At one of her visits to the Prefecture she pressed the prefect to honor her with his company at dinner, and it was quite by accident that he discovered that his fellow guests included some of the most notorious criminals in the capital. Happily for his reputation he discovered that she was well acquainted with Fossard; and, yet more, that she had taken places for herself and maid in the diligence for Brest, where, no doubt, she was to carry him substantial aid. Other valuable news was forthcoming, namely; that a number of the stolen medals had been melted down into ingots, and that some of them were in the possession of the so-called Vicomtesse de Nays. Others were traced to the Drouillet above mentioned as a possible thief, and others to Fossard’s brother, a clockmaker of Paris. Arrests followed, and the clockmaker confessed that his brother and Drouillet had committed the robbery and had melted down a portion of the booty and thrown the rest into the Seine--where, as a matter of fact, it was subsequently fished out. More stolen property was unearthed in the clockmaker’s cellars. When the case came up for trial both the Fossards were sentenced, the elder Etienne, to _travaux forcés_ for life, the younger to ten years. Drouillet was sentenced to twenty years. Madame de Nays was brought to Paris and her domicile searched, but no fresh proofs of her complicity in the robbery were forthcoming, and she was released; but it was clear that her kindness to the young men she patronised was repaid, both in the shape of information and assistance in the planning of robberies. A pretty incident is related of the recovery of these valuable treasures. A well-known savant who was called in by the Prefecture to identify them was so overcome by emotion when he saw them again that he burst into tears and kissed them repeatedly, especially the seal of Michael Angelo, the cup of the Ptolemies and the “Apotheosis of Augustus,” the largest cameo in the world.