From then on Mme Lacoste was hunted for everywhere. The roads to Tarbes, Toulouse, and Vic-Fezensac were patrolled by brigades of gendarmes day and night, but there was no sign of the fugitive. It was rumoured that she had got away to Spain, that she was cached in a barrel at Riguepeu, that she was in the fields disguised as a shepherd, that she had taken the veil. In the meantime the process against her went forward. Evidence was to hand which seemed to inculpate with Mme Lacoste a poor and old schoolmaster of Riguepeu named Joseph Meilhan. The latter, arrested, stoutly denied not only his own part in the supposed crime, but also the guilt of Mme Lacoste. "Why doesn't she come forward?" he asked. "She knows perfectly well she has nothing to fear--no more than I have." From the 'information' laid by the court of first instance at Auch a warrant was issued for the appearance of Mme Lacoste and Meilhan before the Assize of Gers. Mme Lacoste was apparently well instructed by her friends. She did not come into the open until the last possible moment. She gave herself up at the Auch prison on the 4th of July. Her health seemed to have suffered little from the vicissitudes of her flight. It was noticed that her hair was short, a fact which seemed to point to her having disguised herself. But, it is said, she exhibited a serenity of mind which consorted ill with the idea of guilt. She faced an interrogation lasting three hours without faltering. On the 10th of July she appeared before the Gers Assize Court, held at Auch. The President was M. Donnoderie. Counsel for the prosecution, as it were, was the Procureur du Roi, M. Cassagnol. Mme Lacoste was defended by Maitre Alem-Rousseau, leader of the bar of Auch. The case aroused the liveliest interest, people flocking to the town from as far away as Paris itself--so much so that at 6.30 in the morning the one-time palace of the Archbishops of Auch, in the hall of which the court was held, was packed. The accused were called. First to appear was Joseph Meilhan. He was a stout little old boy of sixty-six, rosy and bright-eyed, with short white hair and heavy black eyebrows. He was calm and smiling, completely master of himself. Mme Lacoste then appeared on the arm of her advocate. She was dressed in full widow's weeds. A little creature, slender but not rounded of figure, she is described as more agreeable-looking than actually pretty. After the accused had answered with their names and descriptions the acte d'accusation was read. It was a long document. It recalled the circumstances of the Lacoste marriage and of the death of the old man, with the autopsy and the finding of traces of arsenic. It spoke of the lowly household tasks that Mme Lacoste had performed with such goodwill from the beginning, and of the reward for her diligence which came to her by the making of a holograph will in which her husband made her his sole heir.