"All duels," was the austere comment of the examining-magistrate who conducted the enquiry, "are marked by folly, and some by deliberate baseness." Where this one was concerned, he hinted at something sinister, and asked pointed questions about the pistols that d'Ecquevillez had been obliging enough to furnish. The answer was that they belonged to M. de Cassignac, who, for his part, declared that, until the actual day of the meeting, they had been in the custody of the gunsmith from whom he had bought them. The gunsmith, however, M. Devismes, said that this was not the case; and another witness declared that he had seen de Beauvallon having a little surreptitious practice with them in the garden. The next thing that happened was that, before the magisterial enquiry was finished, de Beauvallon and d'Ecquevillez made a hurried departure from Paris. During their absence, it was decided to abandon further proceedings for want of evidence. Thinking himself safe, de Beauvallon then returned. But he was not safe. The Supreme Court cancelled the decision of the inferior one, and announced that he was to stand his trial for murder. As public feeling ran high, and it was felt that an impartial jury could not have been secured in Paris, the trial was held at Rouen. The date was March 26, 1846. Attracted by the special circumstances of the case, the court was crowded. "Nearly all those who were present," says Claudin, "belonged to the world of the boulevards." Albert Vandam was among the spectators; and with him for a companion was a much more distinguished person, Gustave Flaubert. V All being in readiness, and the stage set for the drama that was about to be unfolded, the judges, in the traditional red robes, took their seats, with M. Letendre de Tourville as president of the Court. M. Salveton, the public prosecutor, and M. Rieff, the advocate-general, represented the Government; and Maitre Berryer and M. Leon Duval appeared respectively on behalf of the accused and the dead man's mother and sister. As it had been suggested that de Beauvallon had purposely arrived late on the ground, in order to have some preliminary practice, he was told to give an account of his movements of the morning of the duel. "I got up at seven o'clock," he said, "and went downstairs with the pistols which had been waiting for me at the concierge's when I returned home on the previous evening." "The concierge remembers nothing of that," interrupted M. Duval. "This is a fresh fact. We must certainly consider it. What happened next?"