The verdict in the Humbert case has not reached us
in time for this issue, the speeches of the Procureur-General and of the prisoners' counsel having occupied rather more time than was expected. The former gave the jury a long and wonderfully clear digest of all the facts which, he said, proved Madame Humbert to have been habitually guilty of fraud and forgery. This made a great impression on the jury, which Maitre Labori must have found it hard to dispel. He told them that Madame Humbert had a secret to reveal which might compel her to mention a name abhorrent to patriotic Frenchmen, and insisted that the hundred millions of francs said to have been once con- tained in the famous safe really existed, though, he hinted, the Crawfords "had extorted them from Madame Humbert by threats of revealing the secret origin of the fortune. He was, however, careful to add that these were his client's statements and that while he believed her story, he had no means of verify- ing it. (It will be observed that no effort was made to produce evidence of the payment of interest on this huge block of stock, though proof of such payment must have been well within the power, supposing the stocks existed, of the Bank of France.) The main line of his argument seems to have been that the improbability of a story is no evidence of its falsehood, while Thursday was devoted to a biography of his clients, in which their domestic virtues, and, in particular, the artistic and literary talents of Frederic Humbert, were set forth with all the eloquence and charm of which Maitre Labori is a master. The trial may be concluded before these lines are in the hands of our readers, but at the moment of our writing the public are still left in doubt whether the chief prisoner has or can have anything to reveal.
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