THE JOURNAL
The hearing of Seznec's prison companions

[FROM OUR SPECIAL ENVOY] QUIMPER, November 1st. All Saints' Day! The symphony of bells lulls Quimper, which mourns its dead under a persistent rain. Crowds at the cemetery, crowds at the chrysanthemum market, but especially crowds at the Palais de Justice, where, eager to see, all those whose occupations have so far kept them away from the proceedings are hurrying.

Madame is drunk
So many curiosities will not be disappointed. This eighth day begins with an indescribable scene which brings to the bar once again, to the delight of the audience, Madame Seznec and her maid Angèle Labigou.
They appear there, or rather they rush there to refute the capital testimony of Mrs. Lefloic, from Morlaix, affirming:
— On June 20, Angèle Labigou told me that her boss had gone on a trip and that he would not return until the 21st.
These words provoke the tumultuous irruption of Mrs. Seznec and her servant into the courtroom. With what vigor they address poor Mrs. Lefloic, stoic in the storm. She retorts calmly:
Mrs. Lefloic. — Angèle even added: As for my boss, she is drunk.
The room is stamping its feet with pleasure, but let us not be surprised that among so many spectators there is a malcontent. He whistles as they whistled in Boileau's time. The attorney general protests in the name of the dignity of justice.
But peace is reborn when Mr. Verlingue, an industrialist, deposes. On the eve of Mr. Quemeneur's disappearance, the witness offered 150,000 francs in cash for the Traonez property. That would be enough to make the deed of transfer claimed by Seznec suspect if the experts had not already declared it apocryphal.

The prisoner's remorse
The rich merchant is followed by a poor wretch in a worn blouse who advances to the bar with an unsteady step. It is the ex-prisoner Boulquin who was Seznec's cellmate in Morlaix prison. In a rough voice, with clumsy words, he confides to the jury that the accused offered him 30,000 francs to find witnesses who would claim to have seen Quémeneur in Paris after his disappearance and 15,000 francs to bribe other witnesses who would provide him with an alibi relating to the day of June 13, 1923.
Hearing his former comrade in misfortune, Seznec sketches a disdainful pout.
Seznec. — Do you think I would confide in a buffoon like this "gentleman"? (Laughter.)
Boulquin adds that the proposition seduced him but that in the end he felt remorse.
Another witness recently graduated from the Morlaix remand center. He states his qualifications:
Rospars, hairdresser of no fixed abode. Rudely pressed by the president, Rospars recounts the conditions under which, on the eve of the trial, he went to see Mrs. Seznec to bring her the receipts prepared by Seznec in his prison.
Rospars. — Seznec told me that if I did not do this errand he would be f... I went to see Mrs. Seznec and asked her for 300 francs for my expenses.
The president. — And since she only gave you 25, you went to the police.
Rospars. — Oh, my president, I would have gone anyway.
The president. — Even if you had been rewarded with the 30,000 francs that Seznec had promised you?
Rospars. — Oh! more of the same, my president.
Seznec gives his former companion in misfortune a rather weak denial, calling him in a ceremoniously icy tone: "Mr. Rospars."
But Mr. Marcel Kahn himself agrees that one cannot deny the obvious. Rospars' story is confirmed by another ex-prisoner, who begins as follows:
— I was leaving prison and I was going to have a drink.
The president. — It always starts like that.
After these witnesses come others who have also had misfortunes with the law: old horses returning, young rascals, repeat drunks, and even a real satyr, who still moans on the damp straw of the dungeons, and who declares, corroborating Rospars' story:
— In prison everyone is looking after Mr. Seznec.
The president. — And it seems that everyone called him sir!
Framed by two sturdy gendarmes, the satyr withdraws amidst the curiosity of the audience.

The hypothesis of Quemeneur's survival
After these unfortunate revelations, Seznec is more at ease listening to Mr. Lajat, a printer in Morlaix, who believes he saw Quemeneur on the terrace of a café near the Montparnasse train station on May 30, 1923. That is to say, four days after the disappearance.
Mr. Lajat. — I am as sure of it as one can be sure when one has not spoken to a person
Suspected of accentuated myopia by the civil party, Mr. Lajat is subjected by the president to the examination that ophthalmologists subject their clients to. This is another interlude that pleases the public.
Like Mr. Lajat, but on June 27, Mr. Le Bére, a former railway worker in the Ruhr, believes he saw Quemeneur in Paris through the window of a restaurant.

The Attorney General — There is in the file a letter from a friend of Quemeneur who confirms that there exists in Paris a double of the missing man.
Tomorrow morning we will hear the famous witness Le Her.