1st Edition
Revival: The Lyons Mail (1945) Being an Account of the Crime of April 27 1796 and of the Trials Which Followed.
The old mystery of the 'Lyons Mail' is of all crime-problems the most complicated and interesting. It is not even yet forgotten, as those will remember who saw the elder and the younger Irving, play the double part of Lesurques and Dubosq-a sort of misreading of the problem of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. But the real story is tangled up with all manner of historical persons. The lost money was going to General Bonaparte, then on his first victorious campaign in the Italian Alps: three of the 'Directors' La Revelliere - Lepeaux, Gohier and Merlin dispute in the affair. Madame Tallien - 'Notre Dame de Thermidor' makes a flitting appearance: still more improbably the two famous epicures of the age - Cambaceres and Brillat-Savarin take the chair. Even Talleyrand shows for a moment.
Introduction 1. France in 1796 'An IV' 2.The 'Lyons Mail' and its Contesnts. Floreal 8 An IV 3.Discovery of the Crime. FLoreal 9. Activities of The Melun Police 4.Activities of the Paris Police. Floreal 10-19. Arrest of Couriol 5. Further discoveries by the Melun Police. Floreal 10-20 6. Arrest of Lesurques and Guenot. Floreal 22 7.Evidence collected by Judge Daubanton. Floreal 22 to Prairial 3 8. An Interlude at Melun. Prairial-Messidor An IV 9. First Trial at Paris. Thermidor 15. 1st Session 10.First Trial at Paris. Thermidor 16. 2nd Session. The Goldsmith's Day-book 11. First Trial at Paris. Thermidor 17. 3rd Session 12 First Trial at Paris. Thermidor 18. 4th Session. The Verdict 13 Appeals. Thermidor-Brumaire. August - October. Debate in the Council 14 The First Executions. Brumaire 9 15.The Affaire Laborde-Durochat. Ventose An V 16. Delays and Escapes. Prairial An V to Ventose An VI. Ingenuity of Jean Guillaume Dubosq 17. Dubosq and the Doctor. The Last Escape. Thermidor An VI 18. XVIII Final Capture and Trial of Dubosq. Thermidor An VIII to Pluviose an IX 19.An Inconclusive Epilogue. The 'Affaire Roussy' An XII 20.The Aftermath. Seventy Years of Controversy, 1797-1868 21.An Unsolved Problem. Index
Biography
Sir Charles William Chadwick Oman, KBE, FBA was a British military historian. He became an honorary fellow of New College in 1936, and received the honorary degrees of DCL (Oxford, 1926) and LL.D (Edinburgh, 1911 and Cambridge, 1927).
