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Last month, seven years later, Marie Besnard's third trial was called to order in Bordeaux. One by one, the superexperts were called to the witness stand and discredited by Defense Attorneys Albert Gautrat and René Hayot. Squirming in discomfort, the scientists admitted that their methods were not up to date, that "too many factors escape us." Witnesses suggested that the arsenic could have entered the bodies after burial from the soil, offered testimony that the cemetery concierge at Loudun had grown potatoes near the graves and had sprinkled the patch with fertilizers containing arsenic. Smoothly the defense counsels also demolished the testimony of Loudun's gossips. Defendant Besnard also remembered that Postmistress Pintou had eaten with her after accusing her of poisoning Léon's soup. Murmured Marie: "Perhaps you had an antidote for arsenic."
Alarmed, the prosecution scaled down its charges, said that it would try to convict Marie for only three murders. But the case was lost; the jury took three hours and 25 minutes to acquit Marie Besnard. Unhappily for Marie, the state is not bound to pay her 1 franc of indemnity for the years she spent in preventive detention. The whole case, said one weary attorney, was a powerful argument for cremation.