the 100,000 francs which he had invested he had inherited from an
uncle. Through Goupil he succeeded in communicating with his
mother in the hope that she would use her influence to stifle
some of the more serious evidence against him. Through other
prisoners he tried to get at the chemists from whom he had bought
acetate of morphia, and persuade them to say that the preparation
of morphia which he had purchased was harmless.

The trial of Castaing commenced before the Paris Assize Court on
November 10, 1823. He was charged with the murder of Hippolyte
Ballet, the destruction of a document containing the final
dispositions of Hippolyte's property, and with the murder of
Auguste Ballet. The three charges were to be tried
simultaneously. The Act of Accusation in Castaing's case is a
remarkable document, covering a hundred closely-printed pages.
It is a well-reasoned, graphic and unfair statement of the case
for the prosecution. It tells the whole story of the crime, and
inserts everything that can possibly prejudice the prisoner in
the eyes of the jury. As an example, it quotes against Castaing
a letter of his mistress in which, in the course of some quarrel,
she had written to him saying that his mother had said some
"horrible things" (des horreurs) of him; but what those
"horrible things" were was not revealed, nor were they ever
alluded to again in the course of the trial, nor was his
mistress called as a witness, though payments of money by
Castaing to her formed an important part of the evidence against
him. Again, the evidence of Goupil, his fellow prisoner, as to
the incriminating statements made to him by Castaing is given in
the Act of Accusation, but Goupil himself was not called at the
trial.