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The original writ of sequestration lies before me as I write, indorsed as follows:

No. 23,041.

Sally Miller ) Sequestration.
)
vs. ) Sigur, Caperton
)
Louis Belmonti. ) and Bonford.

Received 24th January, 1844, and on the 26th of the
same month sequestered the body of the plaintiff and
committed her to prison for safe keeping; but on the
1st February, 1844, she was released from custody,
having entered bond in the sum of one thousand dollars
with Francis Schuber as the security conditioned
according to law, and which bond is herewith returned
this 3d February, 1844.

B.F. LEWIS, d’y sh’ff.

Inside is the bond with the signatures, Frantz Schuber in German script, and above in English,

The new trial was refused. Roselius took an appeal. The judge “allowed” it, fixing the amount of Salome’s bond at $2000. Frank Schuber gave the bond and the case went up to the Supreme Court.

In that court no witnesses were likely to be examined. New testimony was not admissible; all testimony taken in the inferior courts “went up” by the request of either party as part of the record, and to it no addition could ordinarily be made. The case would be ready for argument almost at once.

XII.

BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT.

Once more it was May, when in the populous but silent court-room the clerk announced the case of Miller versus Louis Belmonti, and John F. Miller, warrantor. Well-nigh a year had gone by since the appeal was taken. Two full years had passed since Madame Karl had found Salome in Belmonti’s cabaret. It was now 1845; Grymes was still at the head of one group of counsel, and Roselius of the other. There again were Eva and Salome, looking like an elder and a younger sister. On the bench sat at the right two and at the left two associate judges, and between them in the middle the learned and aged historian of the State, Chief-Justice Martin.

The attorneys had known from the first that the final contest would be here, and had saved their forces for this; and when on the 19th of May the deep, rugged voice of Roselius resounded through the old Cabildo, a nine-days’ contest of learning, eloquence, and legal tactics had begun. Roselius may have filed a brief, but I have sought it in vain, and his words in Salome’s behalf are lost. Yet we know one part in the defense which he must have retained to himself; for Francis Upton was waiting in reserve to close the argument on the last day of the trial, and so important a matter as this that we shall mention would hardly have been trusted in any but the strongest hands. It was this: Roselius, in the middle of his argument upon the evidence, proposed to read a certain certified copy of a registry of birth. Grymes and his colleagues instantly objected. It was their own best gun captured and turned upon them. They could not tolerate it. It was no part of the record, they stoutly maintained, and must not be introduced nor read nor commented upon. The point was vigorously argued on both sides; but when Roselius appealed to an earlier decision of the same court the bench decided that, as then, so now, “in suits for freedom, and in favorem libertatis, they would notice facts which come credibly before them, even though they be dehors the record.”[4] And so Roselius thundered it out. The consul for Baden at New Orleans had gone to Europe some time before, and was now newly returned. He had brought an official copy, from the records of the prefect of Salome’s native village, of the registered date of her birth. This is what was now heard, and by it Salome and her friends knew to their joy, and Belmonti to his chagrin, that she was two years older than her kinsfolk had thought her to be.