from The Terrific Register
(1825, vol. 2, 145-46)

     M. Dumesnil, passing through a forest near the above place towards nightfall, was stopped by a man, who, presenting a pistol, demanded his money or his life; M. Dumesnil gave him twelve francs, declaring it was all the money he had about him.  The robber took the money that was offered, and the traveller made off as fast as his legs could carry him, half dead with fright, yet happy at having got away so cheaply.  He soon reached a farm house, where, believing himself to be in safety, he requested hospitality, after having related his unlucky adventure, imprudently adding, that he had contrived to save a considerable sum from the rapacity of the robber.  The mistress of the house, who was at this time alone, offered him an asylum, but said he would be obliged to sleep in the hay-loft; this offer was accepted with gratitude, M. Dumesnil preferring an uncomfortable bed to a dangerous rencontre; and, it being late, he had no wish to travel further that night.

     He had scarcely laid himself down in the hay-loft, when he heard the master of the house come in; the latter related to his wife , that fortune had not been very favourable to him this time, that he had met with but one traveller, from whom he had got but twelve francs.  From the circumstances of this narrative his wife was persuaded that the person, whom she had taken in, was the very same whom her husband had stopped; she informed him of it; and they agreed, that during the night the man should go into the hay-loft, and push the traveller down, while he slept, and that the wife, armed with an axe, should immediately dispatch him.  Very luckily the traveller had not lost a word of this conversation: he kept himself upon his guard, and at the moment when the assassin mounted the ladder into the hay-loft to execute his murderous design, he struck him a violent blow on the head with a large knob of wood which he found in the hay-loft, so that he fell quite stunned to the floor below, where his wife immediately cleft his head in twain with her axe.  The traveller fled to the neighbouring village, and gave information of the circumstance; the officers of the police repaired to the spot, and the woman was arrested, and soon afterwards suffered death.