Did Le Chevalier believe in this Utopia? It has been said that in propagating it "he only sought to intoxicate the people and excite them to acts of pillage, the profits of which would come to him without any of the danger." This accusation fits in badly with the chivalrous loyalty of his character. It seems more probable that on one of his journeys to Paris he fell into the trap set by the spy Perlet who, paid by the princes to be their chief intelligence agent, sold their correspondence to Fouche and handed over to the police the royalists who brought the letters. This Perlet had invented, as a bait for his trap, a committee of powerful persons who, he boasted, he had won over to the royal cause, and doubtless Le Chevalier was one of his only too numerous victims. Whatever it was, Le Chevalier took a pride in his high commissions, and went to meet d'Ache as an equal, if not a rival.

At the beginning, the conference was more than cold. These two men, so different in appearance and character, both aspired to play a great part and were instinctively jealous of each other. Their own personal feelings divided them. One was the lover of Mme. Acquet de Ferolles, the other was the friend of Mme. de Combray, and the latter blamed her daughter for her misconduct, and had forbidden her ever to come back to Tournebut. Le Chevalier, after the usual civilities, refused to continue the conversation till he was informed of the exact nature of the powers conferred by the King on his interlocutor, and the authority with which he was invested. Now, d'Ache had never had any written authority, and arrogantly intrenched himself behind the confidence which the princes had shown in him from the very first days of the revolution. He stated that he was expecting a regular commission from them. Whereupon Le Chevalier, seizing the advantage, called him an "agent of the English," and placing his pistols on the table "invited him to blow out his brains immediately." They both grew calmer, however, and explained their plans. Le Chevalier knew most of the Norman Chouans, either from having fought by their side, or from having made their acquaintance in the various prisons in Caen or Evreux, wherein he had been confined. He therefore undertook the enrollment and management of the army, the command of which he would assign to two men who were devoted to him. The name of one is not published; they say he was an ex-chief of Staff to Charette. The other was famous through the whole revolt of the Chouans under the pseudonym of General Antonio; his real name was Allain, and he had been working with Le Chevalier since the year IX. The latter was sure also of the cooperation of his friend M. de Grimont, manager of the stud at Argentan, who would furnish the prince's army with the necessary cavalry; besides which he offered to go to Paris for the "great event," and took upon himself with the assistance of certain accomplices "to secure the imperial treasury." D'Ache, for his part, was to go to England to fetch the King, and was to preside over the disembarkation and lead the Russo-Swedish army through insurgent Normandy to the gates of the capital.

Their work thus assigned, the two men parted allies, but not friends. D'Ache was offended at Le Chevalier's pretensions; the latter returning to Mme. Acquet, did not disguise the fact that, in his opinion, d'Ache was nothing but a common intriguer and an agent of England.

There still remained the question of money which, for the moment, took precedence of all others. They had agreed that it was necessary to pillage the coffers of the state whilst waiting the arrival of subsidies from England, but neither d'Ache nor Le Chevalier expressed himself openly; each wished to leave the responsibility of the theft to the other. Later, they both obstinately rejected it, Le Chevalier affirming that d'Ache had ordered the stopping of public conveyances in the King's name, while d'Ache disowned Le Chevalier, accusing him of having brought the cause into disrepute by employing such means. The dispute is of little interest. The money was lacking, and not only were the royal coffers empty, but what was of more immediate importance, Le Chevalier and his friends were without resources. In consequence of leading a wild life and sacrificing himself for his party, he had spent his entire fortune, and was overwhelmed with debts. The lawyer Vanier, who was entrusted with the management of his business affairs, lost his head at the avalanche of bills, protests and notes of hand which poured into his office, and which it was impossible to meet. The lawyer Lefebre, a fat and sensual free-liver, was equally low in funds, and laid on the government the blame of the confusion into which his affairs had fallen, though it had been entirely his own fault. As for Le Chevalier himself, he attributed his ruin, not without justice, to his disinterestedness and devotion to the royal cause, which was his excuse for the past and the future. Mme. Acquet, who loved him blindly, had given her last louis to provide for his costly liberality. Touching letters from her are extant, proving how attached she was to him:

"I am herewith sending you a letter from Mme. Blins" (a creditor). "My only regret is that I have not the sum. It would have given me great pleasure to pay it for you, and then you would never have known.... I love you with all my heart. I am entirely yours, and there is nothing I would not do for you.... Love me as I love you. I embrace you tenderly."

"There is nothing I would not do for you,"—and the poor woman was wretched in the knowledge that the hero whom she idolised was hampered for want of small sums of money. She could not ward off the trouble, since her demand for a separation had recently been refused. Acquet was triumphant. She was reduced to living on a modest pension of 2,000 francs, and not able to sell what she had inherited from her father. One evening, when she and Lanoe were alone in the Hotel de Combray, in the Rue du Tripot at Falaise, one part of which was rented to the collector of taxes, she heard through the wall the chinking of the money, which they were packing into bags. On hearing it she fell into a sort of delirium, thinking that here was the wherewithal to satisfy her lover's fancies....

"Lanoe," she said suddenly, "I must have some money; I only want 10,000 francs."

The terrified Lanoe gave her no answer then, but a few days later, when he was driving her back in her cabriolet to Falaise from La Bijude, she returned to the charge, and gave him a piece of yellow wax wrapped up in cotton telling him to go and take an impression of the tax collector's lock as soon as they arrived at the Rue du Tripot. Lanoe excused himself, saying that the house belonged to M. Timoleon, and that disagreeable consequences might arise. But she insisted. "I must have the impression," she said. "I do not tell you why I want it, but I will have it." Lanoe, to get out of a task he did not like, went away and secretly took an impression of the lock of the hayloft. A key was made by this pattern, and when night came the Marquise de Combray's daughter stole down—holding her breath and walking noiselessly—to the tax collector's office, and vainly tried to open the door.

* * * * *

About the same time Le Chevalier, who had just returned from a journey to Paris, heard from the lawyer Vanier, who was quite as much in debt as his client, that the pecuniary situation was desperate. "I dread," wrote Vanier, "the accomplishment of the psalm: Unde veniet auxilium nobis quia perimus." To which Le Chevalier replied, as he invariably did: "In six weeks, or perhaps less, the King will be again on his throne. Brighter days will dawn, and we shall have good posts. Now is the time to show our zeal, for those who have done nothing will, as is fair, have nothing to expect." He added that the hour was propitious, "since Bonaparte was in the middle of Germany with his whole army."

He loved to talk this way, as it made him appear, as it were, Napoleon's rival, raising him to the place he held in his own imagination.



CHAPTER V

THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY

The lawyer, Lefebre, of high stature, with broad shoulders and florid complexion, loved to dine well, and spent his time between billiards, "Calvados" and perorations in the cafes. For taking this part in the conspiracy he expected a fat sinecure on the return of the Bourbons, in recompense for his devotion.

Early in April, 1807, Lefebre and Le Chevalier were dining together at the Hotel du Point-de-France at Argentan. They had found Beaurepaire, Desmontis and the Cousin Dusaussay there; they went to the cafe and stayed there several hours. Allain, called General Antonio, whom Le Chevalier had chosen as his chief lieutenant, appeared and was presented to the others. Allain was over forty; he had a long nose, light eyes, a face pitted with smallpox, and a heavy black beard; the manner of a calm and steady bourgeois. Le Chevalier took a playing card, tore half of it off, wrote a line on it and gave it to Allain, saying, "This will admit you." They talked awhile in the embrasure of a window, and the lawyer caught these words: "Once in the church, you will go out by the door on the left, and there find a lane; it is there...."

When Allain had gone Le Chevalier informed his friends of the affair on hand. At the approach of each term, funds were passed between the principal towns of the department; from Alencon, Saint-Lo and Evreux money was sent to Caen, but these shipments took place at irregular dates, and were generally accompanied by an escort of gendarmes. As the carriage which took the funds to Alencon usually changed horses at Argentan, it was sufficient to know the time of its arrival in that town to deduce therefrom the hour of its appearance elsewhere. Now Le Chevalier had secured the cooperation of a hostler named Gauthier, called "Boismale," who was bribed to let Dusaussay know when the carriage started. Dusaussay lived at Argentan, and by starting immediately on horseback, he could easily arrive at the place where the conspirators were posted several hours before the carriage. Allain had just gone to find Boismale.

When he returned to the cafe, he gave the result of his efforts. The hostler had decided to help Le Chevalier, but the affair would probably not take place for six weeks or two months, which was longer than necessary to collect the little troop needed for the expedition. The roles were assigned: Allain was to recruit men; the lawyer would procure guns wherewith to arm them; and besides this he allowed Allain to use a house in the Faubourg Saint-Laurent de Falaise, which he was commissioned to sell. Here could be established "a depot for arms and provisions," for one difficulty was to lodge and feed the recruits during the period of waiting. Le Chevalier answered for the assistance of Mme. Acquet de Ferolles, whom he easily persuaded to hide the men for a few days at least; he also offered as a meeting-place his house in the Rue de Saint-Sauveur at Caen.

The chief outlines of the affair being thus arranged, they parted, and the next day Allain took the road, having with him as usual, a complete surveyor's outfit, and a sort of diploma as "engineer" which served as a reference, and justified his continual moves. He was, moreover, a typical Chouan, determined and ready for anything, as able to command a troop as to track gendarmes; bold and cunning, he knew all the malcontents in the country, and could insure their obedience. The recruiting of this troop, armed, housed and provided for during two months, roaming the country, hiding in the woods, leading in the environs of Caen and Falaise the existence of Mohicans, without causing astonishment to a single gendarme, and, satisfied with having enough to eat and to drink, never thinking of asking what was required of them, is beyond belief. And it was in the most brilliant year of the imperial regime, at the apogee of the much boasted administration, which in reality was so hollow. The Chouans had sown such disorganisation in the West, that the authorities of all grades found themselves powerless to struggle against this ever-recurring epidemic. Count Caffarelli, prefet of Calvados, in his desire to retain his office, treated the refractories with an indolence bordering on complicity, and continued to send Fouche the most optimistic reports of the excellent temper of his fellow-citizens and their inviolable attachment to the imperial constitution.

It was the middle of April, 1807. Allain passed through Caen, where he joined Flierle, and both of them hiding by day and marching at night, gained the borders of Brittany. Allain knew where to find men; twenty-five leagues from Caen, in the department of La Manche, some way from any highroad, is situated the village of La Mancelliere, whose men were all refractories. General Antonio, who was very popular among the malcontents, was shown the house of a woman named Harel whose husband had joined the sixty-third brigade in the year VIII and deserted six months after, "overcome by the desire to see his wife and children." His story resembled many others; conscription was repugnant to these peasants of ancient France, who could not resign themselves to losing sight of their clock tower; they were brave enough and ready to fight, but to them, the immediate enemy was the gendarmes, the "Bleus," whom they saw in their villages carrying off the best men, and they felt no animosity against the Prussians and Austrians who only picked a quarrel with Bonaparte.

As he came with an offer of work to be well paid for, Allain was well received by Mme. Harel, who with her children was reduced to extreme poverty. It was a question, he said, "of a surveying operation authorised by the government." Harel came out of hiding in the evening, and eagerly accepted his old chief's proposition, and as the latter needed some strong pole-carriers, Harel presented two friends to the "General" under the names of "Grand-Charles" and "Coeur-le-Roi." Allain completed his party by the enrollment of three others, Le Hericey, called "La Sagesse"; Lebree, called "Fleur d'Epine"; and Le Lorault, called "La Jeunesse." They drank a cup of cider together, and left the same evening, Allain and Flierle leading them.

In six stages they arrived at Caen, and Allain took them to Le Chevalier's house in the Rue Saint Sauveur. They had to stay there three weeks. They were put in the loft on some hay, and Chalange, Le Chevalier's servant, who took them their food, always found them sleeping or playing cards. In order not to awaken the suspicions of the usual tradespeople, Lerouge, called "Bornet," formerly a baker, undertook to make the bread for the house in the Rue Saint-Sauveur. One day he brought in his bread cart four guns procured by Lefebre; Harel cleaned them, took them to pieces, and hid them in a bundle of straw. Then the guns were put on a horse which Lerouge led out at night from the cellar which opened on the Rue Quimcampoix at the back of the house. The men followed, and under Allain's guidance crossed the town; when they reached the extremity of the Faubourg de Vaucelles they stopped and distributed the arms. Lerouge went back to town with the horse, and the little troop disappeared on the highroad.

At about five leagues from Caen, after having passed Langannerie, where a brigade of gendarmerie was stationed, the Falaise road traverses a small but dense thicket called the wood of Quesnay. The men stopped there, and passed a whole day hidden among the trees. The following night Allain led them a three hours' march to a large abandoned house, whose doors were open, and installed them in the loft on some hay. This was the Chateau of Donnay.

Le Chevalier had not deceived himself. Mme. Acquet had received his suggestion with enthusiasm; the thought that she would be useful to her hero, that she would share his danger, blinded her to all other considerations. She had offered Allain and his companions the hospitality of Bijude, without any fear of compromising her lover, who made long sojourns there, and she decided on the audacious plan of lodging them with her husband, who, inhabiting a wing of the Chateau of Donnay, abandoned the main body of the chateau, which could be entered from the back without being seen. Perhaps she hoped to throw a suspicion of complicity on Acquet if the retreat should be discovered. As to Le Chevalier, learning that d'Ache had just left Mandeville and gone to England "after having announced his speedy return with the prince, with munitions, money, etc.," he left for Paris, having certain arrangements, he said, to make with the "Comite secret." Before quitting La Bijude, he enjoined his mistress, in case the coup should be made in his absence, to remit the money seized to Dusaussay, who would bring it to him in Paris where the committee awaited it. She gave him a curl of her fine black hair to have a medallion made of it, and made him promise "that he would not forget to bring her some good eau-de-cologne." They then embraced each other, and he left. It was May 17, 1807, and this was the last time she saw him.

She did not remain idle, but herself prepared the food of the seven men lodged in the chateau. Bundles of hay and straw served them for beds; they were advised not to go out, even for the most pressing needs and they stayed there ten days. Every evening Mme. Acquet appeared in this malodorous den, holding her parasol in her gloved hands, dressed in a light muslin, and a straw hat. She was usually accompanied by her servant Rosalie Dupont, a big strong girl, and Joseph Buquet a shoemaker at Donnay both carrying large earthen plates containing baked veal and potatoes. It was the hour of kindliness and good cheer; the chatelaine did not disdain to preside at the repast, coming and going among the unkempt men, asking if these "good fellows" needed anything and were satisfied with their fare. She was the most impatient of all; whether she took the political illusions of those who had drawn her into the affair seriously, and was anxious to expose herself for "the good cause"; whether her fatal passion for La Chevalier had completely blinded her, she took her share in the attack that was being prepared, which it seemed to her, would put an end to all her misfortunes. She had already committed an act of foolish boldness in receiving and keeping Allain's recruits in a house occupied by her husband, and in daring to visit them there herself; she was thus compromising herself, as if she enjoyed it, under the eyes of her most implacable enemy, and no doubt Acquet, informed by his well-trained spies, of all that happened, refrained from intervention for fear of interrupting an adventure in which his wife must lose herself irremediably.

Mme. Acquet also behaved as if she was certain of the complicity of the whole country; she arranged the slightest details of the expedition with astonishing quickness of mind. With her own hands she made large wallets of coarse cloth, to carry provisions for the party, and contain the money taken from the chests. She hastened to Falaise to ask Lefebre to receive Allain and Flierle while awaiting the hour of action. Lefebre who had already fixed his price and exacted a promise of twelve thousand francs from the funds, would only, however, half commit himself. He nevertheless agreed to lodge Allain and Flierle in the vacant building in the Faubourg Saint-Laurent. Reassured on this point Mme. Acquet returned to Donnay; during the night of 28th May, the men left the chateau without their arms and were conducted to a barn, where they were left all day alone with a small cask of cider which they soon emptied. Mme. Acquet was meanwhile preparing another retreat for them. A short way from the Church of Donnay there was an isolated house belonging to the brothers Buquet, who were devoted to the Combrays; Joseph, the shoemaker, had in the absence of Le Chevalier, been known as Mme. Acquet's lover in the village, and if in the absence of any definite testimony, it is possible to save this poor woman's memory from this new accusation, we must still recognise the fact that she exercised an extraordinary influence over this man. He submitted to her blindly "by the rights she had granted him," said a report addressed to the Emperor. Whatever the reason, she had only to say the word for Joseph Buquet to give her his house, and the six men took possession next day. The Buquets' mother undertook to feed them for four days; they left her at dusk on the 2d June; Joseph showed them the road and even led them a short way.

The poor fellows dragged along till morning, losing themselves often and not daring to ask the way or to follow beaten tracks. They met Allain at dawn, one mile from Falaise, on the edge of a wood near the hamlet of Jalousie; he took them across Aubigny to an isolated inn at the end of the village.

Lefebre had presented Allain to the innkeeper the night before, asking if he would receive "six honest deserters whom the gendarmes tormented," for a few days, and the man had replied that he would lodge them with pleasure.

As soon as they arrived at the inn Allain and his men, dropping with fatigue, asked for breakfast and went at once to the room prepared for them. It was half past four in the morning; they lay down on the straw and did not move all day except for meals. The night and all next day passed in the same manner. On Thursday June 4th they put some bread, bacon and jugs of cider in their wallets and left about nine in the evening. On Friday Allain appeared at the inn of Aubigny alone; he ordered the servant to take some food to the place where the Caen and Harcourt roads met. Two men were waiting there, who took the food and went off in haste. Allain went to bed about two in the morning; about midday on Saturday as he was sitting down to table a carriage stopped at the inn door; Lefebre and Mme. Acquet got out. They brought seven guns which were carried up to the loft. They talked; Mme. Acquet took some lemons from a little basket, and cut them into a bowl filled with white wine and brandy, and she and Lefebre drank while consulting together. The heat was intolerable and all three were overcome. Mme. Acquet had to be helped to her carriage and Lefebre undertook to conduct her to Falaise. Allain, left alone at Aubigny, ordered supper "for six or seven persons." He was attending to its preparation when a horseman appeared and asked to speak with him. It was Dusaussay who brought news. He had come straight from Argentan where he had seen the coach, laden with chests of silver, enter the yard of the inn of Point-de-France; he described the waggon, the harness and the driver, then remounted and rode rapidly away. Just then the entire band reappeared, led by Flierle. Arms were distributed, and the men stood round the table eating hastily. They filled their wallets with bread and cold meat and left at night. Allain and Flierle accompanied them and returned to the inn after two hours' absence. They did not sleep; they were heard pacing heavily up and down the loft until daylight. On Sunday, June 7, Allain paid the reckoning, bought a short axe and an old gun from the innkeeper, making eight guns in all at the disposal of the band. At seven in the morning he left with Flierle, and three leagues from there, arrived at the wood of Quesnay where his men had passed the night.

The waggon destined for the transportation of the funds had been loaded on the 5th at Alencon, in the yard of the house of M. Decres, receiver-general of the Orne, with five heavy chests containing 33,489 francs, 92 centimes. On the 6th, the carrier, Jean Gousset, employed by the manager of stage coaches at Alencon, had harnessed three horses to it, and escorted by two gendarmes had taken the road to Argentan, where he arrived at five in the evening. He stopped at Point-de-France, where he had to take a sixth chest containing 33,000 francs, which was delivered in the evening by the agents of M. Larroc, receiver of finances. The carriage, carefully covered, remained in the inn yard during the night. Gousset, who had been drinking, went to and fro "talking to every one of his charge"; he even called a traveller, M. Lapeyriere, and winking at the chest that was being hoisted on the waggon, said: "If we each had ten times as much our fortunes would be made." He harnessed up at four o'clock on Sunday, the 7th. He had been given a fourth horse, and three gendarmes accompanied him. They made the five leagues between Argentan and Falaise rather slowly, arriving about half past ten. Gousset stopped with Bertaine at the "Cheval Noir," where the gendarmes left him; he dined there, and as it was very hot, rested till three in the afternoon, during which time the waggon stayed in front of the inn unguarded. It was noticed that the horses were harnessed three hours before starting, and the conclusion was drawn that Gousset did not want to arrive before night at Langannerie, where he would sleep. In fact, he took his time. At a quarter past three he started, without escort, as all the men of the brigade of Falaise were employed in the recruiting that took place that day. As he left the village he chanced to meet Vinchon, gendarme of the brigade of Langannerie, who was returning home on foot with his nephew, a young boy of seventeen, named Antoine Morin. They engaged in conversation with the carrier, who walked on the left of the waggon, and went with him. These chance companions were in no hurry, and Gousset did not appear to be in any haste to arrive. At the last houses of the suburbs he offered some cider; after some hundred yards the gendarme returned the compliment and they stopped at the "Sauvage." A league further, another stop was made at the "Vieille Cave." Gousset then proposed a game of skittles, which the gendarme and Morin accepted. It was nearly seven in the evening when they passed Potigny. The evening was magnificent and the sun still high on the horizon; as they knew they would not see another inn until the next stage was reached, they made a fourth stop there. At last Gousset and his companions started again; they could now reach Langannerie in an hour, where they would stop for the night.

* * * * *

The evening before, Mme. Acquet de Ferolles, returning to Falaise with Lefebre, had gone to bed more sick with fatigue than drink; however, she had returned to Donnay at dawn in the fear that her absence might awaken suspicion. This Sunday, the 7th June, was indeed the Fete-Dieu, and she must decorate the wayside altars as she did each year.

Lanoe, who had arrived the evening before from his farm at Glatigny, worked all the morning hanging up draperies, and covering the walls with green branches. Mme. Acquet directed the arrangements for the procession with feverish excitement, filling baskets with rose leaves, grouping children, placing garlands. Doubtless her thoughts flew from this flowery fete to the wood yonder, where at this minute the men whom she had incited waited under the trees, gun in hand. Perhaps she felt a perverse pleasure in the contrast between the hymns sung among the hedges and the criminal anxiety that wrung her. Did she not confess later that in the confusion of her mind she had not feared to call on God for the success of "her enterprise"?

When, about five o'clock, the procession was at an end, Mme. Acquet went through the rose-strewn streets to find her confidante, Rosalie Dupont. Such was her impatience that she soon left this girl, irresistibly drawn to the road where her own fate and that of her lover were being decided. Lanoe, who was returning to Glatigny in the evening, was surprised to meet the chatelaine of La Bijude in a little wood near Clair-Tizon. She was scarcely a league from the place where the men were hidden. From her secluded spot she could, with beating heart, motionless and mute with anguish, hear the noise of shooting, which rung out clear in the silence of the summer evening. It was exactly a quarter to eight.

* * * * *

The waggon had, indeed, left Potigny at seven o'clock. A little way from the village, the road, which had been quite straight for six leagues, descended a low hill at the foot of which is the wood of Quesnay, a low thicket of hazel, topped by a few oaks. Allain had posted his men along the road under the branches; on the edge of the wood towards Falaise stood Flierle, Le Hericey, and Fleur d'Epine. Allain himself was with Harel and Coeur-le-Roi, at the end nearest Langannerie. Grand-Charles and Le Lorault were placed in the middle of the wood at equal distances from these two groups.

The eight men had waited since midday for the appearance of the treasure. They began to lose patience and spoke of returning to Aubigny for supper when they heard the rumbling of the waggon descending the hill. It came down rapidly, Gousset not having troubled to put on the brake. They could hear him shouting to the horses. Walking on the left of the waggon he drove them by means of a long rope; his little dog trotted beside him. Vinchon and Morin were, for the moment, left behind by the increased speed of the waggon. The men at the first and second posts allowed it to pass without appearing; it was now between the two thickets through which the road ran; in a few minutes it attained the edge of the wood near Langannerie, when suddenly, Gousset saw a man in a long greatcoat and top-boots in the middle of the road, with his gun pointed at him; it was Allain.

"Halt, you rascal!" he cried to the carrier.

Two of his companions, attired only in drawers and shirt, with a coloured handkerchief knotted round the head, came out of the wood, shouldered arms and took aim. With a tremendous effort, Gousset, seized with terror, turned the whole team to the left, and with oaths and blows flung it on to a country road which crossed the main road obliquely a little way from the end of the wood. But in an instant the three men were upon him; they threw him down and held a gun to his head while two others came out of the wood and seized the horses' heads. The struggle was short; they tore off Gousset's cravat and bound his eyes with it, he was searched and his knife taken, then cuffed, pushed into the wood and promised a ball if he moved.

But Vinchon and Morin, who were behind, had seen the waggon disappear in the wood. Morin, not caring to join in the scuffle, hurried across the fields, turned the edge of the wood, and ran towards Langannerie to inform the gendarmes. Vinchon, on the contrary, drew his sabre and advanced towards the road, but he had only taken a few steps when he received a triple discharge from the first post. He fell, with a ball in his shoulder, and rolled in the ditch, his blood flowing. The men then hastened to the waggon; they cut the cords of the tarpaulin with Gousset's knife, uncovered the chests and attacked them with hatchets. Whilst two of the brigands unharnessed the horses, the others flung the money, handfuls of gold and crowns, pell-mell into their sacks. The first one, bursting with silver, was so heavy that it took three men to hoist it on to the back of a horse; Gousset himself, in spite of his bandaged eyes, was invited to lend a hand and obeyed gropingly. They were smashing the second chest when the cry, "To arms!" interrupted them. Allain rallied his men, and lined them up along the road.

Morin, on arriving at Langannerie had only found the corporal and one other gendarme there; they mounted immediately and galloped to the wood of Quesnay. It was almost night when they reached the edge of the wood. A volley of shots greeted them; the corporal was hit in the leg, and his horse fell mortally wounded; his companion, who was deaf, did not know which way to turn. Seeing his chief fall, he thought it best to retreat; and ran to the hamlet of Quesnay to get help. The noise of the firing had already alarmed the neighbourhood; the tocsin sounded at Potigny, Ouilly-le-Tesson and Sousmont; peasants flocked to each end of the wood, but they were unarmed and dared not advance. Allain had posted five of his men as advance-guard who fired in the thicket at their own discretion, and kept the most determined of the enemy at bay. Behind this curtain of shooters the noise could be heard of axes breaking open chests, planks torn apart and oaths of the brigands in haste to complete their pillage. This extraordinary scene lasted nearly an hour. At last, at a call, the firing ceased, the robbers plunged into the thicket, and the steps of the heavily-laden horse, urged on by the men, were heard disappearing on the crossroad.

They took the road to Ussy, with their booty and the carrier Gousset, still with his eyes bandaged and led by Grand-Charles. They travelled fast, at night—to avoid pursuit. Less than half a league from Quesnay the road they followed passed the hamlet of Aisy, on the outskirts of Sousmont, whose mayor had a chateau there. He was called M. Dupont d'Aisy, and had this very evening entertained Captain Pinteville, commander of the gendarmerie of the district. The party had been broken up by the distant noise of shooting. M. Dupont at once sent his servants to give the alarm at Sousmont; in less than an hour he had mustered thirty villagers and putting himself at their head with Captain Pinteville he marched towards Quesnay. They had not gone a hundred paces when they encountered Allain's men, and the fight began. The brigands kept up a well-sustained fire, which produced no other effect than to disperse the peasants. Dupont d'Aisy and Captain Pinteville himself considered it dangerous to continue the struggle against such determined adversaries; they retired their men, and resolutely turning their backs to the enemy retreated towards Quesnay.

When they arrived in the wood a crowd was already there; from the neighbouring villages where the tocsin still sounded, people came, drawn entirely by curiosity. They laughed at the fine trick played on the government, they thought the affair well managed, and did not hesitate to applaud its success. They surrounded the waggon, half-sunk in the ruts in the road, and searched the little wood for traces of the combat.

The arrival of the mayor and Captain Pinteville restored things to order somewhat. They had brought lanterns, and in the presence of the gendarmes who had now arrived in numbers, the peasants collected the remains of the chests, and replaced in them the coppers that the robbers had scornfully thrown in the grass. They found the carrier's leather portfolio containing the two bills of lading, in the thicket, and learned therefrom that the government had lost a little over 60,000 francs, and in face of this respectable sum, their respect for the men who had done the deed increased. In the densest part of the wood they found a sort of hut made of branches, and containing bones, empty bottles and glasses, and the legend immediately grew that the brigands had lived there "for weeks," waiting for a profitable occasion. Those who had taken part in the fight from a distance described "these gentlemen," who numbered twelve, they said; three wore grey overcoats and top-boots; another witness had been struck "by the exceeding smallness of two of the brigands."

At last, the money collected and put in the chests, they harnessed two horses to the waggon and took it to the mayor's. He was now unsparing of attention; he did not leave the waggon which was put in his yard, and locked up the broken chests and money which amounted to 5,404 francs. And when M. le Comte Caffarelli, prefet of Calvados arrived at dawn, he was received by Dupont-d'Aisy, and after having heard all the witnesses and received all information possible, he sent the minister of police one of the optimistic reports that he prepared with so much assurance. In this one he informed his Excellency that "after making examination the shipment had been found intact, except the chests containing the government money." M. Caffarelli knew to perfection the delicate art of administrative correspondence and with a great deal of cool water, could slip in the gilded pill of disagreeable truth.

This model functionary spent the day at Aisy waiting for news; the peasants and gendarmes scoured the country with precaution, for, since the night, the legend had grown and it was told, not without fear, how M. Dupont d'Aisy had courageously given battle to an army of brigands. About midday the searchers returned leading the four horses which they had found tied to a hedge near the village of Placy, and poor Gousset who was found calmly seated in the shade of a tree near a wheat-field. He said that the band had left him there very early in the morning after having made him march all night with bandaged eyes. At the end of an hour and a half, hearing nothing, he had ventured to unfasten the bandage, and not knowing the country, had waited till some one came to seek him. He could give no information respecting the robbers, except that they marched very fast and gave him terrible blows. M. Caffarelli commiserated the poor man heartily, charged him to take the waggon and smashed chests back to Caen, then, after having warmly congratulated M. Dupont d'Aisy on his fine conduct, he returned home.

After the scuffle at Aisy, Allain and his companions had marched in haste to Donnay, but missed their way. Crossing the village of Saint-Germain-le-Vasson, they seized a young miller who was taking the air on his doorstep, and who consented to guide them, though very much afraid of this band of armed men with heavily-laden wallets. He led them as far as Acqueville and Allain sent him away with ten crowns. It was nearly midnight when they reached Donnay; they passed behind the chateau where Joseph Buquet was waiting for them and led them to his house. He and his brother made the eight men enter, enjoined silence, helped them to empty their sacks into a hole that had been made at the end of the garden, then gave them a drink. After an hour's rest Allain gave the signal for departure. He was in haste to get his men out of the department of Calvados, and shelter them from the first pursuit of Caffarelli's police. At daybreak they crossed the Orne by the bridge of La Landelle, threw their guns into a wheat-field and separated after receiving each 200 francs.

This day, the 8th June, passed in the most perfect calm for the inhabitants of Donnay. Mme. Acquet did not leave La Bijude. In the afternoon a tanner of Placy, called Brazard, passed the house and called to Hebert whom he saw in the garden. He told him that when he got up that morning he had found four horses tied to his hedge. The gendarmes from Langannerie had come and claimed them saying "they belonged to the Falaise-Caen coach which had been attacked in the night by Chouans." Hebert was much astonished; Mme. Acquet did not believe it; but the report spread and by evening the news was known to the whole village.

Acquet had remained invisible for a month; his instinct of hatred and some information slyly obtained, warned him that his wife was working her own ruin, and he would do nothing to stop her good work. Some days before, Aumont, his gardener, had remarked one morning that the dew was brushed off the grass of the lawn, and showed footsteps leading to the cellar of the chateau, but Acquet did not seem to attach any importance to these facts.

He learned from his servant of the robbery of the coach. The next day, Redet, the butcher of Meslay, said that ten days previously, when he was passing the ruins of the Abbey of Val "his mare shied, frightened at the sight of seven or eight men, who came out from behind a hedge;" they asked him the way to Rouen. Redet, without answering, made off, and as he told every one of this encounter, Hebert the liegeman of Mme. de Combray, had instantly begged him not to spread it about. If Acquet had retained any doubt, this would have satisfied him. He hurried to Meslay to consult with his friend Darthenay, and the next day, he wrote to the commandant of gendarmerie inviting him to search the Chateau of Donnay.

The visit took place on Friday, 12th June, and was conducted by Captain Pinteville. Acquet offered to guide him, and the search brought some singular discoveries. Certain doors of this great house, long abandoned, were found with strong locks recently put on; others were nailed up and had to be broken in. "In a dark, retired loft that it was difficult to enter" (Acquet conducted the gendarmes) "a pile of hay still retained the impress of six men who had slept on it"; some fresh bones, scraps of bread and meat, and the dirt bore witness that the band had lived there; some sheets of paper belonging to a memoir printed by Hely de Bonnoeil, brother of Mme. Acquet were rolled into cartridges and hidden in a corner under the tiles. They also found the sacks that the Buquets had hidden there after the theft; in the floor of the cellar a hole, "two and a half feet square, and of the same depth had been dug to hold the money;" they had taken the precaution to tear up the flooring above so that the depot could be watched from there. The idea of hiding the treasure here had been abandoned, as we know, in favour of Buquets'; but the discovery was important and Pinteville drew up a report of it.

But things went no further. What suspicion could attach to the owners of Donnay? The brigands, it is true, had made use of their house, but there were no grounds for an accusation of complicity in that. Neither Pinteville nor Caffarelli, who transmitted the report to the minister, thought of pushing their enquiries any further.

Fouche knew no more about it, but he thought that the affair was being feebly conducted. It seemed evident that the attempt at Quesnay would swell the already long list of thefts of public funds, by those who would forever remain unpunished. Real, instinctively scenting d'Ache in the business, remembered Captain Manginot who at the time of Georges Cadoudal's plot, had succeeded in tracing the stages of the conspirators between Biville and Paris, and to whom they owed the discovery of the role played by d'Ache in the conspiracy.

Manginot then received an order to proceed to Calvados immediately. On the 23d June he arrived at Caffarelli's bearing this letter of introduction: "The skill, the zeal and good fortune of this officer in these cases, is well known; they were proved in a similar affair, and I ask you to welcome him as he deserves to be welcomed." The prefet was quite willing; he knew too well the habits of the Chouans, and their cleverness in disappearing to have any personal illusions as to the final result of the adventure, but he said nothing and on the contrary showed the greatest confidence in the dexterity of a man who stood so well at court.

Manginot began with a fresh search at Donnay; and, as his reputation obliged him to be successful, and as he was not unwilling to astonish the authorities of Calvados by the quickness of his perceptions, he caused Acquet de Ferolles to be arrested. It was he who had first warned the gendarmes of the sojourn of the brigands at Donnay, and this seemed exceedingly suspicious; the same day he gave the order to take Hebert. Several people in the village insinuated that Acquet and Hebert were irreconcilable enemies and that Manginot was on the wrong track; but the detective's head was now swelled with importance and he would not draw back. Following his extravagant deductions he decided that the complicity of Gousset, convicted of drinking and playing skittles the whole way, was undoubted, and the poor man was arrested in his village where he had returned to his wife and children to recover from his excitement. At last Manginot, evidently animated by his blunders, took it into his head that Dupont d'Aisy himself might well have kept Pinteville at dinner and excited the peasants in order to secure the retreat of the brigands, and issued a warrant against him to the stupefaction of Caffarelli who thus saw imprisoned all those whose conduct he had praised, and whom he had given as examples of devotion. Thus, in a region where he had only to touch, so to say, to catch a criminal, Captain Manginot was unlucky enough to incarcerate only the innocent, and to complete the irony, these innocent prisoners made such a poor face before the court of enquiry that his suspicions were justified. Acquet was very anxious to denounce his wife, but he would not speak without certainty and the magistrate before whom he appeared at Falaise notes that in the course of interrogations "he contradicted himself; his replies were far from satisfactory, though he arranged them with the greatest care and reflected long before speaking." At the first insinuation he made against Mme. de Combray and her daughter, the judge indignantly silenced him, and sent him well-guarded to Caen where he was put in close custody. As to Hebert, not wishing to compromise the ladies of La Bijude to whom he was completely devoted, he scarcely replied to the questions put to him; all, even to Dupont d'Aisy lent themselves to the suspicions of Manginot. Sixty guns were found at the mayor's house, which seemed an excessive number, even for the great sportsman he prided himself on being, and here again all indications tended to convince Manginot that he was on the right track.

Mme. Acquet, meanwhile feigned the greatest security. Seeing things straying from the right way, she might indeed imagine that she was removed from all danger, and she had besides, other anxieties. The Chevalier had been waiting in Paris since the 7th of June for the money he so urgently needed, and as nothing appeared in spite of his reiterated demands, he decided to come and fetch it himself; he did not dare, however, to appear near Falaise, so arranged a meeting at Laigle with Lefebre, earnestly entreating him to bring him all the money he possibly could. But the Buquets, with whom the 60,000 francs had been left on the 7th June, obstinately refused to give it up in spite of Mme. Acquet's entreaties; they had removed the money from their garden and hidden it in various places which they jealously kept secret. However, through her influence over Joseph, Mme. Acquet succeeded in obtaining 3,300 francs which she gave the lawyer to take to Le Chevalier, but Lefebre, as soon as he got hold of the money, declared that he had been promised 12,000 francs for his assistance, and that he would keep this on account. He went to meet Le Chevalier at Laigle however, and to calm his impatience told him that Dusaussay was going to start for Paris immediately with 60,000 francs which he would give him intact. Mme. Acquet was desperate; prudence forbade her trying to overcome the Buquets' obstinacy, and they, in order to keep the money, asserted that it belonged to the royal exchequer, and they were responsible for it; so the unhappy woman found that she had committed a crime that the obstinacy of these rapacious peasants rendered useless. She was ready to abandon all in order to rejoin Le Chevalier, ready even to expatriate herself with him, when they heard that Mme. de Combray, hearing rumours of what had happened in Lower Normandy, had decided to come to Falaise, to plead the cause of her farmer, Hebert. She had left Tournebut on the 13th July and taken the Caen coach to Evreux.

Mme. Acquet had gone to Langannerie to meet her mother, and when Mme. de Combray descended from the coach the young woman threw herself into her arms. As the Marquise seemed rather surprised at this display of feeling to which she had become unaccustomed, her daughter said in a low voice, sobbing:

"Save me, mama, save me!"

Mother and daughter resumed the affectionate confidence of former days. While the horses were being changed and the postillions were taking a drink in the inn, they seated themselves beneath a tree near the road. Mme. Acquet made a full confession. She told how her love for Le Chevalier had led her to join in the affair of June 7th, to keep Allain and his men, and to hide the stolen money with the Buquets. If it should be found there she was lost, and it was important to get it from the Buquets and send it to the leaders of the party for whom it was intended. She did not dare to mention Le Chevalier this time, but she argued that for fear of her husband's spies she could neither take the money to her own house, nor change it at any bankers in Caen and Falaise; the whole country knew she was reduced to the last expedients.

Mme. de Combray feared no such dangers, and considered that "no one would be astonished to see 50,000 or 60,000 francs at her disposal." But she approved less of some other points in the affair, not that she was astonished to find her daughter compromised in such an adventure, for how many similar ones had she not helped to prepare in her Chateau of Tournebut? Had she not inoculated her daughter with her political fanaticism in representing men like Hingant de Saint-Maur, Raoul Gaillard and Saint-Rejant as martyrs? And by what right could she be severe, when she herself, daughter of the President of the Cour des Comptes of Normandy, had been ready to join in a theft which, "the sanctity of the cause," rendered praiseworthy in her eyes? The Marquise de Combray, without knowing it, was a Jacobite reversed; she accepted brigandage as the terrorists formerly accepted the guillotine; the hoped-for end justified the means.

And so she did not pour out reproaches; she grew angry at the mention of Le Chevalier whom she hated, but Mme. Acquet calmed her with the assurance that her lover had acted under the express orders of d'Ache and that everything had been arranged between the two men. As long as her hero was concerned in the affair, Mme. de Combray was happy to take a hand. That evening she reached Falaise, and leaving her daughter in the Rue du Tripot, she asked hospitality from one of her relations, Mme. de Treprel. Next morning she sent for Lefebre. Mme. Acquet, before introducing him, coached him thus, "Say as little as possible about Le Chevalier, and insist that d'Ache arranged everything." On this ground Lefebre found Mme. de Combray most conciliating, and he had neither to employ prayers nor entreaties, to obtain her promise to get the 60,000 francs from the Buquets; "she consented without any difficulty or adverse opinion; she seemed very zealous and pleased at the turn things had taken, and offered herself to take the money to Caen, and lodge it with Nourry, d'Ache's banker." Mme. Acquet here observed that she was not at liberty to dispose of the funds thus. She had only taken part in the affair from love, and cared little for the royalist exchequer; she only cared that her devotion should profit the man she adored, and if the money was sent to d'Ache, all her trouble would be useless. She tried to insist, saying that Dusaussay would take the money to the royalist treasurer in Paris, that Le Chevalier was waiting for it in order to go to Poitou where his presence was indispensable. But Mme. de Combray was inflexible on this point; the entire sum should be delivered to d'Ache's banker, or she would withdraw her assistance. Mme. Acquet was obliged to yield with a heavy heart, and they began at once to consider the best means of transporting it. The Marquise sent Jouanne, the son of the old cook at Glatigny, to tell Lanoe that she wished to see him at once. Jouanne made the six leagues between Falaise and Glatigny at one stretch, and returned without taking breath, with Lanoe, who put him up behind him on his horse. They had scarcely arrived when Mme. de Combray ordered Lanoe to get a carriage at Donnay and prepare for a journey of several days. Lanoe objected a little, said it was harvest time, and that he had important work to finish, but all that mattered little to the Marquise, who was firm and expected to be obeyed. Mme. Acquet also insisted saying, "You know that mama only feels safe when you drive her and that you are always well paid for it." This decided Lanoe who started for Bijude where he slept that night. Mme. de Combray did not spare her servants, and distance was not such an obstacle to those people, accustomed to marching and riding, as it is nowadays. This fact will help to explain some of the incidents that are to follow.

On Thursday, July 16th, Lanoe returned to Falaise with a little cart that a peasant of Donnay had lent him, to which he had harnessed his horse and another lent him by Desjardins, one of Mme. de Combray's farmers. The two women got in and started for La Bijude, Lefebre accompanying them to the suburbs. He arranged a meeting with them at Caen two days later, and gave them a little plan he had drawn which would enable them to avoid the more frequented highroad.

Mme. de Combray and her daughter slept that night at La Bijude. The next day was spent in arguing with the Buquets who did not dare to resist the Marquise's commands, and at night they delivered, against their will, two sacks containing 9,000 francs in crowns which she caused to be placed in the cart, which was housed in the barn. It was impossible to take more the first time, and Mme. Acquet rejoiced, hoping that the rest of the sum would remain at her disposal. The Marquise had judged it prudent to send Lanoe away to the fair at Saint-Clair which was held in the open country about a league away, and they only saw him again at the time fixed for their departure on Saturday. He has left an account of the journey, which though evidently written in a bad temper, is rather picturesque.

"I returned from the fair," he says, "towards one o'clock in the afternoon, and while I was harnessing the horses I saw a valise and night bag in the carriage. Colin, the servant at La Bijude, threw two bundles of straw in the carriage for the ladies to sit on, and Mme. de Combray gave me a portmanteau, a package which seemed to contain linen, and an umbrella to put in the carriage. On the road I made the horses trot, but Mme. Acquet told me not to go so fast because they didn't want to arrive at Caen before evening, seeing that they had stolen money in the carriage. I looked at her, but said nothing, but I said to myself: 'This is another of her tricks; if I had known this before we started I would have left them behind; she used deceit to compromise me, not being able to do so openly.' When I reproached her for it some days later she said: 'I suspected that if I had told you of it, you would not have gone.' During the journey the ladies talked together, but the noise of the carriage prevented me from hearing what they said. However, I heard Mme. Acquet say that this money would serve to pay some debts or to give to the unfortunate. I also heard her say that Le Chevalier had great wit, and Mme. de Combray replied that M. d'Ache's wit was keener; that Le Chevalier had perhaps a longer tongue...."

The itinerary arranged by Lefebre, left the main road at Saint-Andre-de-Fontenay near the hamlet of Basse-Allemagne; night was falling when Lanoe's carriage crossed the Orne at the ferry of Athis. From there they went to Bretteville-sur-Odon in order to enter the town as if they had come from Vire or Bayeux. The notary had arrived during the day at Caen, and after having left his horse at the inn at Vaucelles, he crossed the town on foot and went to meet "the treasure" on the Vire road. Just as eight was striking he reached the first houses in Bretteville and was going to turn back, astonished at not meeting the cart when Mme. Acquet called to him from a window. He entered; Mme. de Combray and her daughter had stopped there while Lanoe was having one of the wheels mended. They took some refreshment, rested the horses and set out again at ten o'clock. Lefebre got in with them and when they arrived at Granville he got down and paid the duty on the two bundles of straw that were in the waggon, and then entered the town without further delay.

By the notary's advice they had decided to take the money to Gelin's inn, in the Rue Pavee. Gelin was the son-in-law of Lerouge, called Bornet, whom Le Chevalier sometimes employed, but the waggon was too large to get into the courtyard of the inn; some troops had been passing that day and the house was filled with soldiers. They could not stay there, but had to leave the money there, and while Gelin watched, the Marquise, uneasy at finding herself in such a place, unable to leave the yard because the waggon stopped the door, had to assist in unloading it. Two men were very busy about the waggon, one of them held a dark lantern; Lefebre, Lerouge and even Mme. Acquet pulled the sacks from the straw and threw them into the house by a window on the ground floor. Mme. de Combray seemed to feel her decadence for the first time; she found herself mixed up in one of those expeditions that she had until then represented as chivalrous feats of arms, and these by-ways of brigandage filled her with horror.

"But they are a band of rascals," she said to Lanoe, and she insisted on his taking her away; she was obliged to pass through the inn filled with men drinking. At last, outside, without turning round she went to the Hotel des Trois Marchands, opposite Notre-Dame, where she usually stayed.

Mme. Acquet had no such qualms; she supped with the men, and in the night had a mysterious interview with Allain behind the walls of Notre-Dame. Where Mme. Acquet slept that night is not known; she only appeared at the Hotel des Trois Marchands four days later, where she met Mme. de Combray who had just returned from Bayeux. In her need of comfort the Marquise had tried to see d'Ache and find out if it were true that Allain had acted according to his orders, but d'Ache had assured his old friend that he disapproved of such vile deeds, and that "he was still worthy of her esteem." She had returned to Caen much grieved at having allowed herself to be deceived by her daughter and the lawyer; she told them nothing of her visit to Bayeux, except that she had not seen d'Ache and that he was still in England; then, quite put out, she returned to Falaise in the coach, not wanting to travel with her daughter. Mme. Acquet, the same day,—Thursday the 23d July—took a carriage that ran from Caen to Harcourt and got down at Forge-a-Cambro where Lanoe, who had returned to Donnay on Monday, was waiting, with his waggon.

As soon as she was seated Lanoe informed her that the gendarmes had gone to Donnay and searched the Buquets' house, but left without arresting any one; "a man in a long black coat was conducting them." Mme. Acquet asked several questions, then told Lanoe to whip up the horses and remained silent until they reached La Bijude; he observed her with the corner of his eye, and saw that she was very pale. When they arrived at the village she went immediately to the Buquets and remained a quarter of an hour closeted with Joseph. No doubt she was making a supreme effort to get some money from him; she reappeared with heightened colour and very excited. "Quick, to Falaise," she said. But Lanoe told her he had something to do at home, and that his horse could not be always on the go. But she worried him until he consented to take her.

While the horse was being fed Mme. Acquet went to La Bijude and threw herself on the bed, fully dressed. The day had been very heavy and towards evening lightning flashed brightly. About two in the morning Lanoe knocked on the window and Mme. Acquet appeared, ready to start. She got up behind him, and they took the road by the forest of Saint-Clair and Bonnoeil, and when they were going through the wood the storm burst with extraordinary violence, huge gusts bent the trees, breaking the branches, the rain fell in torrents, changing the road to a river; the horse still advanced however, but towards day, when approaching the village of Noron, Mme. Acquet suddenly felt such violent indisposition that she fell to the ground in a faint. Lanoe laid her on the side of the road in the mud. When she came to herself she begged him to leave her there, and hasten to Falaise and bring back Lefebre; she seemed to be haunted by the thought of the man in the black overcoat who had guided the gendarmes at Donnay. Lanoe, in a great fright, obeyed, but Lefebre could not come before afternoon; at Noron they found Mme. Acquet in an inn to which she had dragged herself. The poor woman was in a fever, and almost raving she told Lefebre that she had no money to give him; that the gendarmes had been to Donnay; that the man who showed them the way was probably one of Allain's companions, but that she feared nothing and was going there to bring back the money.

Lefebre tried to calm her, but when he left after half an hour's talk, she tried Lanoe, begging him to take her back to Donnay; he resisted strongly, not wanting to hear any more of the affair, but at last he softened at her despair, but swore that now he had had enough of it, and would leave her at La Bijude. She agreed to all, climbed on the horse, and taking Lanoe round the waist as before, her dripping garments clinging to her shivering form, she started again for Donnay. When passing Villeneuve, a farm belonging to her brother Bonnoeil she saw a group of women gesticulating excitedly; the farmer Truffault came up and in response to her anxious enquiries, replied:

"A misfortune has taken place; the gendarmes have been to the Buquets, and taken the father, mother and eldest son. Joseph, who hid himself, is alone and very unhappy."

The farmer added that he had just sent his boy to Falaise to inform Mme. de Combray of the event. Mme. Acquet got off her horse, drew Truffault aside and questioned him in a low voice. When she returned to Lanoe she was as white as a wax candle. "I am lost," she said, "Joseph Buquet will denounce me."

Then, with a steady look, speaking to herself: "I could also, in my turn denounce Allain, seeing that he is an outlaw, but where should I say I had met him?" She seemed most uneasy, not knowing what to do. Then she hinted that she must go back to Falaise. But Lanoe was inflexible, he swore he would go no further, and that she could apply to the farmer if she wanted to. And giving his horse the rein he went off at a trot, leaving her surrounded by the peasants, who silently gazed in wondering consternation at the daughter of "their lady" covered with mud, wild-eyed, her arms swinging and her whole appearance so hopeless and forlorn as to awaken pity in the hardest heart.

The same evening the lawyer Lefebre, learned on reaching home, that Mme. de Combray had sent her gardener to ask him to come to her immediately in the Rue du Tripot. But worn out, he threw himself on his bed and slept soundly till some one knocked at his door about one in the morning. It was the gardener again, who was so insistent that Lefebre decided to go with him in spite of fatigue. He found the Marquise wild with anxiety. Truffault's boy had told her of the arrest of the Buquets, and she had not gone to bed, expecting to see the gendarmes appear; her only idea was to fly to Tournebut and hide herself there with her daughter; she begged the lawyer to accompany them, and while excitedly talking, tied a woollen shawl round her head. Lefebre, who was calmer, told her that he had left Mme. Acquet at Noron in a state of exhaustion, that they must wait until she was in a condition to travel before starting, and that it would be impossible to obtain a carriage at this time of night. But Mme. de Combray would listen to nothing; she gave her gardener three crowns to go to Noron and tell Mme. Acquet that she must start immediately for Tournebut by Saint-Sylvain and Lisieux; then traversing the deserted streets with Lefebre, who stopped at his house to get the three thousand francs, from the robbery of June 7th, she reached the Val d'Ante and took the road to Caen.

It was very dark; the storm had ceased but the rain still fell heavily. The old Marquise continued her journey over the flooded roads, defying fatigue and only stopping occasionally to make sure she was not followed. Lefebre, now afraid also, hastened his steps beside her, bending beneath the weight of his portmanteau filled with crowns. Neither spoke. The endless road was the same one taken by the waggon containing the Alencon money on the day of the robbery, and the remembrance of this rendered their wild night march still more tragic.

It was scarcely dawn when the fugitives crossed the wood of Quesnay; at Langannerie they left the highroad and crossed by Bretteville-le-Rabet. It was now broad daylight, barns were opening, and people looked astonished at this strange couple who seemed to have been walking all night; the Marquise especially puzzled them, with her hair clinging to her cheeks, her skirts soaked and her slippers covered with mud. But no one dared question them.

At six in the morning Mme. de Combray and her companion arrived at Saint-Sylvain, five good leagues from Falaise. If Mme. Acquet had succeeded in leaving Noron they ought to meet her there. Lefebre enquired at the inn, but no one had been there. They waited for two hours which the lawyer employed in seeking a waggon to go on to Lisieux. A peasant agreed to take them for fifteen francs paid in advance, and about eight o'clock, as Mme. Acquet had not arrived they decided to start. They stopped at Croissanville a little further on, and while breakfasting, Lefebre wrote to Lanoe telling him to find Mme. Acquet at once and tell her to hasten to her mother at Tournebut.

The rest of the journey was uneventful. They reached Lisieux at supper-time and slept there. The next day Mme. de Combray took two places under an assumed name, in the coach for Evreux, where they arrived in the evening. The fugitives had a refuge in the Rue de l'Union with an old Chouan named Vergne, who had been in orders before the Revolution, but had become a doctor since the pacification. Next day Mme. de Combray and Lefebre made five leagues from Evreux to Louviers; they got out before entering the town as the Marquise wished to avoid the Hotel du Mouton where she was known. They went by side streets to the bridge of the Eure where they hired a carriage which took them by nightfall to the hamlet of Val-Tesson. They were now only a league from Tournebut which they could reach by going through the woods. But would they not find gendarmes there? Mme. de Combray's flight might have aroused suspicion at Falaise, Caen and Bayeux, and brought police supervision to her house. It was nine in the evening when, after an hour's walk, she reached the Hermitage. She thought it prudent to send Lefebre on ahead, and accompanied him to the gate where she left him to venture in alone. All appeared tranquil in the chateau, the lawyer went into the kitchen where he found a scullery maid who called Soyer, the confidential man, and Mme. de Combray only felt safe when she saw the latter himself come to open a door into the garden; she then slipped, without being seen, into her own room.



CHAPTER VI

THE YELLOW HORSE

The man in the "black overcoat" who had conducted the gendarmes on their visit to Donnay, was no other than "Grand-Charles," one of Allain's followers. He had been arrested at Le Chalange on July 14th, and had consented without hesitation, to show the spot in the Buquets' garden where the money had been hidden. He recognised the position of the house and garden, the room in which Allain and his companions had been received on the night of the robbery, and even the glass which Mme. Buquet had filled for him. At the bottom of the garden traces of the excavation that had contained the money were found; the loft contained linen, and other effects of Mme. Acquet; her miniature was hanging on the wall of Joseph's room. Joseph alone had fled; his father, mother, and brother were taken to prison in Caen the same evening.

"Grand-Charles," who did not want to be the only one compromised, showed the greatest zeal in searching for his accomplices. As Querelle had done before, he led Manginot and his thirty gendarmes over all the country, until they reached the village of Mancelliere, which passed as the most famous resort of malcontents in a circuit of twenty leagues. As in the happiest days of the Chouan revolt, there were bloody combats between the gendarmes and the deserters. After one of these engagements Pierre-Francois Harel,—who had passed most of his time since the Quesnay robbery in a barrel sunk in the earth at the bottom of a garden—was arrested in the house of a M. Lebougre, where he had gone to get some brandy and salt to dress a wound. But Manginot made a more important capture in Flierle, who was living peacefully at Amaye-sur-Orne, with one of his old captains, Rouault des Vaux. Flierle told his story as soon as he was interrogated; he knew that "high personages" were in the plot, and thought they would think twice before pushing things to an issue.

If Manginot was thus acting with an energy worthy of praise, he received none from Caffarelli, who was distressed at the turn affairs had taken, and wished that the affair of Quesnay might be reduced to the proportions of a simple incident. He interrogated the prisoners with the reserve and precaution of a man who was interfering in what did not concern him, and if he learned from Flierle much that he would rather not have known about the persistent organisation of the Chouans in Calvados, he could get no information concerning the deed that had led to his arrest.

The German did not conceal his fear of assassination if he should speak, Allain having promised, on June 8th, at the bridge of Landelle, "poison, or pistol shot to the first who should reveal anything, and the assistance of two hundred determined men to save those who showed discretion, from the vengeance of Bonaparte."

Things were different in Paris. The police were working hard, and Fouche was daily informed of the slightest details bearing on the events that were taking place in Lower Normandy. For several weeks detectives had been watching a young man who arrived in Paris the second fortnight of May; he was often seen in the Palais-Royal, and called himself openly "General of the Chouans," and assumed great importance. The next report gave his name as Le Chevalier, from Caen, and more information was demanded of Caffarelli. The Prefect of Calvados replied that the description tallied with that of a man who had often been denounced to him as an incorrigible royalist; he was easy to recognise as he had lost the use of his left arm:

The police received orders not to lose sight of this person. He lived at the Hotel de Beauvais, Rue des Vieux-Augustins, a house that had been known since the Revolution as the resort of royalists passing through Paris. Le Chevalier went out a great deal; he dined in town nearly every night, with people of good position. He was followed for a fortnight; then the order for his arrest was given, and on July 15th he was taken, handcuffed, to the prefecture of police and accused of participation in the robbery at Quesnay.

Le Chevalier was not the man to be caught napping. His looks, his manner and his eloquence had got him out of so many scrapes, that he doubted not they would once more save his life. The letter he wrote to Real on the day of his arrest is so characteristic of him—at once familiar and haughty—that it would be a pity not to quote it:

"Arrested on a suspicion of brigandage, of which it is as important to justify myself as painful to have to do it, but full of confidence in my honour, which is unimpeachable, and in the well-known justice of your character, I beg you to grant me a few minutes' audience, during which—being well disposed to answer your questions, and even to forestall them—I flatter myself that I can convince you that the condition of my affairs and, above all, my whole conduct in life, raise me above any suspicion of brigandage whatever. I hope also, Monsieur, that this conversation, the favour of which your justice will accord me, will convince you that I am not mad enough to engage in political brigandage, or to engage in a struggle with the government to which the proudest sovereigns have yielded....

"A. Le Chevalier."

And to prove that he had taken no part in the robbery of June 7th, he added to his letter twenty affirmations of honourable and well-known persons who had either seen or dined with him in Paris each day of the month from the 1st to the 20th. Among these were the names of his compatriot, the poet Chenedolle, and Dr. Dupuytren whom he had consulted on the advisability of amputating the fingers of his left hand, long useless. He had even taken care to be seen at the Te Deum sung in Notre-Dame for the taking of Dantzig. His precautions had been well taken, and once again his aplomb was about to save him, when Real, much embarrassed by this soft spoken prisoner, thought of sending him to Caen, in the hope that confronting him with Flierle, Grand-Charles and the Buquets might have some result. Caffarelli was convinced that Le Chevalier was the leader in the plot, yet they had searched carefully in his house in the Rue Saint-Sauveur; without finding anything but some private papers. Flierle had recognised him as the man to whom he acted as secretary and courier, yet Le Chevalier had contemptuously replied that "the German was not the sort to be his servant, and that their only connection was that of benefactor and recipient." It was out of the question that any tribunal could be found to condemn a man who on the day of the crime had been sixty leagues from the place where it was committed. As to convicting him as a royalist who approved of the theft of public funds—they might as well do the same with all Normandy. Besides, to Caffarelli, who had no allusions as to the sentiments of the district, and who was always in fear of a new Chouan explosion, the presence of Le Chevalier in prison at Caen was a perpetual nightmare. Allain might suddenly appear with an army, and make an attempt to carry off his chief similar to that which, under the Directory, saved the lives of the Vicomte de Chambray and Chevalier Destouches, to the amusement and delight of the whole province. And this is why the prudent prefect, not caring to encumber himself with such a compromising prisoner, in four days, obtained Real's permission to send him back to Paris, where he was confined in the Temple. Ah! What a fine letter he wrote to the Chief of Police, as soon as he arrived there, and how he posed as the unlucky rival of Napoleon!

This profession of faith is too long to be given entirely, but it throws such light on the character of the writer, and on the illusions which the royalists obstinately fostered during the most brilliant period of the imperial regime, that a few extracts are indispensable.

"You wished to know the truth concerning the declarations of Flierle on my account, and on the projects that he divulged. I will tell you of them. Denial suits well a criminal who fears the eye of justice, but it is foreign to a character that fears nothing and to whom the first success of his enterprises lies in the esteem of his enemies.

* * * * *

"Your Excellency will kindly see in me neither a man trembling at death, nor a mind seduced by the hope of reward. I ask nothing to tell what I think, for in telling it I satisfy myself. I planned an insurrection against Napoleon's government, I desired his ruin, if I have not been able to effect it, it is because I have always been badly seconded and often betrayed.

"What were my means of entertaining at least the hope of success? Not wishing to appear absolutely mad in your eyes, I am going to make them known; but not wishing to betray the confidence of those who would have served me, I shall withhold the details.

* * * * *

"I was born generous, and a lover of glory. After the amnesty of the year VIII I was the richest among my comrades: my money, well dispensed, procured me followers. For several years I watched for a favourable moment to revolt. The last campaign in Austria offered this occasion. Every one in the West believed in the defection of the French armies; I did not believe in it, but was going to profit by the general opinion. Victory came too quickly, and I had hardly time to plan anything.

"After having established connections in several departments, I left for Paris. There, all concurred in fortifying my hopes. Many republicans shared my wishes; I negotiated with them for a reunion of parties, to make action more certain and reaction less strong. The movement must take place in the capital, a provisional government must be established,—all France would have passed through a new regime before the Emperor returned.

"But it did not take me long to discover that the republicans had not all the means they boasted.... I returned to the royalists in the capital; they were disunited and without plans. I had only a few men in Paris; I abandoned my designs there, and returned to the provinces. There I could collect two or three thousand men, and as soon as I had done that I should have sent to ask the Bourbon princes to put themselves at the head of my troops....

"But at the opening of the second campaign my plans were postponed. However, the measures I had been obliged to take could not remain secret. Some refractory conscripts, some deserters, appeared armed, at different places; they had to be maintained, and without an order ad hoc, but by virtue of general instructions, one of my officers possessed himself of the public funds for the purpose.... The guilty ones are ... myself, for whom I ask nothing, not from pride, for the haughtiest spirit need not feel humiliated at receiving grace from one who has granted it to kings, but from honour. Your Excellency will no doubt wish to know the motive that urged me to conceive and nourish such projects. The motive is this: I have seen the unhappiness of the amnestied, and my own misfortune; people proscribed in the state, classed as serfs, excluded not only from all employment, but also tyrannised by those who formerly only lacked the courage to join their cause....

"Whatever fate is reserved for me, I beg you to consider that I have not ceased to be a Frenchman, that I may have succumbed to noble madness, but have not sought cowardly success; and I hope that, in view of this, your Excellency will grant me the only favour I ask for myself—that my trial, if I am to have one, may be military, as well as its execution....

"A. Le Chevalier."

One can imagine the stupefaction, on reading this missive of Fouche, of Real, Desmarets, Veyrat, and of all those on whom it rested to make his people appear to the Master as enthusiastic and contented, or at least silent and submissive. They felt that the letter was not all bragging; they saw in it Georges' plan amplified; the same threat of a descent of Bourbons on the coast, the same assurance of overturning, by a blow at Bonaparte, the immense edifice he had erected. In fact, the belief that the Empire, to which all Europe now seemed subjugated, was at the mercy of a battle won or lost, was so firmly established in the mind of the population, that even a man like Fouche, for example, who thoroughly understood the undercurrents of opinion, could never believe in the solidity of the regime that he worked for. Were not the germs of the whole story of the Restoration in Le Chevalier's profession of faith? Were they not found again, five years later, in the astonishing conception of Malet? Were things very different in 1814? The Emperor vanquished, the defection of the generals, the descent of the princes, the intervention of a provisional government, the reestablishment of the monarchy, such were, in reality the events that followed; they were what Georges had foreseen, what d'Ache had anticipated, what Le Chevalier had divined with such clear-sightedness. Though they seemed miraculous to many people they were simply the logical result of continued effort, the success of a conspiracy in which the actors had frequently been changed, but which had suffered no cessation from the coup d'etat of Brumaire until the abdication at Fontainebleau. The chiefs of the imperial police, then, found themselves confronted by a new "affaire Georges." From Flierle's partial revelations and the little that had been learned from the Buquets, they inferred that d'Ache was at the head of it, and recommended all the authorities to search well, but quietly. In spite of these exhortations, Caffarelli seemed to lose all interest in the plot, which he had finally analysed as "vast but mad," and unworthy of any further attention on his part.

The prefect of the Seine-Inferieure, Savoye-Rollin, had manifested a zeal and ardour each time that Real addressed him on the subject of the affair of Quesnay, in singular contrast with the indifference shown by his colleague of Calvados. Savoye-Rollin belonged to an old parliamentary family. Being advocate-general to the parliament of Grenoble before 1790, he had adopted the more moderate ideas of the Revolution, and had been made a member of the tribunate on the eighteenth Brumaire in 1806, at the age of fifty-two, he replaced Beugnot in the prefecture of Rouen. He was a most worthy functionary, a distinguished worker, and possessor of a fine fortune.

Real left it to Savoye-Rollin to find d'Ache, who, they remembered, had lived at the farm of Saint-Clair near Gournay, before Georges' disembarkation, and who possessed some property in the vicinity of Neufchatel. The police of Rouen was neither better organised nor more numerous than that of Caen, but its chief was a singular personage whose activity made up for the qualities lacking in his men. He was a little, restless, shrewd, clever man, full of imagination and wit, frank with every one and fearing, as he himself said, "neither woman, God nor devil." He was named Licquet, and in 1807 was fifty-three years old. At the time of the Revolution he had been keeper of the rivers and forests of Caudebec, which position he had resigned in 1790 for a post in the municipal administration at Rouen. In the year IV he was chief of the Bureau of Public Instruction, but in reality he alone did all the work of the mayoralty, and also some of that of the Department, and did it so well that he found himself, in 1802, in the post of secretary-in-chief of the municipality. In this capacity he gave and inspected all passports. For five years past no one had been able to travel in the Seine-Inferieure without going through his office. As he had a good memory and his business interested him, he had a very clear recollection of all whom he had scrutinised and passed. He remembered very well having signed the passport that took d'Ache from Gournay to Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1803, and retained a good idea of the robust man, tall, with a high forehead and black hair. He remembered, moreover, that d'Ache's "toe-nails were so grown into his flesh that he walked on them."

Since this meeting with d'Ache, Licquet's appointments had increased considerably; while retaining his place as secretary-general, he had obtained the directorship of police, and fulfilled his functions with so much energy, authority and cunning that no one dreamt of criticising his encroachments. He was, besides, much feared for his bitter tongue, but he pleased the prefect, who liked his wit and appreciated his cleverness. From the beginning Licquet was fascinated by the idea of discovering the elusive conspirator and thus demonstrating his adroitness to the police of Paris; and his satisfaction was profound, when, on the 17th of August, 1807, three days after having arranged a plan of campaign and issued instructions to his subordinates, he was informed that M. d'Ache was confined in the Conciergerie of the Palais de Justice. He rushed to the Palais and ordered the prisoner to be brought before him. It was "Tourlour," d'Ache's inoffensive brother Placide, arrested at Saint Denis-du-Bosguerard, where he had gone to visit his old mother. Licquet's disappointment was cruel, for he had nothing to expect from Tourlour; but to hide his chagrin he questioned him about his brother (whom Placide declared he had not seen for four years) and how he passed his time, which was spent, said Tourlour, when he was not in the Rue Saint-Patrice, between Saint-Denis-du-Bosguerard and Mme. de Combray's chateau near Gaillon. Placide declared that he only desired to live in peace, and to care for his aged and infirm mother. This was the second time Licquet's attention had been attracted by the name of Mme. de Combray. He had already read it, incidentally, in the report of Flierle's examination, and with the instinct of a detective, for whom a single word will often unravel a whole plot, he had a sudden intuition that in it lay the key to the entire affair. Tourlour's imprudent admission, which was to bring terrible catastrophes on Mme. de Combray's head, gave Licquet a thread that was to lead him through the maze that Caffarelli had refused to enter.

Nearly a month earlier, Mme. de Combray had expressly forbidden Soyer to talk about her return with Lefebre. She had shut herself up in her room with Catherine Querey, her chambermaid; the lawyer had shared Bonnoeil's room. Next day, Tuesday, July 28th, the Marquise had shown Lefebre the apartments prepared for the King and the hiding-places in the great chateau; Bonnoeil showed him copies of d'Ache's manifesto, and the Duc d'Enghien's funeral oration, which they read, with deep respect, after dinner. Towards evening Soyer announced the postmaster of Gaillon, a friend who had often rendered valuable services to the people at Tournebut. He had just heard that the commandant had received orders from Paris to search the chateau, and would do so immediately. Mme. de Combray was not at all disturbed; she had long been prepared for this, and ordered Soyer to take some provisions to the little chateau, where she repaired that night with Lefebre. There were two comfortable hiding-places there whose mechanism she explained to the lawyer. One of them was large enough to contain two mattresses side by side; she showed Lefebre in, slipped after him, and shut the panels upon them both. Bonnoeil remained alone at Tournebut. The quiet life he had led for the last two years removed him from any suspicion, and he prepared to receive the gendarmes who appeared at dawn on Friday. The commandant showed his order, and Bonnoeil, confident of the issue, and completely cool, opened all the doors and gave up the keys. The soldiers rummaged the chateau from top to bottom. Nothing could have been more innocent than the appearance of this great mansion, most of whose apartments seemed to have been long unoccupied, and Bonnoeil stated that his mother had gone a fortnight ago to Lower Normandy, where she went every year about this time to collect her rents and visit her property near Falaise. When the servants were interrogated they were all unanimous in declaring that with the exception of Soyer and Mlle. Querey, they had seen the Marquise start for Falaise, and did not know of her return. The commandant returned to Gaillon with his men, little suspecting that the woman he was looking for was calmly playing cards with one of her accomplices a few steps away, while they were searching her house.

She lived with her guest for eight days in this house with the false bottom, so to speak, never appearing outside, wandering through the unfurnished rooms during the day, and returning to her hiding-place at night.

They did not return to Tournebut till August 4th. The same day Soyer received a letter from Mme. Acquet, on the envelope of which she had written, "For Mama." It was an answer to the letter sent to Croissanville by Lefebre. Mme. Acquet said that her mother's departure did her a great wrong, but that all danger was over and Lefebre could return to Falaise without fear. As for herself, she had found refuge with a reliable person; the Abbe Moraud, vicar of Guibray, would take charge of her correspondence. Of the proposal which had been made her to take refuge at Tournebut, not a word. Evidently Mme. Acquet preferred the retreat she had chosen for herself—where, she did not say. Mme. de Combray, either hurt at this unjustifiable defiance, or afraid that she would prove herself an accomplice in the theft if she did not separate herself entirely from Mme. Acquet, made her maid reply that it was "too late for her to come now, that she was very ill and could receive no one." And thus the feeling that divided these two women was clearly defined.

Lefebre undertook to give the letter to Abbe Moraud; he was in a great hurry to return to Falaise, where he felt much safer than at Tournebut. He left the same day, after having chosen a yellow horse from the stables of the chateau. He put on top-boots and an overcoat belonging to Bonnoeil, and left by a little door in the wall of the park. Soyer led him as far as the Moulin des Quatre-Vents on the highroad. Lefebre took the Neubourg road so as to avoid Evreux and Louviers. Two days after, he breakfasted at Glatigny with Lanoe, leaving there his boots, overcoat, and the yellow horse, and started gaily for Falaise, where he arrived in the evening. He saw Mme. Acquet on the 7th, and found her completely at her ease.

When Lanoe had abandoned her at the farm of Villeneuve, twelve days before, Mme. Acquet had entreated so pitifully that a woman who was there had gone to fetch Collin, one of the servants at La Bijude; Mme. de Combray's daughter had returned with him to Falaise, on one of the farmer's horses. She dared not go to the house in the Rue du Tripot, and therefore stopped with an honest woman named Chauvel, who did the washing for the Combray family. She was drawn there by the fact that the son, Victor Chauvel, was one of the gendarmes who had been at Donnay the night before, and she wanted to find out from him if the Buquets had denounced her.

She went to the Chauvels' under pretence of getting Captain Manginot's address. The gendarme was at supper. He was a man of thirty-six, an old hussar, and a good fellow, but although married and the father of three children, known as a "gadder, and fond of the sex." "When women are around, Chauvel forgets everything," his comrades used to say. He now saw Mme. Acquet for the first time, and to her questions replied that her name had indeed been mentioned, and that Manginot, who was at the "Grand-Ture," was looking for her. The young woman began to cry. She implored Mme. Chauvel to keep her, promised to pay her, and appealed to her pity, so that the washerwoman was touched. She had an attic in the third story, some bedding was thrown on the floor, and from that place Mme. Acquet wrote to tell her mother that she had found a safe retreat.

It was very safe indeed, and one can understand that she did not feel the need of telling too precisely the conditions of the hospitality she was given. Is it necessary to insist on the sort of relations established from the moment of her arrival at the Chauvels, between the poor woman whose fear of capture killed every other feeling and the soldier on whom her fate depended? Chauvel had only to say one word to insure her arrest; she yielded to him, he held his tongue and the existence which then began for them both was so miserable and so tragic that it excites more pity than disgust. Mme. Acquet had only one thought—to escape the scaffold; Chauvel had only one wish—to keep this unexpected mistress, more dear because he sacrificed for her his career, his honour and perhaps his life. At first things went calmly enough. No warrant had been issued for the fugitive, and in the evening she used to go out disguised with Chauvel. Soon she grew bolder and walked in broad daylight in the streets of Falaise. On the 15th of August Lefebre had Lanoe to breakfast and invited her also; they talked freely, and Mme. Acquet made no secret of the fact that she was living with the Chauvels and that the son kept her informed of all orders received from Caen or Paris. Lefebre led the conversation round to the "treasure," for the money hidden at the Buquets had excited much cupidity. Bureau de Placene, as "banker" to the Chouans, had advanced the claims of the royal exchequer; Allain and Lerouge the baker—who showed entire disinterestedness—had gone to Donnay, and with great trouble got 1,200 francs from the Buquets; five times Lerouge had gone in a little cart, by appointment, to the forest of Harcourt, where he waited under a large tree near the crossroad till Buquet brought him some money. In this way Placene received 12,000 francs in crowns, "so coated with mud that his wife was obliged to wash them." But Joseph's relations, who had been arrested when he fled, swore that he alone knew where the rest of the money was buried, and no one could get any more of it.

While at breakfast with the lawyer and Lanoe Mme. Acquet begged the latter to undertake a search. She believed the money was buried in the field of buckwheat between the Buquets' house and the walls of the chateau, and wanted Lanoe to dig there, but he refused. She seemed to have lost her head completely. She planned to throw herself at the Emperor's feet imploring his pardon; she talked of recovering the stolen money, returning it to the government, adding to it her "dot," and leaving France forever. When she returned in the evening greatly excited, she told the washerwoman of her plans; she dwelt on the idea for three days, and thought she had only to restore the stolen money to guarantee herself against punishment.

Chauvel was on duty. When he returned on the 19th he brought some news. Caffarelli was to arrive in Falaise the next day, to interrogate Mme. Acquet. The night passed in tears and agony. The poor woman attempted suicide, and Chauvel seized the poison she was about to swallow. An obscure point is reached here. Even if Caffarelli's ease and indifference are admitted, it is hard to believe that he was an active accomplice in the plot; but on the other hand, it is surprising that Mme. Acquet did not fly as soon as she heard of his intended visit, and that she consented to appear before him as if she were sure of finding help and protection. The interview took place in the house of the mayor, M. de Saint-Leonard, a relative of Mme. de Combray's, and resembled a family council rather than an examination. Caffarelli was more paternal than his role of judge warranted, and it was long believed in the family that Mme. de Combray's remote relationship with the Empress Josephine's family, which they had been careful not to boast of before, was drawn upon to soften the susceptible prefect. Whatever the reason, Mme. Acquet left the mayor's completely reassured, told Mme. Chauvel that she was going away, and took many messages from the good woman to Mme. de Combray, with whom she said she was going to spend several days at Tournebut. On the 22d she made a bundle of her belongings, and taking the arm of the gendarme, left the washerwoman's house disguised as a peasant.

Life at Tournebut resumed its usual course after Lefebre's departure. Mme. de Combray, satisfied that her daughter was safe, and that the prefect of Calvados even if he suspected her, would never venture to cause her arrest, went fearlessly among her neighbours. She was not aware that the enquiry had passed from Caffarelli's hands into those of the prefect of Rouen, and was now managed by a man whose malignity and stubbornness would not be easily discouraged.

Licquet had taken a fortnight to study the affair. His only clues were Flierle's ambiguous replies and the Buquets' cautious confessions, but during the years that he had eagerly devoted to detective work as an amateur, he had laid up a good store of suspicions. The failure of the gendarmes at Tournebut had convinced him that this old manor-house, so peaceful of aspect, hid terrible secrets, and that its occupants had arranged within it inaccessible retreats. Then he changed his tactics. Mme. de Combray and Bonnoeil had gone in perfect confidence to spend the afternoon at Gaillon; when they returned to Tournebut in the evening they were suddenly stopped by a detachment of gendarmes posted across the road. They were obliged to give their names; the officer showed a warrant, and they all returned to the chateau, which was occupied by soldiers. The Marquise protested indignantly against the invasion of her house, but was forced to be present at a search that was begun immediately and lasted all the evening. Towards midnight she and her son were put into a carriage with two gendarmes and taken under escort to Rouen, where, at dawn, they were thrown into the Conciergerie of the Palais de Justice.