Licquet was only half satisfied with the result of the expedition; he had hoped to take d'Ache, whom he believed to be hidden at Tournebut; the police had arrested Mme. Levasseur and Jean-Baptiste Caqueray, lately married to Louise d'Ache; but of the conspirator himself there was no trace. For three years this extraordinary man had eluded the police. Was it to be believed that he had lived all this time, buried in some oubliette at Tournebut, and could one expect that Mme. de Combray would reveal the secret of his retreat?

As soon as she arrived at the Conciergerie, Licquet, without showing himself, had gone to "study" his prisoner. Like an old, caged lioness, this woman of sixty-seven behaved with surprising energy; she showed no evidence of depression or shame; she did as she liked in the prison, complained of the food, grumbled all day, and raged at the gaolers. There was no reason to hope that she would belie her character, nor to count on an emotion she did not feel to obtain any information from her. The prefect had her brought in a carriage to his house on August 23d, and interrogated her for two days. With the experience and astuteness of an old offender, the Marquise assumed complete frankness; but she only confessed to things she could not deny with success. Licquet asked several questions; she did not reply until she had caused them to be repeated several times, under pretence that she did not understand them. She struggled desperately, arguing, quibbling, fighting foot by foot. If she admitted knowing d'Ache and having frequently offered him hospitality, she positively denied all knowledge of his actual residence. In short, when Savoye-Rollin and Licquet sent her back to the Conciergerie, they felt that they had had the worst of it and gained nothing. Bonnoeil, when his turn came told them nothing but what they already knew, and Placide d'Ache flew into a rage and denied everything.

The prefect and his acolyte were feeling somewhat abashed at their failure, when the concierge who had taken Mme. de Combray back to the Palais asked to speak to them. He told them that in the carriage the Marquise had offered him a large sum if he would take some letters to one of the prisoners. Accustomed to these requests he had said neither yes nor no, but had told "the Combray woman" that he would see her at night, when going the rounds, and he had come to get the prefect's orders concerning this correspondence. Licquet urged that the concierge be authorised to receive the letters. He hoped by intercepting them to learn much from the confidences and advice the Marquise would give her fellow-prisoners. The idea was at first very repugnant to Savoye-Rollin, but the Marquise's proposal seemed to establish her guilt so thoroughly, that he did not feel obliged to be delicate and consented, not without throwing on his secretary-general (one of Licquet's titles) the responsibility for the proceeding. Having obtained this concession Licquet took hold of the enquiry, and found it a good field for the employment of his particular talents. No duel was ever more pitiless; never did a detective show more ingenuity and duplicity. From "love of the art," from sheer delight in it, Licquet worked himself up against his prisoners with a passion that would be inexplicable, did not his letters reveal the intense joy the struggle gave him. He felt no hatred towards his victims, but only a ferocious satisfaction in seeing them fall into the traps he prepared and in unveiling the mysteries of a plot whose political significance seemed entirely indifferent to him.

With the keenest anticipation he awaited the time when Mme. de Combray's letters to Bonnoeil and "Tourlour" should be handed to him. He had to be patient till next day, and this first letter told nothing; the Marquise gave her accomplices a sketch of her examination, and did it so artfully that Licquet suspected her of having known that the letter was to pass through his hands. The same day the concierge gave him another letter as insignificant as the first, which, however, ended with this sentence, whose perusal puzzled Licquet: "Do you not know that Tourlour's brother has burnt the muslin fichu?"

"Tourlour's brother"—that was d'Ache. Had he recently returned to Tournebut? Was he still there? Another letter, given to the gaoler by Bonnoeil, answered these questions affirmatively. It was addressed to a man of business named Legrand in the Rue Cauchoise, and ran thus: "I implore you to start at once for Tournebut without telling any one of the object of your journey; go to Grosmenil (the little chateau), see the woman Bachelet, and burn everything she may have that seems suspicious; you will do us a great service. Return this letter to me. Tell Soyer that if any one asks if M. d'Ache has returned, it is two years since he was seen at Tournebut."

That same evening the order for Soyer's arrest was sent to Gaillon, and twelve hours later he also was in the Conciergerie at Rouen. This did not prevent Bonnoeil's writing to him the next day, Licquet, as may be imagined, not having informed the prisoners of his arrest.

"I beg you, my dear Soyer, to look in the two or three desks in my mother's room, and see if you cannot find anything that could compromise her, above all any of M. Delorieres' (d'Ache's) writing. Destroy it all. If you are asked how long it is since M. Delorieres was at Tournebut, say he has not been there for nearly two years. Tell this to Collin, to Catin, and to the yard girl...."

Licquet carefully copied these letters and then sent them to their destination, hoping that the answers would give him some light. In his frequent visits to the prisoners he dared not venture on the slightest allusion to the confidences they exchanged, for fear that they might suspect the fidelity of their messenger, and refuse his help. Thus, many points remained obscure to the detective. The next letter from Bonnoeil to Soyer contained this sentence: "Put the small curtains on the window of the place where I told you to bury the nail...." We can imagine Licquet with his head in his hands trying to solve this enigma. The muslin fichu, the little curtains, the nail—was this a cipher decided on in advance between the prisoners? And all these precautions seemed to be taken for the mysterious d'Ache whose safety seemed to be their sole desire. A word from Mme. de Combray to Bonnoeil leaves no doubt as to the conspirator's recent sojourn at Tournebut: "I wish Mme. K.... to go to my house and see with So ... if Delor ... has not left some paper in the oil-cloth of the little room near the room where the cooks slept. Let him look everywhere and burn everything." This time the information seemed so sure that Licquet started for Tournebut, which had been occupied by gendarmes for a fortnight; he took Soyer to guide him, and the commissary of police, Legendre, to make a report of the search.

They arrived at Tournebut on the morning of September 5th. Licquet, who was much exhilarated by this hunt for conspirators, must have felt a singular emotion on approaching the mysterious mansion, object of all his thoughts. He took it all in at a glance, he was struck by the isolation of the chateau, away from the road below the woods; he found that it could be entered at twenty different places, without one's being seen. He sent away the servants, posted a gendarme at each door, and conducted by Soyer, entered the apartments.

First he went to the brick wing built by de Marillac, where was a vast chamber occupied by Bonnoeil and leading to the great hall, astoundingly high and solemn in spite of its dilapidation, with a brick floor, a ceiling with great beams, and immense windows looking over the terrace towards the Seine. By a double door with monumental ironwork, set in a wall as thick as a bastille, Mme. de Combray's apartments were reached, the first room wainscoted, then a boudoir, next a small room hidden by a staircase, and communicating with a lot of other small, low rooms. A long passage, lighted by three windows opening on the terrace, led, leaving the Marquise's bedchamber on the right, to the most ancient part of the chateau the front of which had been recently restored. Having crossed the landing of the steps leading to the garden, one reached the salon; then the dining-room, where there was a stone staircase leading to the first floor. On this were a long passage and three chambers looking out on the valley of the Seine, and a lot of small rooms that were not used. All the rest was lofts, where the framework of the roofs crossed. When a door was opened, frightened bats flapped their wings with a great noise in the darkness of this forest of enormous, worm-eaten beams. In fact, everything looked very simple; there was no sign whatever of a hiding-place. The furniture was opened, the walls sounded, and the panels examined without finding any hollow place. It was now Soyer's turn to appear. Whether he feared for himself, or whether Licquet had made him understand that denial was useless, Mme. de Combray's confidential man consented to guide the detectives. He took a bunch of keys and followed by Licquet and Legendre, went up to a little room under the roof of a narrow building next to Marillac's wing. This room had only one window, on the north, with a bit of green stuff for a curtain; its only furniture was a miserable wooden bed drawn into the middle of the room. Licquet and the commissary examined the partitions and had them sounded. Soyer allowed them to rummage in all the corners, then, when they had given up all idea of finding anything themselves, he went up to the bed, put his hand under the mattress and removed a nail. They immediately heard the fall of a weight behind the wall, which opened, disclosing a chamber large enough to hold fifteen persons. In it were a wooden bench, a large chafing-dish, silver candlesticks, a trunk full of papers and letters, two packets of hair of different colours, and some treatises on games. They seized among other things, the funeral oration of the Duc d'Enghien, copied by Placide, and the passport d'Ache had obtained at Rouen in 1803, which was signed by Licquet. When they had put everything in a bag and closed the partition, when they had sufficiently admired the mechanism which left no crack or opening visible, Soyer, still followed by two policemen, went over the whole chateau, climbed to the loft, and stopped at last in a little room at the end of the building. It was full of soiled linen hung on ropes; a thick beam was fixed almost level with the ground, the whole length of the wall embellished with shelves supported by brackets. Soyer thrust his hand into a small, worm-eaten hole in the beam, and drawing out a piece of iron, fitted it on a nail that seemed to be driven into one of the brackets. Instantly the shelves folded up, a door opened in the wall, and they entered a room large enough to hold fifty people with ease. A window—impossible to discover from the outside—opened on the roof of the chapel, and gave light and air to this apartment; it contained only a large wardrobe, in which were an earthen dish and an altar stone.

And so this old manor-house, with its venerable and homelike air, was arranged as a resort for brigands, and an arsenal and retreat for a little army of conspirators. For Soyer also revealed the secrets of the oubliettes of the little chateau, whose unfurnished rooms could shelter a considerable garrison; they only found there three trunks full of silver, marked with so many different arms that Licquet believed it must have come from the many thefts perpetrated during the last fifteen years in the neighbourhood. On examination it proved to be nothing of the sort, but that all these different pieces of silver bore the arms of branches of the families of Brunelle and Combray; but even though he was obliged to withdraw his first supposition, Licquet was firm in attributing to the owners of Tournebut all the misdeeds that had been committed in the region since the Directory. These perfect hiding-places, this chateau on the banks of the river, in the woods between two roads, like the rocky nests in which the robber-chiefs of the middle ages fortified themselves, explained so well the attacks on the coaches, the bands of brigands who disappeared suddenly, and remained undiscoverable, that the detective gave free rein to his imagination. He persuaded himself that d'Ache was there, buried in some hollow wall of which even Soyer had not the secret, and as the only hope, in this event, was to starve him out, Licquet sent all of Mme. de Combray's servants away, and left a handful of soldiers in the chateau, the keys of which, as well as the administration of the property, he left in the hands of the mayor of Aubevoye.

His first thought on returning to Rouen was for his prisoners. They had continued to correspond during his absence, and copies of all their letters were faithfully delivered to him; but they seemed to have told each other all they had that was interesting to tell, and the correspondence threatened to become monotonous. The imagination of the detective found a way of reawakening the interest. One evening, when every one was asleep in the prison, Licquet gave the gaoler orders to open several doors hastily, to push bolts, and walk about noisily in the corridors, and when, next day, Mme. de Combray enquired the cause of all this hubbub, she was easily induced to believe that Lefebre had been arrested at Falaise and imprisoned during the night. An hour later the concierge, with a great show of secrecy, gave the Marquise a note written by Licquet, in which "Lefebre" informed her of his arrest, and said that he had disguised his writing as an act of prudence. The stratagem was entirely successful. Mme. de Combray answered, and her letter was immediately given to Licquet, who, awaiting some definite information, was astonished to find himself confronted with a fresh mystery. "Let me know," said the Marquise, "how the horse went back; that no one saw it anywhere."

What horse? What answer should he give? If Lefebre had been really in prison, it would have been possible to give a sensible reply, but without his help how could Licquet avoid awakening her suspicions as to the personality of her correspondent? In the role of the lawyer he wrote a few lines, avoiding any mention of the horse, and asking how the examinations went off. To this the Marquise replied: "The prefect and a bad fellow examined us. But you do not tell me if the horse has been sent back, and by whom. If they asked me, what should I say?"

The "bad fellow" was Licquet himself, and he knew it; but this time he must answer. Hoping that chance would favour him, he adopted an expedient to gain time. He let Mme. de Combray hear that Lefebre had fainted during an examination, and was not in a condition to write. But she did not slacken her correspondence, and wrote several letters daily to the lawyer, which greatly increased Licquet's perplexity:

"Tell me what has become of my yellow horse. The police are still at Tournebut; now if they hear about the horse—you can guess the rest. Be smart enough to say that you sold it at the fair at Rouen. Little Licquet is sharp and clever, but he often lies. My only worry is the horse; they will soon have the clue. My hand trembles; can you read this? If I hear anything about the horse I will let you know at once, but just now I know nothing. Don't worry about the saddle and bridle. They were sent to Deslorieres, who told me he had received them."

This yellow horse assumed gigantic proportions in Licquet's imagination; it haunted him day and night, and galloped through all his nightmares. A fresh search at Tournebut proved that the stables contained only a small donkey and four horses, instead of the usual five, and the peasants said that the missing beast was "reddish, inclining to yellow." As the detective sent Real all of Mme. de Combray's letters in his daily budget, they were just as much agitated in Paris over this mysterious animal, whose discovery was, as the Marquise said, the clue to the whole affair. Whom had this horse drawn or carried? One of the Bourbon princes, perhaps? D'Ache? Mme. Acquet, whom they were vainly seeking throughout Normandy? Licquet was obliged to confess to his chiefs that he did not know to what occurrence the story of the horse referred. He felt that the weight attached by Mme. de Combray to its return, increased the importance of knowing what it had been used for. "This is the main point," he said; "the horse, the saddle and bridle must be found."

In the absence of Lefebre, who could have solved the enigma, and whom Caffarelli had not decided to arrest, there remained one way of discovering Mme. de Combray's secret—an odious way, it is true, but one that Licquet, in his bewilderment, did not hesitate to employ. This was to put a spy with her, who would make her speak. There was in the Conciergerie at Rouen a woman named Delaitre, who had been there for six years. This woman was employed in the infirmary; she had good enough manners, expressed herself well, and was about the same age as Mme. Acquet. It was easy to believe that, in return for some remission of her sentence, she would act as Licquet's spy. They spoke of her to the Marquise, taking care to represent her as a royalist, persecuted for her opinions. The Marquise expressed a wish to see her; Delaitre played her part to perfection, saying that she had been educated with Mme. Acquet at the convent of the Nouvelles Catholique, and that she felt honoured in sharing the prison of the mother of her old school friend. In short, that evening she was in a position to betray the Marquise's confidence to Licquet. She had learned that Mme. Acquet had assisted at many of the attacks on coaches, dressed as a man. Mme. de Combray dreaded nothing more than to have her daughter fall into the hands of the police. "If she is taken," she said, "she will accuse me." The Marquise was resigned to her fate; she knew she was destined for the scaffold; "after all, the King and the Queen had perished on the guillotine, and she would die there also." However, she was anxious to know if she could be saved by paying a large sum; but not a word was said about the yellow horse.

The next day she again wrote of the fear she felt for her daughter; she would have liked to warn her to disguise herself and go as a servant ten or twelve leagues from Falaise. "If she is arrested she will speak, and then I am lost," she continued; so that Licquet came to the conclusion that the reason the Marquise did not want the yellow horse to be found was that it would lead to the discovery of her daughter. Mme. Acquet had so successfully disappeared during the last two weeks that Real was convinced she had escaped to England. Nothing could be done without d'Ache or Mme. Acquet. The failure of the pursuit, showing the organised strength of the royalist party and the powerlessness of the government, would justify Caffarelli's indolent neutrality. On the other hand, Licquet knew that failure spelled ruin for him. He had made the affair his business; his prefect, Savoye-Rollin, was very half-hearted about it, and quite ready to stop all proceedings at the slightest hitch. Real was even preparing to sacrifice his subordinate if need be, and to the amiable letters at first received from the ministry of police, succeeded curt orders that implied disfavour. "It is indispensable to find Mme. Acquet's retreat." "You must arrest d'Ache without delay, and above all find the yellow horse."

As if the Marquise were enjoying the confusion into which the mention of this phantom beast threw her persecutor, she continued to scribble on scraps of paper which the concierge was told to take to the lawyer, who never received them.

"There is one great difficulty; the yellow horse is wanted. I shall send a safe and intelligent man to the place where it is, to tell the people to have it killed twelve leagues away and skinned at once. Send me in writing the road he must take, and the people to whom he must apply, so as to be able to do it without asking anything. He is strong and able to do fifteen leagues a day. Send me an answer."

Mme. de Combray had applied to the woman Delaitre for this "safe and intelligent man," and the latter had, at Licquet's instance, offered the services of her husband, an honest royalist, who in reality did not exist, but was to be personated by a man whom Licquet had ready to send in search of the horse as soon as its whereabouts should be determined. Lefebre refused to answer this question for the same reason that he had refused to answer others, and the detective was obliged to confess his perplexity to Real. "There is no longer any trouble in intercepting the prisoner's letters; the difficulty of sending replies increases each day. You must give me absolution, Monsieur, for all the sins that this affair has caused me to commit; for the rest, all is fair in love and war, and surely we are at war with these people." To which Real replied: "I cannot believe that the horse only served for Mme. Acquet's flight; they would not advise the strange precaution of taking it twelve leagues away, killing, and skinning it on the spot. These anxieties show the existence of some grave offence, for which the horse was employed, and which its discovery will disclose. You must find out the history of this animal; how long Mme. de Combray has had it, and who owned it before." In vain Licquet protested that he had exhausted his supply of inventions and ruses; the invariable reply was, "Find the yellow horse!"

He cursed his own zeal; but an unexpected event renewed his confidence and energy. Lefebre, who was arrested early in September, had just been thrown into the Conciergerie at Rouen. This new card, if well played, would set everything right. It was easy to induce Mme. de Combray to write another letter insisting once more on knowing "the exact address of the horse," and the lawyer at last answered unsuspectingly, "With Lanoe at Glatigny, near Bretteville-sur-Dives."

With Lanoe! Why had Licquet never guessed it! This name, indeed, so often mentioned in the declarations of the prisoners, had made no impression on him. Mme. Acquet was hidden there without doubt, and he triumphantly sent off an express to Real announcing the good news, and sent two sharp men to Glatigny at the same time. They left Rouen on September 15th, and time lagged for Licquet while awaiting their return. Three days, five days, ten days passed without any news of them. In his impatience he spent his time worrying Lefebre. A continuous correspondence was established between him and Mme. de Combray; but in his letters, as in his examination, he showed great mistrust, and Licquet even began to fear that the prudent lawyer would not have told where the yellow horse was, if he had not been sure that the hunt for it would be fruitless. And so the detective, who had played his last card, was in an agony during the two weeks' absence of his men. At last they returned, discomfited and weary, leading the foundered yellow horse, and accompanied by a sort of colossus, "somewhat resembling a grenadier," who was no other than Lanoe's wife.

The story told by Licquet's emissaries was as short as it was delusive. On arriving at Bretteville-sur-Dives they had gone to the farm of Glatigny, but had not found Lanoe, whom Caffarelli had arrested a fortnight before. His wife had received them, and after their first enquiry had led them to the famous horse's stable, enchanted at being relieved of the famished beast who consumed all her fodder. The men had gone as far as Caen, and obtained the prefect's authorisation to speak to Lanoe. The latter remembered that Lefebre had left the horse with him at the end of July, on returning from Tournebut, but he denied all knowledge of Mme. Acquet's retreat. If he was to be believed, she was "a prisoner of her family," and would never be found, as the whole country round Falaise was "sold" to the mayor, M. de Saint-Leonard, who had declared himself his cousin's protector.

Lanoe's wife was sent back to Glatigny, but the horse was kept at Rouen—apparently in the hope that this dumb witness would bring some revelation. Licquet even cut off some of its hairs and sent them, carefully wrapped up, to Mme. de Combray, implying that they came from the faithful Delaitre, to whom the Marquise had confided the task of disposing of the compromising animal. The same evening the Marquise, completely reassured, wrote the following note to the lawyer:

"You see that my commissioner was speedy. I have had certain proof. He went to Lanoe's wife, found the horse, got on it, went five or six leagues, killed it, and brought away the skin. He brought me some of its coat, and I send you half, so that you may see the truth for yourself, and so have no fear. I am going to write to Soyer to say that he sold the horse at Guibray for 350 livres."

In her joy at being delivered from her nightmare, she wrote the same day to Colas, her groom, who was also in the Conciergerie: "Do not worry: do you need money? I will send you twelve francs. The cursed horse! They have sent me some of its skin, which I send for recognition. Burn this." And to her chambermaid, Catherine Querey: "The horse is killed. My agent skinned and burnt it. If you are asked about the missing horse, say that it was sold. My miserable daughter gives me a great deal of pain."

Thus ends the story of the yellow horse. It finished its mysterious odyssey in the stables of Savoye-Rollin, where Licquet often visited it, as if he could thus learn its secret. For a doubt remained, and Real's suggestion haunted him: "If the horse had only served for Mme. Acquet's flight, they would not advise the strange precaution of taking it twelve leagues away, killing, and skinning it on the spot." Even now a great deal of mystery hangs about it. The horse had not been used by Mme. Acquet, because we know that since the robbery of June 7th, she had not left the neighbourhood of Falaise. Lefebre had ridden it from Tournebut; but was that a fact to be so carefully concealed? Why did the Marquise in her confidential letters insist on this point? "Say that the lawyer returned to his house on foot," is a sentence that we find in each of her letters. Since no mystery was made of the journey, why was its means of accomplishment important?

There was something unexplained, and Licquet was not satisfied. His tricks had brought no result. D'Ache was not found; Mme. Acquet had disappeared; her description had in vain been sent to all the brigades. Manginot, in despair of finding her, had renounced the search, and Savoye-Rollin himself was "determined to suspend all action." Such was the situation during the last days of September. It seemed most probable that the affair of Quesnay and the great plot of which it was an off-shoot, were going to join many others of the same kind, whose originators Fouche's police had despaired of finding, when an unexpected event reawakened Licquet's fervour and suggested to him a new machination.



CHAPTER VII

MADAME ACQUET

Seclusion, isolation and trouble had in no way softened the Marquise de Combray's harsh nature. From the very first day, this woman, accustomed to living in a chateau, had accommodated herself to the life of a prisoner without abating anything of her haughty and despotic character. Her very illusions remained intact. She imagined that from her cell she still directed her confederates and agents, whom she considered one and all as servants, never suspecting that the permission to write letters, of which she made such bad use, was only a trap set for her ingenuous vanity. In less than a month she had written more than a hundred letters to her fellow-prisoners, which all passed through Licquet's hands. To one she dictated the answers he was to give, to another she counselled silence,—setting herself up to be an absolute judge of what they ought to say or to hold back, being quite unable to imagine that any of these unhappy people might prefer life to the pleasure of obeying her. She would have treated as a liar any one, be he who he might, who affirmed that all her accomplices had deserted her, that Soyer had hastened to disclose the secret hiding-places at Tournebut, that Mlle. Querey had told all about what she had seen, that Lanoe pestered Caffarelli with his incessant revelations, and that Lefebre, whom nothing but prudence kept silent, was very near telling all he knew to save his own head.

The Marquise was ignorant of all these defections. Licquet had created such an artificial atmosphere around her that she lived under the delusion that she was as important as before. Convinced that nobody was her equal in finesse and authority, she considered the detective sufficiently clever to deal with a person of humble position, but believed that as soon as she cared to trouble herself to bring it about, he would become entirely devoted to her. And Licquet, with his almost genial skilfulness, so easily fathomed the Marquise's proud soul—was such a perfect actor in the way he stood before her, spoke to her, and looked at her with an air of submissive admiration,—that it was no wonder she thought he was ready to serve her; and as she was not the sort of woman to use any discretion with a man of his class, she immediately despatched the turnkey to offer him the sum of 12,000 francs, half down, if he would consent to promote her interests. Licquet appeared very grateful, very much honoured, accepted the money, which he put in the coffers of the prefecture, and the very same day read a letter in which Mme. de Combray informed her accomplices of the great news: "We have the little secretary under our thumb."

Ah! what great talks Licquet and the prisoner had, now they had become friends. From the very first conversation he satisfied himself that she did not know Mme. Acquet's hiding-place; but the lawyer Lefebre, who had at last ceased to be dumb, had not concealed the fact that it might be learned through a laundress at Falaise named Mme. Chauvel, and Licquet immediately informed Mme. de Combray of this fact and represented to her, in a friendly manner, the danger in which her daughter's arrest would involve her, and insinuated that the only hope of security lay in the escape to England of Mme. Acquet, "on whose head the government had set a price."

The idea pleased the Marquise; but who would undertake to discover the fugitive and arrange for her embarcation? Whom dared she trust, in her desperate situation? Licquet seemed the very one; he, however, excused himself, saying that a faithful man, carrying a letter from Mme. de Combray, would do as well, and the Marquise never doubted that her daughter would blindly follow her advice—supported by a sufficient sum of money to live abroad while awaiting better days. It remained to find the faithful man. The Marquise only knew of one, who, quite recently, at her request, had consented to go and look for the yellow horse, which he had killed and skinned, and who, she said, had acquitted himself so cleverly of his mission. She was never tired of praising this worthy fellow, who only existed, as every one knew, in her own imagination; she admitted that she did not know him personally, but had corresponded with him through the medium of the woman Delaitre, who had been placed near her; but she knew that he was the woman's husband, captain of a boat at Saint Valery-en-Caux, and, in addition, a relation of poor Raoul Gaillard, whom the Marquise remembered even in her own troubles.

Licquet listened quite seriously while his victim detailed the history of this fictitious person whom he himself had invented; he assured her that the choice was a wise one, for he had known Delaitre for a long time as a man whose loyalty was beyond all doubt. As there could be no question of introducing him into the prison, Licquet kindly undertook to acquaint him with the service expected of him, and to give him the three letters which Mme. de Combray was to write immediately. The first, which was very confidential, was addressed to the good Delaitre himself; the second was to be handed, at the moment of going on board, to Mauge, a lawyer at Valery, who was to provide the necessary money for the fugitive's existence in England; the third accredited Delaitre to Mme. Acquet. The Marquise ordered her daughter to follow the honest Captain, whom she represented as a tried friend; she begged her, in her own interest and that of all their friends, to leave the country without losing a day; and she concluded by saying that in the event of her obeying immediately, she would provide generously for all her wants; then she signed and handed the three letters to Licquet, overwhelming him with protestations of gratitude.

All the detective had to do was to procure a false Delaitre, since the real did not exist. They selected an intelligent man, of suitable bearing, and making out a detailed passport, despatched him to Falaise, armed with the Marquise's letters, to have an interview with the laundress. Five days later he returned to Rouen. The Chauvels, on seeing Mme. de Combray's letters, quite unsuspectingly gave the messenger a warm welcome. The gendarme, however, did not approve of the idea of crossing to England. Mme. Acquet, he said, was very well hidden in Caen, and nobody suspected where she was. What was the use of exposing her to the risk of embarking at a well watched port. But as Delaitre insisted, saying that he had a commission from Mme. de Combray which he must carry out, Chauvel, whose duty kept him at Falaise, arranged to meet the Captain at Caen on the 2d of October. He wished to present him himself to Mme. Acquet, and to help his mistress in this matter on which her future depended. Thus it was that on the 1st of October, Licquet, now sure of success, put the false Captain Delaitre in the coach leaving for Caen, having given him as assistants, a nephew of the same name and a servant, both carefully chosen from amongst the wiliest of his assistants. The next day the three spies got out at the Hotel du Pare in the Faubourg de Vaucelles at Caen, which Chauvel had fixed as the meeting-place, and whither he had promised to bring Mme. Acquet.

Six weeks previously, when quitting Falaise on the 23d August, after the examination to which Caffarelli had subjected her, Mme. Acquet, still ignorant of her mother's arrest, had proposed going to Tournebut, in order to hide there for some time before starting for Paris, where she hoped to find Le Chevalier. She had with her her third daughter, Celine, a child of six years, whom she counted on getting rid of by placing her at the school kept at Rouen by the ladies Dusaussay, where the two elder girls already were. They were accompanied by Chauvel's sister, a woman named Normand.

She went first to Caen where she was to take the diligence, and lodged with Bessin at the Coupe d'Or in the Rue Saint-Pierre. Chauvel came there the following day to say good-bye to his friend and they dined together. While they were at table, a man, whom the gendarme did not know, entered the room and said a few words to Mme. Acquet, who went into the adjoining room with him. It was Lemarchand, the innkeeper at Louvigny, Allain's host and friend. Chauvel grew anxious at this private conversation, and seeing the time of the diligence was approaching, opened the door and warned Mme. Acquet that she must get ready to start. To his great surprise, she replied that she was no longer going, as important interests detained her in Caen. She begged him to escort the woman Normand and the little girl to the coach, and gave him the address of a lawyer in Rouen with whom the child could be left. The gendarme obeyed, and when he went back to the Coupe d'Or an hour later, his mistress had left. He returned sadly to Falaise.

Lemarchand, who had been informed of Mme. Acquet's journey, came to tell her, from Allain, that "a lodging had been found for her where she would be secure, and that, if she did not wish to go, she had only to come to the Promenade Saint-Julien at nightfall, and some one would meet her and escort her to her new hiding-place." It may well be that a threat of denouncing her, if she left the country, was added to this obliging offer. At any rate she was made to defer her journey. Towards ten o'clock at night, according to Lemarchand's advice, she reached the Promenade Saint-Julien alone, walked up and down under the trees for some time, and seeing two men seated on a bench, she went and sat down beside them. At first they eyed each other without saying a word; at last, one of the strangers asked her if she were not waiting for some one. Upon her answering in the affirmative they conferred for a moment, and then gave their names. They were the lawyer Vannier and Bureau de Placene, two intimate friends of Le Chevalier's. Mme. Acquet, in her turn, mentioned her name, and Vannier offering her his arm, escorted her to his house in the Rue Saint-Martin.

They held a council next day at breakfast. Lemarchand, Vannier, and Bureau de Placene appeared very anxious to keep Mme. Acquet. She was, they said, sure of not being punished as long as she did not quit the department of Calvados. Neither the prefect nor the magistrates would trouble to enquire into the affair, and all the gentry of Lower Normandy had declared for the family of Combray, which was, moreover, connected with all the nobility in the district. Such were the ostensible reasons which the three confederates put forth, their real reason was only a question of money. They imagined that Mme. Acquet had the free disposal of the treasure buried at the Buquets, which amounted to more than 40,000 francs. Finding her ready to rejoin Le Chevalier, and persuaded that she would carry the remainder of this stolen money to her lover, they thought it well to stop her and the money, to which they believed they had a right—Lemarchand as Allain's friend and creditor, Placene in his capacity of cashier to the Chouans. The lawyer Vannier, as liquidator of Le Chevalier's debts, had offered to keep Mme. Acquet prisoner until they had succeeded in extorting the whole sum from her.

The life led by the unhappy woman at Vannier's, where she was a prey to this trio of scoundrels, was a purgatory of humiliations and misery. When the lawyer understood that not only did his prisoner not possess a single sou, but that she could not dispose of the Buquets' treasure, he flew into a violent passion and plainly threatened to give her up to the police; he even reproached her "for what she eat," swearing that somehow or other "he would make her pay board, for he certainly was not going to feed her free of cost." The unhappy woman, who had spent her last louis in paying for the seat in the Rouen diligence, which she had not occupied, wrote to Lefebre early in September, begging him to send her a little money. He had received a large share of the plunder and might at least have shown himself generous; but he replied coolly that he could do nothing for her; and that she had better apply to Joseph Buquet.

This was exactly what they wished her to do. Vannier himself brutally advised her to try going to Donnay, even at the risk of being arrested, in order to bring back some money from there; and Lemarchand, rather than lose sight of her, resolved to accompany her.

Mme. Acquet, worn out and reduced to a state of subjection, consented to everything that was demanded of her. Dressed as a beggar, she took the road to Donnay where formerly she had ruled as sovereign mistress; she saw again the long avenues at the end of which the facade of the chateau, imposing still despite its decay, commanded a view of the three terraces of the park; she walked along by the walls to reach the Buquets' cottage where Joseph, who was hiding in the neighbouring woods, occasionally returned to watch over his treasure. She surprised him there on this particular day, and implored him to come to her assistance but the peasant was inflexible; she obtained, however, the sum of one hundred and fifty francs, which he counted out to her in twelve-sou pieces and copper money. On the evening of her return to Caen Mme. Acquet faithfully made over the money to Vannier, reserving only fifteen francs for her trouble; moreover, she was obliged to submit to her host's obscene allusions as to the means she had employed to extort this ridiculous sum from Buquet. She bore everything unmoved; her indifference resembled stupefaction; she no longer appeared conscious of the horrors of her situation or the dangers to which she was exposed. Her happiest days were spent in walks round the town with Chauvel with whom she arranged meetings and who used to come from Falaise to pass a few hours with her; they went to a neighbouring village, dined there, and returned to the town at dusk.

Allain, too, showed some interest in her. He was hiding in the neighbourhood of Caen, and sometimes came in the evening to confer with Vannier in company with Bureau de Placene and a lawyer named Robert Langelley with whom her host had business dealings. They were all equally needed, and spent their time in planning means to make Joseph Buquet disgorge. Allain proposed only one plan, and it was adopted. Mme. Acquet was to go to Donnay again and try to soften the peasant; if he refused to show where the money was hidden, Allain was to spring on him and strangle him.

They set out from Caen one morning, about the 25th of September. Mme. Acquet had arranged to meet Joseph at the house of a farmer named Halbout, which was situated at some distance from the village of Donnay. He came at the appointed hour; but as he was approaching carefully, fearing an ambuscade, he caught sight of Allain hiding behind a hedge, and taking fright made off as fast as his legs could carry him.

They had to go back to Caen empty-handed and face the anger of Vannier, who accused his lodger of complicity with the Buquets to make their attempts miscarry. A fresh council was held, and this time Chauvel was admitted; he too, had a plan. This was that he and Mallet, one of his comrades, should go to Donnay in uniform; Langelley was to play the part of commissary of police. "They were to arrest Buquet on the part of the government; if he consented to say where the money was, he was to be given his liberty, and the address of a safe hiding-place; in case of his refusing, the police were to kill him, and they would then be free to draw up a report of contumacy."

The Marquise de Combray's daughter was present at these conferences, meek and resigned, her heart heavy at the thought that this wretched money would become the prey of these men who had had none of the trouble and who would have all the profit. Every day she sank deeper and deeper into this quagmire; the plots that were hatched there, the things she heard—for they showed no reserve before her—were horrible. As she represented 40,000 francs to these ruffians, she had to endure not only their brutal gallantries, but also their confidences. "Mme. Placene one day suggested the enforced disappearance of the baker Lerouge," says Bornet, as he was "very religious and a very good man," she was afraid that if he were arrested, "he would not consent to lie, and would ruin them all." Langelley specially feared the garrulity of Flierle and Lanoe, in prison at Caen, and he was trying to get them poisoned. He had already made an arrangement "with the chemist and the prison doctor, whom he had under his thumb," and he also knew a man who "for a small sum, would create a disturbance in the town, allow himself to be arrested and condemned to a few months' imprisonment, and would thus find a way of getting rid of these individuals." They also spoke of Acquet, who was still in jail at Caen. In everybody's opinion Mme. Vannier was his mistress, and went to see him every day in his cell. He was supposed to be a government spy, and Placene pretended that Vannier received money from him to keep him informed of Mme. Acquet's doings. Langelley, for his part, said that Placene was a rogue and that if "he had already got his share of the plunder, he received at least as much again from the police."

The poor woman who formed the pivot of these intrigues was not spared by her unworthy accomplices. Having in mind Joseph Buquet and Chauvel, they all suspected one another of having been her lovers. Vannier had thus made her pay for her hospitality; Langelley and the gendarme Mallet himself, had exacted the same price—accusations it was as impossible as it was useless to refute. She herself well knew her own abasement, and at times disgust seized her. On the evening of September 27th, she did not return to Vannier's; escaping from this hell, she craved shelter from a lacemaker named Adelaide Monderard, who lodged in the Rue du Han, and who was Langelley's mistress. The girl consented to take her in and gave her up one of the two rooms which formed her lodgings, and which were reached by a very dark staircase. It was a poor room under the roof, lighted by two small casements, the furniture being of the shabbiest. Chauvel came to see her there the following day, and there it was that she learnt of the expected arrival of Captain Delaitre, sent by Mme. de Combray to save her, and secure her the means of going to England. Mme. Acquet manifested neither regret nor joy. She was astonished that her mother should think of her; but it seems that she did not attach great importance to this incident, which was to decide her fate. A single idea possessed her: how to find a retreat which would allow of her escaping from Vannier's hateful guardianship; and Langelley, who was very surprised at finding her at the lacemaker's, seeing her perplexity offered to escort her to a country house, about a league from the town, where his father lived. She set out with him that very evening; at the same hour the false Captain Delaitre left Rouen, and the ruse so cleverly planned by Licquet, put an end to Mme. Acquet's lamentable adventures.

Arriving at the Hotel du Pare on October 2d, "Captain" Delaitre went to the window of his room and saw a man hurrying down the street with a very small woman on his arm, very poorly dressed. From his walk he recognised Chauvel dressed as a bourgeois; the woman was Mme. Acquet. The two men bowed, and Chauvel leaving his companion, went up to the Captain's room. "There were compliments, handshakes, the utmost confidence, as is usual between a soldier and a sailor." Chauvel explained that he had walked from Falaise that afternoon, and that in order to get off, he had pretended to his chiefs that private business took him to Bayonne. The false Delaitre immediately handed him Mme. de Combray's two letters which Chauvel read absently.

"Let us go down," he said; "the lady is near and awaits us."

They met her a few steps farther down the road in company with Langelley, whom Chauvel introduced to Delaitre. The latter immediately offered his arm to Mme. Acquet: Chauvel, Langelley and the "nephew Delaitre" followed at some distance. They passed the bridge and walked along by the river under the trees of the great promenade, talking all the time. It was now quite dark.

Captain Delaitre "after having given Mme. Acquet her mother's compliments, informed her of the latter's intentions concerning her going to England or the isles." But the young woman flatly rejected the proposal; she was, she said, "quite safe with her friend's father, within reach of all her relations, and she would never consent to leave Caen, where she had numerous and devoted protectors." The Captain objected that this determination was all the more to be regretted since "the powerful personage who was interesting himself in the fate of his own people, demanded that she should have quitted France, before he began to seek Mme. de Combray's release." To which Mme. Acquet replied that she should never alter her decision.

The discussion lasted about half an hour. The Captain having mentioned a letter of Mme. de Combray's of which he was the bearer, Mme. Acquet turned to Langelley and asked him to escort her to an inn, where she might read it. They crossed the bridge following Langelley up the Rue de Vaucelles, and stopped at an inn situated about a hundred yards above the Hotel du Pare. Mme. Acquet and her companions entered the narrow passage and went up-stairs to a room on the first floor, where they seated themselves at a table, and Langelley ordered wine and biscuits. The young woman took the Marquise's letter from the Captain's hands; all those around her were silent and watched attentively. They noticed that "she changed colour at every line and sighed."

"When do you start?" she asked Delaitre, wiping her eyes.

"Very early to-morrow," he replied.

She heaved another great sigh and began to read again. She became very nervous, and seemed about to faint. When she had finished the letter, she questioned Delaitre anew.

"You know for certain, sir, what this letter contains?"

"Yes, Madame; your mother read it to me."

She was silent for "more than two minutes"; then she said as if she were making a great effort:

"One must obey one's mother's orders. Well, Monsieur, I will go with you. Will you not wait till to-morrow evening?"

Captain Delaitre at first demurred at the idea of deferring his journey; but at last their departure was fixed for the following day, October 3d, at nightfall. A heated discussion ensued. Langelley noticed that Vannier, Allain, Placene and the others did not approve of Mme. Acquet's decision. They were all certain that she ran not the slightest risk by remaining in Caen, inasmuch as there would never be a judge to prosecute nor a tribunal to condemn her. Delaitre replied that it was precisely to guard against the indulgence of the Calvados authorities, that an imperial decree had laid the affair before the special court at Rouen; but the lawyer who could not see his last chance of laying hands on the Buquets' treasure disappear without feeling some annoyance, replied that nothing must be decided without the advice of their friends. The young woman ended the discussion by declaring that she was going "because it was her mother's wish."

"Are you sure," asked Chauvel, "that that really is your mother's writing?"

She answered yes, and the gendarme said that in his opinion she was right to obey.

They then settled the details of the departure. Langelley offered to conduct the travellers to the borders of the department of Calvados, which Delaitre knew very slightly. Mme. Acquet was to take no luggage. Her clothes were to be forwarded to her, care of the Captain, at the Rouen office. The conversation took a "tone of the sincerest friendship and the greatest confidence." When the hour for separating came, Mme. Acquet pressed the Captain's hand several times, saying, "Till to-morrow, then, Monsieur." And as she went down the stairs Chauvel remained behind with Delaitre, to make sure that the latter had brought money to pay the small debts which the fugitive had incurred with the tradesmen.

Towards eleven on the following morning Chauvel presented himself at the inn alone. He went up at once to Delaitre's room who asked him to lunch and sent his nephew out to get oysters. Chauvel had come to beg Delaitre to put off his journey another day, as Mme. Acquet could not start before Sunday, the 4th. While they were at lunch Chauvel became quite confidential. He could not see his friend go away without regret; he alone, he said, had served her from pure devotion. He told how, in order to put off his comrades, who had been charged by Manginot to draw up a description of the fugitive, he had intentionally made it out incorrectly, describing her "as being very stout and having fair hair." He talked of d'Ache whom he considered a brigand and "the sole cause of all the misfortunes which had happened to Mme. de Combray and her family." Finally he inquired if the Captain would consent to take Buquet and Allain to England as they were in fact two of the principal actors in the affair, and the Captain consented very willingly. It was agreed that as soon as he had landed Mme. Acquet in England, he should return to Saint-Valery which was his port. All Allain and Buquet had to do, was to go to Privost, the innkeeper, opposite the post at Cany on Wednesday, the 14th, and he would meet them and take them on board.

During luncheon Delaitre, who was obviously a messenger of Providence, counted out 400 francs in gold on the table, and gave them to Chauvel to pay his mistress's debts.

Vannier had claimed six louis for the hospitality he had shown her, alleging that "this sort of lodger ought to pay more than the others on account of the risk;" he further demanded that the cost of twenty masses, which Mme. Acquet had had said, should be refunded to him. Chauvel spent part of the Sunday with Delaitre; the meeting was fixed for seven in the evening. The Captain was to wait at the door of his inn and follow Mme. Acquet when he saw her pass with the gendarme. She only appeared at ten at night, and they walked separately as far as Vaucelles. Langelley kept them waiting, but he arrived at last on a borrowed horse; the Captain had got a post-horse; as for the nephew, Delaitre, and the servant, they had gone back the evening before to Rouen.

The time had come to say good-bye. Mme. Acquet embraced Chauvel who parted from her "in the tenderest manner, enjoining Delaitre to take the greatest care of the precious object confided to him." Langelley, armed with a club for a riding whip, placed himself at the head of the cavalcade, Delaitre warmly wrapping Mme. Acquet in his cloak, took her up behind him, and with renewed good wishes, warm handshakes, and sad "au revoirs" the horsemen set off at a trot on the road to Dives. Chauvel saw them disappear in the mist, but he waited at the deserted crossroads as long as he could hear the clatter of their horses' hoofs on the road.

They arrived at Dives about three in the morning. The young woman, who had seemed very lively, protested that she was not tired, and refused to get off. Therefore Langelley alone entered the post-house, woke up the guide he had engaged the day before, and they continued their journey. The day was breaking when they arrived at Annebault; the three travelers halted at an inn where they spent the whole day; the lawyer and Mme. Acquet settled their little accounts. They slept a little, they talked a great deal, and spent a long time over dinner. At six in the evening they mounted their horses again and took the road to Pont-l'Eveque. Langelley escorted the fugitives as far as the forest of Touques: before leaving Mme. Acquet, he asked her for a lock of her hair; he then embraced her several times.

It was nearly midnight when the young woman found herself alone with Delaitre. The horse advanced with difficulty along the forest roads. Clinging to the Captain with both arms, Mme. Acquet no longer talked; her excitement of yesterday had given place to a kind of stupor, so that Delaitre, who in the darkness could not see that her great dark eyes were open, thought that she had fallen asleep on his shoulder. At three in the morning they at length arrived at the suburbs of Pont-Audemer; the Captain stopped at the post-house and asked for a room; in the register which was presented to him he wrote: "Monsieur Delaitre and wife."

They were breakfasting towards noon when a non-commissioned marine officer, accompanied by an escort of two men, entered the room. He went straight up to Delaitre, asked his name, and observing his agitation, called upon him to show his papers. These he took possession of after a brief examination, and then ordered the soldiers to put Delaitre under arrest.

The officer, an amiable and talkative little man, continually excused himself to Mme. Acquet for the annoyance he was causing her. Captain Delaitre, he said, had left his ship without any authority, and it had been pointed out, moreover, that he had willingly engaged in smuggling while pretending to be trading along the coast. He did not commit the indiscretion of inquiring the lady's name, nor what reason she had for scouring the country in company of a ship's captain; but he carefully gave her to understand that she must be detained until they got to Rouen, whither Delaitre would be escorted to receive a reprimand from the commandant of the port. Mme. Acquet was convinced that it was nothing but a misunderstanding which would be cleared up at Rouen, and troubled very little about the incident; and as she was worn out with fatigue, she expressed a wish to spend that night and the following day at Pont-Audemer. The little officer consented with alacrity, and whilst appearing only to keep an eye on Delaitre, he never for an instant lost sight of the young woman, whose attitudes, gestures and appearance he scrutinised with malicious eyes. It was Licquet, as we have already guessed, who in his haste to know the result of the false Delaitre's adventures, had dressed himself up in a borrowed uniform and come to receive his new victim. He was full of forethought for her; he took her in a carriage from Pont-Audemer to Bourg-Achard, where he allowed her to rest. On the morning of the seventh they left Bourg-Achard and arrived at Rouen before midday. The kindly officer was so persuasive that Mme. Acquet offered no resistance nor recriminations when she was taken to the Conciergerie, where she was entered under the name of Rosalie Bourdon, doubtless the one under which she had travelled. She appeared quite indifferent to all that went on around her. On entering this prison, where she knew her mother was, she showed absolutely no emotion. She remained in this state of resigned lassitude for two days. Licquet, who came to see her several times, endeavoured to keep her under the impression that her imprisonment had no other cause than Delaitre's infringement of the maritime regulations; he even took the precaution of pretending not to know her name.

Meanwhile, he laid his plans for attack. At first his joy, at capturing the much desired prey had been so keen that he could not withstand the pleasure of writing the news straight to Real whom he asked to keep it secret for a fortnight. On reflexion he realised how difficult it would be to obtain confessions from a woman who had been so hideously deceived, and he felt that the traps, into which the naive Mme. de Combray had fallen would be of no avail in her daughter's case. He had better ones: on his person he carried the letter which Mme. de Combray had written to her dear Delaitre, which he had taken from the Captain in Mme. Acquet's very presence. In this letter, the Marquise had spoken of her daughter as "the vilest of creatures, lamenting that for her own safety she was obliged to come to the assistance of such a monster; she especially complained of the amount of money it was costing her."

On the 9th of October, Licquet came into Mme. Acquet's cell, began to converse familiarly with her, told her that he knew her name and showed her Mme. de Combray's letter. On reading it Mme. Acquet flew into a violent passion. Licquet comforted her, gave her to understand that he was her only friend, that her mother hated her and had only helped her in the hope of saving her own life; that the lawyer Lefebre had sold himself to the police on giving the Chauvels' address at Falaise, in proof of which he showed her the note written by the lawyer's own hand. He even went so far as to allude to certain infidelities on the part of Le Chevalier, and to the mistresses he must have had in Paris, till at last the unhappy woman burst into tears of indignation and grief.

"Enough," she said; "it is my turn now; you must receive my declaration immediately, and take it at once to the prefect. I will confess everything. My life is a burden to me."

She immediately told the long story of d'Ache's plans, his journeys to England, the organisation of the plot, the attempt to print the Prince's manifesto, and also how he had beguiled Le Chevalier and had succeeded in drawing him into it, by promises of high rank and great honours. She said, too, that d'Ache whom she accused of having caused all the unhappiness of her life, had recommended robbing the public treasury; that the attacks on the coaches had been carried out by his orders, which had been "to stop them all." She accused her mother of helping to transport the booty to Caen; herself she accused of having sheltered the brigands. The only ones she excused were Joseph Buquet, who had only carried out her instructions, and Le Chevalier whom she represented as beguiled by d'Ache's misleading promises. Her "frantic passion" was apparent in every word she uttered: she even told Licquet that "if she could save Le Chevalier's life at the cost of her own she would not hesitate."

When she had finished her long declaration, she fell into a state of deep depression. On entering the prison next day, Licquet found her engaged in cutting off her magnificent hair, which, she said sadly, she wished to save from the executioner. She observed that since she was miserably destined to die, Chauvel, who called himself her friend, had done very wrong in preventing her from taking poison: all would have been over by now. But she hoped that grief would kill her before they had time to condemn her.

As she said these words she turned her beautiful piercing eyes to a dark corner of her cell. Licquet, following her gaze, saw a very prominent nail sticking in the wall at a height of about six feet. Without letting her see his anxiety, he tried to direct the prisoner's attention to other objects, and succeeded in working her up to a state of "wild gaiety."

That very day the nail was taken out, but there still remained the bolts of the door and the bed-posts, to which, being of such low stature, she could hang herself; a woman from Bicetre was therefore set to watch her.

It would be impossible to follow Licquet through all the phases of the inquiry. This diabolical man seems to have possessed the gift of ubiquity. He was in the prison where he worked upon the prisoners; at the prefecture directing the examinations; at Caen, making inquiries under the very nose of Caffarelli, who believed that the affair had long since been buried; at Falaise, where he was collecting testimony; at Honfleur, at Pont-Audemer, at Paris. He drew up innumerable reports, and sent them to the prefect or to Real, with whom he corresponded directly, and when he was asked what reward he was ambitious of obtaining for his devoted service to the State, he replied philosophically: "I do not work for my own glory, but only for that of the police generally, and of our dear Councillor, whom I love with all my heart. As for me, poor devil, I am destined to remain obscure, which, I must say, pleases me, since I recognise the inconvenience of having a reputation."

* * * * *

One of the most picturesque events of his enquiry was another journey taken towards the end of October by the false Captain Delaitre and his false nephew in search of Allain and Buquet, whom they had not found on the day mentioned at the inn at Cany. At Caen Delaitre saw again the lawyer Langelley, the Placenes and Monderard's daughter, and they entertained him. He gave them very good news of Mme. Acquet, who, he said, was comfortably settled at a place on the English coast; but although he had a very important letter for Allain, which Mme. de Combray wished him to take to England without delay, the wily Chouan did not show himself. His daughter, who had set up as a dressmaker at Caen and was in communication with Mme. Placene, undertook, however, to forward the letter to him. The Captain announced his intention of following the girl in the hope of discovering her father's retreat, but Langelley and the others assured him that it would be a waste of time. The young girl alone knew where the outlaw was hidden and "each time she went to take him news, she disguised herself, entered a house, disguised herself afresh before leaving, went into another house, changed her costume yet again, and so on. It was impossible to be sure when she came out of each house that it was the same person who had gone in, and to know in which her father was." Two days later the girl reappeared. She said that her father had gone to his own home near Cherbourg, where "he had property." He wanted to sell his furniture and lease his land before going to England. This was the other side of the terrible "General Antonio." He was a good father and a small landed proprietor. Delaitre realised that this was a defeat, and that Allain was not easily to be beguiled. He did not persist, but packed up his traps and returned to Rouen.

This check was all the more painful to Licquet, since he had hoped that by attracting Allain, d'Ache would also be ensnared. Without the latter, who was evidently the head of the conspiracy, only the inferiors could be arraigned, and the part of the principal criminal would have to be passed over in silence, in consequence of which the affair would sink to the proportions of common highway robbery. Stimulated by these motives, and still more so by his amour-propre, Licquet set out for Caen. His joy in action was so keen that it pervades all his reports. He describes himself as taking the coach with Delaitre, his nephew and "two or three active henchmen." He is so sure of success that he discounts it in advance: "I do not know," he writes to Real, "whether I am flattering myself too much, but I am tempted to hope that the author will be called for at the end of the play."

It is to be regretted that we have no details of this expedition. In what costume did Licquet appear at Caen? What personality did he assume? How did he carry out his manoeuvres between Mme. Acquet's friends, his confederate Delaitre and the Prefect Caffarelli, without arousing any one's suspicion or wounding their susceptibilities? It is impossible to disentangle this affair; he was an adept at troubling water that he might safely fish in it, and seemed jealous to such a degree of the means he employed, that he would not divulge the secret to any one. With an instinctive love of mystification, he kept up during his journey an official correspondence with his prefect and a private one with Real. He told one what he would not confess to the other; he wrote to Savoye-Rollin that he was in a hurry to return to Rouen, while by the same post he asked Real to get him recalled to Paris during the next twenty-four hours. "If you adopt this idea, Monsieur, you must be kind enough to select a pretext which will not wound or even scratch any one's amour-propre." The "any one" mentioned here is Savoye-Rollin. What secret had Licquet discovered, that he did not dare to confide, except orally, and then only to the Imperial Chief of Police? We believe that we are not wrong in premising that scarcely had he arrived at Caen when he laid hands on a witness so important, and at the same time so difficult to manipulate, that he was himself frightened at this unexpected coup de theatre.

Whilst ferreting about in the prisons to which he had obtained access that he might talk to Lanoe and the Buquets, he met Acquet de Ferolles, who had been forgotten there for three months. Whether Mme. de Placene was, as Vannier suspected, employed by the police and knew Licquet's real personality, or whether the latter found another intermediary, it is certain that he obtained Acquet de Ferolles' confidence from the beginning, and that he got the credit of having him set at liberty. It was after this interview that Licquet asked Real to recall him to Paris for twenty-four hours. His journey took place in the early days of November, and on the 12th, on an order from Real Acquet was rearrested and taken in a post-chaise from Donnay to Paris, escorted by a sergeant of police. On the 16th he was entered in the Temple gaol-book, and Real, who hastened to interrogate him, showed him great consideration, and promised that his detention should not be long. A note, which is still to be found among the papers connected with this affair, seems to indicate that this incarceration was not of a nature to cause great alarm to the Lord of Donnay: "M. Acquet has been taken to Paris that he may not interfere with the proceedings against his wife.... It is known that he is unacquainted with his wife's offence, but M. Real believes it necessary to keep him at a distance." That was not the tone in which the police of that period usually spoke of their ordinary prisoners, and it seems advisable to call attention to the fact. Let us add that the royalists detained in the Temple were not taken in by it. M. de Revoire, an old habitue of the prison, who spent the whole of the Imperial period in captivity told the Combray family after the Restoration, that all the prisoners considered Acquet "as a spy, an informer, the whole time he was in the Temple." After a week's imprisonment and three weeks' surveillance in Paris, he was set at liberty and returned to Donnay.

From the comparison of these facts and dates, is one not led to infer that Licquet had persuaded Acquet without much difficulty we may be sure, to become his wife's accuser? But the desire not to compromise himself, and still more the dread of reprisals, shut the mouth of the unworthy husband at Caen, eager though he was to speak in Paris, provided that no one should suspect the part he was playing; hence this sham imprisonment in the Temple—evidently Licquet's idea—which gave him time to make revelations to Real.

Whatever it may have been, this incident interrupted Licquet's journey to Caen. He continued it towards the middle of November, quitting Rouen on the 18th, still accompanied by Delaitre and others of his cleverest men. This time he represented himself as an inspector of taxes, which gave him the right of entering houses and visiting even the cellars. His aim was to unearth Allain, Buquet and especially d'Ache, but none of them appeared. We cannot deal with this third journey in detail, as Licquet has kept the threads of the play secret, but from half-confidences made to Real, we may infer that he bought the concurrence of Langelley and Chauvel on formal promises of immunity from punishment; they consented to serve the detective and betray Allain, and they were on the point of delivering him up when "fear of the Gendarme Mallet caused everything to fail." Licquet fell back with his troop, taking with him Chauvel, Mallet and Langelley, who were soon to be followed by Lanoe, Vannier, Placene and all the Buquets, save Joseph, who had not been seen again. But before starting on his return journey to Rouen, Licquet wished to pay his respects to Count Caffarelli, the Prefect of Calvados, in whose territory he had just been hunting. The latter did not conceal his displeasure, and thought it strange that his own gendarmes should be ordered to proceed with criminal cases and to make arrests of which they neglected even to inform him. Licquet states that after "looking black at him, Caffarelli laughed till he cried" over the stories of the false Captain Delaitre and the false inspector of taxes. It is probable that the story was well told; but the Prefect of Calvados was none the less annoyed at the unceremonious procedure, as he testified a little later with some blustering. Licquet, moreover, was not deceived: on his return from Caen, he wrote: "Behold, I have quarrelled with the Prefect of Calvados."

However, he cared very little about it. It had been tacitly decreed that the robbery at Quesnay should be judged by a special court at Rouen. Licquet became the organiser and stage-manager of the proceedings. At the end of 1807 he had under lock and key thirty-eight prisoners whom he questioned incessantly, and kept in a state of uncertainty as to whether he meant to confront them with each other. But he declared himself dissatisfied. D'Ache's absence spoiled his joy. He quite understood that without the latter, his triumph would be incomplete, his work would remain unfinished, and it was doubtless due to this torturing obsession that he owed the idea, as cruel as it was ingenious, of a new drama of which the old Marquise de Combray was again the victim.

On a certain day of November, 1807, she heard from her cell an unusual tumult in the passages of the prison. Doors burst open and people called to each other. There were cries of joy, whispers, exclamations of astonishment or vexation, then long silences, which left the prisoner perplexed. The next day when Licquet came to visit her she noticed that his face wore a troubled expression. He was very laconic, mentioned grave events which were preparing, and disappeared like a busy man. To prisoners everything is a reason for hope, and that night Mme. de Combray gave free course to her illusions. The following day she received through the woman Delaitre, a short letter from the honest "Captain"—the man who had saved Mme. Acquet, killed the yellow horse, and whom she called her guardian angel. The guardian angel wrote only a few words: "Bonaparte is overthrown; the King is about to land in France; the prisons are opening everywhere. Write a letter at once to M. d'Ache which he can hand to his Majesty. I will undertake to forward it to him."

It is a truly touching fact that the old Marquise, whose energy no fatigue, no moral torture could abate, fainted from happiness on learning of her King's return.

The event realised all her hopes. For so many years she had been expecting it from one moment to another, without ever growing discouraged, that a denouement for which she had been prepared so long, seemed quite natural to her, and she immediately made her arrangements for the new life that was about to commence. She first of all wrote a line of thanks to the "good Delaitre," promising her protection and assuring him that he should be rewarded for his devotion. She then wrote to d'Ache a letter overflowing with joy.

"I have reached the pinnacle of my happiness, my dear Vicomte," she wrote, "which is that of all France. I rejoice in your glory. M. Delaitre has rendered me the greatest services, and during the past two months has been constantly journeying in my behalf. His wife, my companion in misfortune, has turned towards me his interest in the unhappy, and he has sent me a message informing me of the great events which are to put an end to all our troubles, advising me to write a letter to the King and send it to you to present to him. This is a bright idea, and compensates for the fact that my son is not lucky enough to be in his proper place, as we desired and planned. Your dear brother in chains is only supported by the thought of your glory. I do not know how to speak to a king so great by reason of his courage and virtue. I have allowed my heart to speak, and I count upon you to obtain the favour of a visit from him at Tournebut. The prisons are open everywhere.... I have borne my imprisonment courageously for three years, but fell ill on hearing the great news. You will let me know in time if I am to have the happiness of entertaining the King. It is very bold of me to ask if such a favour is possible in a house which I believe to be devastated by commissioners who have exhausted on it their rage at not finding you there. Render, I beg of you, to M. Delaitre all that I owe him. You will know him as a relation of our poor Raoul. He is inspired with the same sentiments and begs you to let him serve you, not wishing to remain idle in such a good cause and at such a great moment. This letter bears the marks of our imprisonment. Accept, my dear Vicomte, my sentiments of attachment and veneration.

"I have the honour to be,

"Your very humble servant,

"De Combray.

"I shall go to your mother's to await the King's passing, if I obtain my liberty before his arrival, and I shall have to go to Tournebut in order to have everything repaired and made ready if I am to enjoy this favour. You will write, and wait impatiently."

The most heartrending of the letters despatched by the duped old royalist in her joy, is the one destined for the King himself. Proud of his stratagem, Licquet forwarded it to the police authorities, who retained it. It is written in a thick, masculine hand on large paper—studied, almost solemn at the beginning, then, with the outpouring of her thoughts, ending in an almost illegible scribble. One feels that the poor woman wanted to say everything, to empty her heart, to free herself of eighteen years of mortification, mourning and suppressed indignation. The following is the text of the letter, almost complete:

"To His Majesty Louis XVIII.

"Sire:—From my prison, where at the age of sixty-six, I as well as my son, have been thrust for the last four months, we have the happiness of offering you our respects and congratulations on your happy accession to your throne. All our wishes are fulfilled, sire....

"The few resources still at our command were devoted to supporting your faithful servants of every class, and in saving them from execution. I have to regret the loss of the Chevalier de Margadelle, Raoulle, Tamerlan and the young Tellier, all of whom were carried away by their zeal for your Majesty's cause and fell victims to it at Paris and Versailles. I had hired a house, which I gave up to them with all the hiding-places necessary for their safety. My son had the good fortune to be under the orders of Messieurs de Frotte and Ingant de St. Maur.

"I am sending my letter to M. le Vicomte d'Ache, in order that he may present it to your Majesty and solicit a favour very dear to my heart—that you will condescend to stay at my house on your way to Paris. Sire, you will find my house open, and, they say, surrounded with barricades, consequences of the ill-usage it has received during their different investigations, another of which has recently occurred in the hope of finding M. le Vicomte d'Ache and my daughter, as well as repeated sojourns made by order of the prefect, and an interrogation by his secretary, after having been subjected to an examination lasting eleven hours in this so-called Court of Justice, in order that I might inform them of my correspondence with M. de Ache as well as of a letter I received from him on the 17th of last March. The worst threats have been used such as being confronted with Le Chevalier, and my being sent to Paris to be guillotined, but nothing terrified me, I did not tell them anything about my relations with him or where he was living. I had just left him ten days previously. My reply to this persecution was that M. de Ache was in London, and I concluded by assuring them that I did not fear death, that I would fervently perform my last act of contrition, and that my head would fall without my disclosing this interesting mystery.

"My liberty was promised me six weeks ago, but at the price of a large sum of money, which is, I believe, to be divided between the prefect and his secretary Niquet (sic). Half the sum is safely under lock and key in the latter's bureau. I have been a long time trying to collect the sum demanded, as I received little assistance from those who called themselves my friends. My very property was refused me with arrogant threats, for it was believed that I was to be put to the sword. The only end I hoped to attain by my sacrifices was to save my daughter, upon whose head a price of 6,000 francs had been set at Caen. The family Delaitre, without any other interest in me than that which misfortune inspires have displayed indefatigable zeal in my cause, exposing their lives to great danger in order to remove her from Caen, where the authorities left no stone unturned.

"Three of my servants have been cast into prison, a fourth, named Francois Hebert, commendable for thirty-seven years' faithful service, defended our interests, and for his honesty's sake has been in chains since the month of July. What must he not have suffered during the last eleven years at the hands of the authorities, the tax receivers at Harcourt, Falaise and Caen, and of many others who wished his ruin because at our advice he purposely took the farm on our estate, that he might there save your persecuted followers. He is well known to M. de Frotte whose esteem he enjoyed, and whom he received with twenty-four of his faithful friends, knowing they would be safe in his house. All this anxiety has greatly impaired his health and that of his wife, who was pregnant at the time, and consequently their son, aged eleven, is in very delicate health. The Dartenet (sic) family have caused many of our misfortunes by daily denunciations, which they renewed with all their might in January, 1806. It was only by a special providence that we, as well as M. le Vicomte d'Ache, escaped imprisonment. My son hastened to warn him not to return to our cottage, which was part of my dowry, and offended the Dartenets, who wanted this tavern that they might turn it into a special inn for their castle, which is the fruit of their iniquity.

"My son and I both crave your Majesty's protection and that of the princes of the blood.

"I respectfully remain,

"Your Majesty's very humble and obedient servant,

"De Combray."

It was, as we see, a general confession. What must have been the Marquise's grief and rage on learning that she had been deceived? At what moment did Licquet cease to play a double part with her? With what invectives must she not have overwhelmed him when he ceased? How did Mme. de Combray learn that her noblest illusions had been worked upon to make her give up her daughter and betray all her friends? These are things Licquet never explained, either because he was not proud of the dubious methods he employed, or, more probably, because he did not care what his victims thought of them. Besides, his mind was occupied with other things. Mme. de Combray had hinted to Delaitre that d'Ache usually stayed in the neighbourhood of Bayeux, without stating more precisely where, as she was certain he would easily be found beside the newly landed King. Licquet, therefore, went in search of him, and his men scoured the neighbourhood. Placene, for his part, annoyed at finding that Allain did not keep his word and made no attempt to deliver his imprisoned comrades, gave some hints. In order to communicate with Allain and d'Ache, one was, according to him, obliged to apply to an innkeeper at Saint-Exupere. This man was in correspondence with a fellow named Richard, who acted as courier to the two outlaws. "Between Bayeux and Saint-Lo is the coal mine of Litre, and the vast forest of Serisy is almost contiguous to it. This mine employed five or six hundred workmen, and as Richard was employed there one was inclined to think that the subterranean passages might serve as a refuge to Allain and d'Ache, whether they were there in the capacity of miners, or were hidden in some hut or disused ditch."

The information was too vague to be utilised, and Licquet thought it wiser to direct his batteries on another point. He had under his thumb one victim whom as yet he had not tortured, and from whom he hoped much: this was Mme. Acquet. "She is," he wrote, "a second edition of her mother for hypocrisy, but surpasses her in maliciousness and ill-nature.... Her children seem to interest her but little; she never mentions them to any one, and her heart is closed to all natural sentiments."

But I believe that it was to excuse himself in his chief's eyes that Licquet painted such a black picture of the prisoner. His own heart was closed to all compassion, and we find in this man the inexorable impassibility of a Laffemas or a Fouquier Tinville, with a refined irony in addition which only added to the cruelty. The moral torture to which he subjected Mme. Acquet is the product of an inquisitor's mind. "At present," he remarked, "as the subject is somewhat exhausted, I shall turn my attention to setting our prisoners against one another. The little encounter may give us some useful facts."

The little encounter broke the prisoner's heart, and deprived her of the only consoling thought so many misfortunes had left her.



CHAPTER VIII

PAYING THE PENALTY

"Le Chevalier is the adored one."

It was thus that Licquet summarised his first conversation with Mme. Acquet. He had been certain for some time that her unbridled passion for her hero held such a place in her heart that it had stifled all other feeling. For his sake she had harboured Allain's men; for him she had so often gone to brave the scornful reception of Joseph Buquet; and for him she had so long endured the odious life in Vannier's house. Licquet decided that so violent a passion, "well handled," might throw some new light on affairs. This incomparable comedian should have been seen playing his cruel game. In what manner did he listen to the love-sick confidences of his prisoner? In what sadly sympathetic tones did he reply to the glowing pictures she drew of her lover? For she spoke of little else, and Licquet listened silently until the moment when, in a burst of feeling, he took both her hands, and as if grieved at seeing her duped, exclaiming with hypocritical regard: "My poor child! Is it not better to tell you everything?" made her believe that Le Chevalier had denounced her. She refused at first to believe it. Why should her lover have done such an infamous thing? But Licquet gave reasons. Le Chevalier, while in the Temple had learned, from Vannier or others, of her relations with Chauvel, and in revenge had set the police on the track of his faithless friend. And so the man for whom she had sacrificed her life no longer loved her! Licquet, in order to torture her, overwhelmed the unhappy woman with the intentionally clumsy consolation that only accentuates grief. She wept much, and had but one thing to say.