The House of the Combrays Part 6

His stay in London lasted nearly three months. Towards the end of July an English frigate took him to the fleet where Admiral Saumarez received him with great deference, and equipped a brig with fourteen cannon to convey him to the sh.o.r.e. When, at night, they were within a gunshot of the coast of Saint-Honorine, d'Ache himself made the signals agreed upon, which were quickly answered by the coast guard on sh.o.r.e. An hour afterwards David the Intrepid's boat hailed the English brig, and before daybreak d'Ache was back at Mandeville, sharing with his hosts the joy he felt at the success of his voyage. They began to make plans immediately. It was decided on the spot that the Chateau de Monfiquet should shelter the King during the first few days after he landed. Eight months were to elapse before the beginning of the campaign, and as money was not lacking this time was sufficient for d'Ache to prepare for operations.

We may as well mention at once that the English Cabinet, while playing on the fanaticism of d'Ache, as they had formerly done on that of Georges Cadoudal and so many others, had not the slightest intention of keeping their promises. Their hatred of Napoleon suggested to them the infamous idea of exciting the nave royalists of France by raising hopes they never meant to satisfy. They abandoned them once they saw their dupes so deeply implicated that there was no drawing back, caring little if they helped them to the scaffold, desirous only of maintaining agitations in France and of driving them into such desperate straits that some a.s.sa.s.sin might arise from among them who would rid the world of Bonaparte. Here lies, doubtless, one of the reasons why the exiled princes so obstinately refused to encourage their partisans' attempts.

Did they know of the snares laid for these unhappy creatures? Did they not dare to put them on their guard for fear of offending the English government? Was this the rent they paid for Hartwell? The history of the intrigues which played around the claimant to the throne is full of mystery. Those who were mixed up in them, such as Fauche-Bonel or Hyde de Neuville were ruined, and it required the daylight of the Restoration to open the eyes of the persons most interested to the fact that certain professions of devotion had been treacherous.

As far as d'Ache was concerned it seems fairly certain that he did not receive any promise from the princes, and was not even admitted to their presence; the English ministers alone encouraged him to embark on this extraordinary adventure, in which they were fully determined to let him ruin himself. Therefore the "unlimited" credit opened at the banker Nourry's was only a bait: while making the conspirators think they would never want for money, the credit was limited beforehand to 30,000 francs, a piece of duplicity which enraged even the detectives who, later on, discovered it.

It is not easy to follow d'Ache in the mysterious work upon which he entered: the precautions he took to escape the police have caused him to be lost to posterity as well. Some slight landmarks barely permit our following his trail during the few years which form the climax of his wonderful career.

We find him first of all during the autumn of 1806, at La Bijude, where Mme. de Combray, who had remained at Tournebut had charged Bonnoeil and Mme. Acquet to go and receive him. There was some question of providing him with a messenger familiar with the haunts of the Chouans and the dangers connected with the task. To fulfil this duty Mme. Acquet proposed a German named Flierle whom Le Chevalier recommended. Flierle had distinguished himself in the revolt of the Chouans; a renowned fighter, he had been mixed up in every plot. He was in Paris at the time of the eighteenth Fructidor; he turned up there again at the moment when Saint-Rejant was preparing his infernal machine; he again spent three months there at the time of Georges' conspiracy. For the last two years, whilst waiting for a fresh engagement, he had lived on a small pension from the royal treasury, and when funds were low, he made one of his more fortunate companions in old days put him up; and thus he roamed from Caen to Falaise, from Mortain to Bayeux or Saint-Lo, even going into Mayenne in his wanderings. Although he would never have acknowledged it, we may say that he was one of the men usually employed in attacking public vehicles: in fact, he was an adept at it and went by the name of the "Teisch."

Summoned to La Bijude he presented himself there one morning towards the end of October. D'Ache arrived there the same evening while they were at dinner. They talked rather vaguely of the great project, but much of their old Chouan comrades. In spite of his decided German accent Flierle was inexhaustible on this theme. He and d'Ache slept in the same room, and this intimacy lasted two whole days, at the end of which it was decided that Flierle should be employed as a messenger at a salary of fifty crowns a month. That same night, Lanoe conducted d'Ache two leagues from La Bijude and left him on the road to Arjentan.

Here is a new landmark: on November 26th, Veyrat, the inspector of police, hastily informed Desmarets that d'Ache, whom they had been seeking for two years, had arrived the night before in Paris, getting out of the coach from Rennes in the company of a man named Durand. The latter, leaving his trunk at the office, spent the night at a house in the Rue Montmartre, whence he departed the next morning for Boulogne. As for d'Ache, wrote Veyrat, he had neither box nor parcel, and disappeared as soon as he got out of the carriage. Search was made in all the furnished lodgings and hotels in the neighbourhood, but without result.

Desmarets set all his best men to work, but in vain: d'Ache was not to be found.

He was at Tournebut, where he spent a month. It is probable that a pressing need of money was the cause of this journey to Paris and his visit to Mme. de Combray. By this time d'Ache had exhausted his credit at the banker Nourry's. Believing that this source would never be exhausted, he had drawn on it largely. His disappointment was therefore cruel when he heard that his account was definitely closed. He found himself again without money, and by a coincidence which must be mentioned, the diligence from Paris to Rouen was robbed, during his stay at Tournebut, in November, 1806, at the Mill of Monflaines, about a hundred yards from Authevernes, where the preceding attacks had taken place. The booty was not large this time, and when d'Ache again took the road to Mandeville his resources consisted of six hundred francs.

He was obliged to spend the winter in torturing idleness; there is no indication of his movements till February, 1807. The time fixed for the great events was drawing near, and it was important to make them known.

He decided on the plan of a manifesto which was to be widely circulated through the whole province, and would not allow any one to a.s.sist in drawing it up. This proclamation, written in the name of the princes, stipulated a general amnesty, the retention of those in authority, a reduction of taxation, and the abolition of conscription. Lanoe, summoned to Mandeville, received ten louis and the ma.n.u.script of the manifesto, with the order to get it printed as secretly as possible. The crafty Norman promised, slipped the paper into the lining of his coat, and after a fruitless--and probably very feeble--attempt on a printer's apprentice at Falaise, returned it to Flierle, with many admonitions to be prudent, but only refunded five louis. Flierle first applied to a bookseller in the Froide Rue at Caen. The latter, as soon as he found out what it contained, refused his a.s.sistance.

An incident now occurred, the importance of which it is difficult to discover, but which seems to have been great, to judge from the mystery in which it is shrouded. Whether he had received some urgent communication from England, or whether, in his state of dest.i.tution, he had thought of claiming the help of his friends at Tournebut, d'Ache despatched Flierle to Mme. de Combray, and gave him two letters, advising him to use the greatest discretion. Flierle set out on horseback from Caen in the morning of March 13th. At dawn next day he arrived at Rouen, and immediately repaired to the house of a Mme.

Lambert, a milliner in the Rue de l'Hopital, to whom one of the letters was addressed. "I gave it to her," he said, "on her staircase, without speaking to her, as I had been told to do, and set out that very morning for Tournebut, where I arrived between two and three o'clock. I gave Mme. de Combray the other letter, which she threw in the fire after having read it."

Flierle slept at the chateau. Next day Bonnoeil conducted him to Louviers, and there intrusted a packet of letters to him addressed to d'Ache. Both directed their steps to Rouen, and the German fetched from the Rue de l'Hopital, the milliner's reply, which she gave him herself without saying a word.

He immediately continued his journey, and by March 20th was back at Mandeville, and placed the precious mail in d'Ache's hands. The latter had scarcely read it before he sent David word to get his boat ready, and without losing a moment, the letters which had arrived from Rouen were taken out to sea to the English fleet, to be forwarded to London.

We are still ignorant of the contents of these mysterious despatches, and inquiry on this point is reduced to supposition. Some pretended that d'Ache sent the manifesto to Mme. de Combray, and that it was clandestinely printed in the cellars at Tournebut; others maintain that towards March 15th Bonnoeil returned from Paris, bringing with him the correspondence of the secret royalist committee which was to be sent to the English Cabinet via Mandeville. D'Ache certainly attached immense importance to this expedition, which ought, according to him, to make the princes decide on the immediate despatch of funds, and to hasten the preparation for the attack on the island of Tahitou. But days pa.s.sed and no reply came. In the agony of uncertainty he decided to approach Le Chevalier, whom he only knew by reputation as being a shrewd and resolute man. The meeting took place at Trevieres towards the middle of April, 1807. Le Chevalier brought one of his aides-de-camp with him, but d'Ache came alone.

The names of these two men are so little known, they occupy such a very humble place in history, that we can hardly imagine, now that we know how pitifully their dreams miscarried, how without being ridiculous they could fancy that any result whatever could come of their meeting. The surroundings made them consider themselves important: d'Ache was--or thought he was--the mouthpiece of the exiled King; as for Le Chevalier, whether from vainglory or credulity he boasted of an immense popularity with the Chouans, and spoke mysteriously of the royalist committee which, working in Paris, had succeeded, he said, in rallying to the cause men of considerable importance in the entourage of the Emperor himself.

Since he had been Mme. Acquet's adored lover, Le Chevalier's visits to the Cafe Hervieux had become rarer; his parasites had dispersed, and although he still kept up his house in the Rue Saint-Sauveur at Caen, he spent the greater part of his time either at Falaise or at La Bijude, where his devoted mistress alternately lived. The police of Count Caffarelli, Prefect of Calvados, had ceased keeping an eye on him, and he even received a pa.s.sport for Paris, whither he went frequently. He always returned more confident than before, and in the little group amongst whom he lived at Falaise--consisting of his cousin, Dusaussay, two Chouan comrades, Beaupaire and Desmontis; a doctor in the Frotte army, Reverend; and the Notary of the Combray family, Maitre Febre--he was never tired of talking in confidence about the secret Royalist Committee, and the near approach of the Restoration. The revolution which was to bring it about, was to be a very peaceful one, according to him. Bonaparte, taken prisoner by two of his generals, each at the head of 40,000 men, was to be handed over to the English and replaced by "a regency, the members of which were to be chosen from among the senators who could be trusted." The Comte d'Artois was then to be recalled--or his son, the Duc de Berry--to take possession of the kingdom as Lieutenant-General.

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 a.s.sign 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 a.s.sistance 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 a.s.signed, 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 c.h.i.n.king 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 n.o.bis 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 pa.s.sed between the princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.signed: 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 a.s.sistance 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 const.i.tution.

It was the middle of April, 1807. Allain pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sion 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 coa.r.s.e 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. Rea.s.sured 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.