Chapter 5 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 cafés. 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 H?tel du Point-de-France at Argentan. They had found Beaurepaire, Desmontis and the Cousin Dusaussay there; they went to the café and stayed there several hours. Allain, called General Antonio, whom Le Chevalier had chosen as his chief lieutenant, appeared and was presented to the others. Allain was over forty; he had a long nose, light eyes, a face pitted with smallpox, and a heavy black beard; the manner of a calm and steady bourgeois. Le Chevalier took a playing card, tore half of it off, wrote a line on it and gave it to Allain, saying, "This will admit you." They talked awhile in the embrasure of a window, and the lawyer caught these words: "Once in the church, you will go out by the door on the left, and there find a lane; it is there...."

When Allain had gone Le Chevalier informed his friends of the affair on hand. At the approach of each term, funds were passed between the principal towns of the department; from Alen?on, Saint-L? 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 Alen?on 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 café, 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 r?les were assigned: Allain was to recruit men; the lawyer would procure guns wherewith to arm them; and besides this he allowed Allain to use a house in the Faubourg Saint-Laurent de Falaise, which he was commissioned to sell. Here could be established "a dep?t for arms and provisions," for one difficulty was to lodge and feed the recruits during the period of waiting. Le Chevalier answered for the assistance of Mme. Acquet de Férolles, 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 régime, 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, préfet of Calvados, in his desire to retain his office, treated the refractories with an indolence bordering on complicity, and continued to send Fouché the most optimistic reports of the excellent temper of his fellow-citizens and their inviolable attachment to the imperial constitution.

It was the middle of April, 1807. Allain passed through Caen, where he joined Flierlé, 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 Mancellière, 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 "C?ur-le-Roi." Allain completed his party by the enrollment of three others, Le Héricey, called "La Sagesse"; Lebrée, called "Fleur d'épine"; and Le Lorault, called "La Jeunesse." They drank a cup of cider together, and left the same evening, Allain and Flierlé leading them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The visit took place on Friday, 12th June, and was conducted by Captain Pinteville. Acquet offered to guide him, and the search brought some singular discoveries. Certain doors of this great house, long abandoned, were found with strong locks recently put on; others were nailed up and had to be broken in. "In a dark, retired loft that it was difficult to enter" (Acquet conducted the gendarmes) "a pile of hay still retained the impress of six men who had slept on it"; some fresh bones, scraps of bread and meat, and the dirt bore witness that the band had lived there; some sheets of paper belonging to a memoir printed by Hely de Bonn?il, brother of Mme. Acquet were rolled into cartridges and hidden in a corner under the tiles. They also found the sacks that the Buquets had hidden there after the theft; in the floor of the cellar a hole, "two and a half feet square, and of the same depth had been dug to hold the money;" they had taken the precaution to tear up the flooring above so that the dep?t could be watched from there. The idea of hiding the treasure here had been abandoned, as we know, in favour of Buquets'; but the discovery was important and Pinteville drew up a report of it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Save me, mama, save me!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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