E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Paul Ereaut, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/)
Transcribers note: A number of spelling errors and inconsistencies
of names have been corrected.
THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS
by
G. LE NOTRE
Translated from the French by Mrs. Joseph B. Gilder
New York
Dodd, Mead & Company
1902
Copyright, 1902, by Dodd, Mead & Company
First Edition Published October, 1902
Contents
PREFACE
I. THE TREACHERY OF JEAN-PIERRE QUERELLE
II. THE CAPTURE OF GEORGES CADOUDAL
III. THE COMBRAYS
IV. THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHÉ
V. THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY
VI. THE YELLOW HORSE
VII. MADAME ACQUET
VIII. PAYING THE PENALTY
IX. THE FATE OF D'ACHÉ
X. THE CHOUANS SET FREE
PREFACE
AN OLD TOWER
One evening in the winter of 1868 or 1869, my father-in-law, Moisson,
with whom I was chatting after dinner, took up a book that was lying on
the table, open at the page where I had stopped reading, and said:
"Ah! you are reading Mme. de la Chanterie?"
"Yes," I replied. "A fine book; do you know it?"
"Of course! I even know the heroine."
"Mme. de la Chanterie!"
"---- By her real name Mme. de Combray. I lived three months in her
house."
"Rue Chanoinesse?"
"No, not in the Rue Chanoinesse, where she did not live, any more than
she was the saintly woman of Balzac's novel;--but at her Château of
Tournebut d'Aubevoye near Gaillon!"
"Gracious, Moisson, tell me about it;" and without further solicitation,
Moisson told me the following story:
"My mother was a Brécourt, whose ancestor was a bastard of Gaston
d'Orleans, and she was on this account a royalist, and very proud of her
nobility. The Brécourts, who were fighting people, had never become
rich, and the Revolution ruined them completely. During the Terror my
mother married Moisson, my father, a painter and engraver, a plebeian
but also an ardent royalist, participating in all the plots for the
deliverance of the royal family. This explains the mésalliance. She
hoped, besides, that the monarchy, of whose reestablishment she had no
doubt, would recognise my father's services by ennobling him and
reviving the name of Brécourt, which was now represented only in the
female line. She always called herself Moisson de Brécourt, and bore me
a grudge for using only my father's name.
"In 1804, when I was eight years old, we were living on the island of
Saint-Louis, and I remember very well the excitement in the quarter, and
above all in our house, caused by the arrest of Georges Cadoudal. I can
see my mother anxiously sending our faithful servant for news; my father
came home less and less often; and at last, one night, he woke me up
suddenly, kissed me, kissed my mother hastily, and I can still hear the
noise of the street door closing behind him. We never saw him again!"
"Arrested?"
"No, we should have known that, but probably killed in flight, or dead
of fatigue and want, or drowned in crossing some river--like many other
fugitives, whose names I used to know. He was to have sent us news as
soon as he was in safety. After a month's waiting, my mother's despair
became alarming. She seemed mad, committed the most compromising acts,
spoke aloud and with so little reserve about Bonaparte, that each time
the bell rang, our servant and I expected to see the police.
"A very different kind of visitor appeared one fine morning. He was, he
said, the business man of Mme. de Combray, a worthy woman who lived in
her Château of Tournebut d'Aubevoye near Gaillon. She was a fervent
royalist, and had heard through common friends of my father's
disappearance, and compassionating our misfortune placed a house near
her own at the disposal of my mother, who would there find the safety
and peace that she needed, after her cruel sorrows. As my mother
hesitated, Mme. de Combray's messenger urged the benefit to my health,
the exercise and the good air indispensable at my age, and finally she
consented. Having obtained all necessary information, my mother, the
servant and I took the boat two days after, at Saint-Germain, and
arrived by sunset the same evening at Roule, near Aubevoye. A gardener
was waiting with a cart for us and our luggage. A few moments later we
entered the court of the château.
"Mme. de Combray received us in a large room overlooking the Seine. She
had one of her sons with her, and two intimate friends, who welcomed my
mother with the consideration due to the widow of one who had served the
good cause. Supper was served; I was drooping with sleep, and the only
remembrance I have of this meal is the voice of my mother, passionate
and excitable as ever. Next morning, after breakfast, the gardener
appeared with his cart, to take us to the house we were to occupy; the
road was so steep and rough that my mother preferred to go on foot,
leading her horse by the bridle. We were in a thick wood, climbing all
the time, and surprised at having to go so far and so high to reach the
habitation that had been offered to us near the château. We came to a
clearing in the wood, and the gardener cried, 'Here we are!' and pointed
to our dwelling. 'Oh!' cried my mother, 'it is a donjon!' It was an old
round tower, surmounted by a platform and with no opening but the door
and some loop-holes that served as windows.
"The situation itself was not displeasing. A plateau cleared in the
woods, surrounded by large trees with a vista towards the Seine, and a
fine view extending some distance. The gardener had a little hut near
by, and there was a small kitchen-garden for our use. In fact one would
have been easily satisfied with this solitude, after the misfortunes of
the Isle Saint-Louis, if the tower had been less forbidding. To enter it
one had to cross a little moat, over which were thrown two planks, which
served as a bridge. By means of a cord and pulley this could be drawn up
from the inside, against the entrance door, thus making it doubly
secure. 'And this is the drawbridge!' said my mother, mockingly.
"The ground floor consisted of a circular chamber, with a table, chairs,
a sideboard, etc. Opposite the door, in an embrasure of the wall, about
two yards in thickness, a barred window lighted this room, which was to
serve as sitting-room, kitchen and dining-room at the same time; but
lighted it so imperfectly that to see plainly even in the daytime one
had to leave the door open. On one side was the fireplace, and on the
other the wooden staircase that led to the upper floors; under the
staircase was a trap-door firmly closed by a large lock.
"'It is the cellar,' said the gardener, 'but it is dangerous, as it is
full of rubbish. I have a place where you can keep your drink.' 'And our
food?' said the servant.
"The gardener explained that he often went down to the château in his
cart and that the cook would have every facility for doing her marketing
at Aubevoye. As for my mother, Mme. de Combray, thinking that the
journey up and down hill would be too much for her, would send a donkey
which would do for her to ride when we went to the château in the
afternoon or evening. On the first floor were two rooms separated by a
partition; one for my mother and me, the other for the servant, both
lighted only by loop-holes. It was cold and sinister.
"'This is a prison!' cried my mother.
"The gardener remarked that we should only sleep there; and seeing my
mother about to go up to the next floor, he stopped her, indicating the
dilapidated condition of the stairs. 'This floor is abandoned,' he said;
'the platform above is in a very bad state, and the staircase
impracticable and dangerous. Mme. de Combray begs that you will never go
above the first landing, for fear of an accident.' After which he went
to get our luggage.
"My mother then gave way to her feelings. It was a mockery to lodge us
in this rat-hole. She talked of going straight back to Paris; but our
servant was so happy at having no longer to fear the police; I had found
so much pleasure gathering flowers in the wood and running after
butterflies; my mother herself enjoyed the great calm and silence so
much that the decision was put off till the next day. And the next day
we renounced all idea of going.
"Our life for the next two months was untroubled. We were at the longest
days of the year. Once a week we were invited to supper at the château,
and we came home through the woods at night in perfect security.
Sometimes in the afternoon my mother went to visit Mme. de Combray, and
always found her playing at cards or tric-trac with friends staying at
the château or passing through, but oftenest with a stout man, her
lawyer. No existence could be more commonplace or peaceful. Although
they talked politics freely (but with more restraint than my mother),
she told me later that she never for one moment suspected that she was
in a nest of conspirators. Once or twice only Mme. de Combray, touched
by the sincerity and ardour of her loyalty, seemed to be on the point of
confiding in her. She even forgot herself so far as to say:--'Oh! if you
were not so hot-headed, one would tell you certain things!'--but as if
already regretting that she had said so much, she stopped abruptly.
"One night, when my mother could not sleep, her attention was attracted
by a dull noise down-stairs, as if some one were shutting a trap-door
clumsily. She lay awake all night uneasily, listening, but in vain. Next
morning we found the room down-stairs in its usual condition; but my
mother would not admit that she had been dreaming, and the same day
spoke to Mme. de Combray, who joked her about it, and sent her to the
gardener. The latter said he had made the noise. Passing the tower he
had imagined that the door was not firmly closed, and had pushed against
it to make sure. The incident did not occur again; but several days
later there was a new, and this time more serious, alarm.
"I had noticed on top of the tower a blackbird's nest, which could
easily be reached from the platform, but, faithful to orders, I had
never gone up there. This time, however, the temptation was too strong.
I watched until my mother and the servant were in our little garden, and
then climbed nimbly up to take the nest. On the landing of the second
floor, curious to get a peep at the uninhabited rooms, I pushed open the
door, and saw distinctly behind the glass door in the partition that
separated the two rooms, a green curtain drawn quickly. In a great
fright I rushed down-stairs head over heels, and ran into the garden,
calling my mother and shouting, 'There is some one up-stairs in the
room!' She did not believe it and scolded me. As I insisted she followed
me up-stairs with the servant. From the landing my mother cried, 'Is any
one there?' Silence. She pushed open the glass door. No one to be
seen--only a folding-bed, unmade. She touched it; it was warm! Some one
had been there, asleep,--dressed, no doubt. Where was he? On the
platform? We went up. No one was there! He had no doubt escaped when I
ran to the garden!
"We went down again quickly and our servant called the gardener. He had
disappeared. We saddled the donkey, and my mother went hurry-scurry to
the château. She found the lawyer at the eternal tric-trac with Mme. de
Combray, who frowned at the first word, not even interrupting her game.
"'More dreams! The room is unoccupied! No one sleeps there!'
"'But the curtain!'
"'Well, what of the curtain? Your child made a draught by opening the
door, and the curtain swung.'
"'But the bed, still warm!'
"'The gardener has some cats that must have been lying there, and ran
away when the door was opened, and that's all about it!'
"'And yet--'
"'Well, have you found this ghost?'
"'No.'
"'Well then?' And she shook her dice rather roughly without paying any
more attention to my mother, who after exchanging a curt good-night with
the Marquise, returned to the tower, so little convinced of the presence
of the cats that she took two screw-rings from one of our boxes, fixed
them on to the trap-door, closed them with a padlock, took the key and
said, 'Now we will see if any one comes in that way.' And for greater
security she decided to lift the drawbridge after supper. We all three
took hold of the rope that moved with difficulty on the rusty pulley. It
was hard; we made three attempts. At last it moved, the bridge shook,
lifted, came right up. It was done! And that evening, beside my bed, my
mother said:
"'We will not grow old in her Bastille!'
"Which was true, for eight days later we were awakened in the middle of
the night by a terrible hubbub on the ground floor. From our landing we
heard several voices, swearing and raging under the trap-door which they
were trying to raise, to which the padlock offered but feeble
resistance, for a strong push broke it off and the door opened with a
great noise. My mother and the servant rushed to the bureau, pushed and
dragged it to the door, whilst some men came out of the cellar, walked
to the door, grumbling, opened it, saw the drawbridge up, unfastened the
rope and let it fall down with a loud bang, and then the voices grew
fainter till they disappeared in the wood. But go to sleep after all
that! We stayed there waiting for the dawn, and though all danger was
over, not daring to speak aloud!
"At last the day broke. We moved the bureau, and my mother, brave as
ever, went down first, carrying a candle. The yawning trap-door exposed
the black hole of a cellar, the entrance door was wide open and the
bridge down. We called the gardener, who did not answer, and whose hut
was empty. My mother did not wait till afternoon this time, but jumped
on her donkey and went down to the château.
"Mme. de Combray was dressing. She expected my mother and knew her
object in coming so well that without waiting for her to tell her story,
she flew out like most people, who, having no good reason to give,
resort to angry words, and cried as soon as she entered the room:
"'You are mad; mad enough to be shut up! You take my house for a resort
of bandits and counterfeiters! I am sorry enough that I ever brought you
here!'
"'And I that I ever came!'
"'Very well, then--go!'
"'I am going to-morrow. I came to tell you so.'
"'A safe return to you!' On which Mme. de Combray turned her back, and
my mother retraced her steps to the tower in a state of exasperation,
fully determined to take the boat for Paris without further delay.
"Early next morning we made ready. The gardener was at the door with his
cart, coming and going for our luggage, while the servant put the soup
on the table. My mother took only two or three spoonfuls and I did the
same, as I hate soup. The servant alone emptied her plate! We went down
to Roule where the gardener had scarcely left us when the servant was
seized with frightful vomiting. My mother and I were also slightly
nauseated, but the poor girl retained nothing, happily for her, for we
returned to Paris convinced that the gardener, being left alone for a
moment, had thrown some poison into the soup."
"And did nothing happen afterwards?"
"Nothing."
"And you heard nothing more from Tournebut?"
"Nothing, until 1808, when we learned that the mail had been attacked
and robbed near Falaise by a band of armed men commanded by Mme. de
Combray's daughter, Mme. Acquet de Férolles, disguised as a hussar!
Then, that Mme. Acquet had been arrested as well as her lover (Le
Chevalier), her husband, her mother, her lawyer and servants and those
of Mme. de Combray at Tournebut; and finally that Mme. de Combray had
been condemned to imprisonment and the pillory, Mme. Acquet, her lover,
the lawyer (Lefebre) and several others, to death."
"And the husband?"
"Released; he was a spy."
"Was your mother called as a witness?"
"No, happily, they knew nothing about us. Besides, what would she have
said?"
"Nothing, except that the people who frightened you so much, must surely
have belonged to the band; that they had forced the trap-door, after a
nocturnal expedition, on which they had been pursued as far as a
subterranean entrance, which without doubt led to the cellar."
After we had chatted a while on this subject Moisson wished me
good-night, and I took up Balzac's chef d'oeuvre and resumed my
reading. But I only read a few lines; my imagination was wandering
elsewhere. It was a long distance from Balzac's idealism to the realism
of Moisson, which awakened in me memories of the stories and melodramas
of Ducray-Duminil, of Guilbert de Pixérecourt--"Alexis, ou la Maisonette
dans les Bois," "Victor, ou l'Enfant de la Forêt,"--and many others of
the same date and style so much discredited nowadays. And I thought that
what caused the discredit now, accounted for their vogue formerly; that
they had a substratum of truth under a mass of absurdity; that these
stories of brigands in their traditional haunts, forests, caverns and
subterranean passages, charmed by their likelihood the readers of those
times to whom an attack on a coach by highwaymen with blackened faces
was as natural an occurrence as a railway accident is to us, and that in
what seems pure extravaganza to us they only saw a scarcely exaggerated
picture of things that were continually happening under their eyes. In
the reports published by M. Félix Rocquain we can learn the state of
France during the Directory and the early years of the Commune. The
roads, abandoned since 1792, were worn into such deep ruts, that to
avoid them the waggoners made long circuits in ploughed land, and the
post-chaises would slip and sink into the muddy bogs from which it was
impossible to drag them except with oxen. At every step through the
country one came to a deserted hamlet, a roofless house, a burned farm,
a château in ruins. Under the indifferent eyes of a police that cared
only for politics, and of gendarmes recruited in such a fashion that a
criminal often recognised an old comrade in the one who arrested him,
bands of vagabonds and scamps of all kinds had been formed; deserters,
refractories, fugitives from the pretended revolutionary army, and
terrorists without employment, "the scum," said François de Nantes, "of
the Revolution and the war; 'lanterneurs' of '91, 'guillotineurs' of
'93, 'sabreurs' of the year III, 'assommeurs' of the year IV,
'fusilleurs' of the year V." All this canaille lived only by rapine and
murder, camped in the forests, ruins and deserted quarries like that at
Gueudreville, an underground passage one hundred feet long by thirty
broad, the headquarters of the band of Orgères, a thoroughly organised
company of bandits--chiefs, subchiefs, storekeepers, spies, couriers,
barbers, surgeons, dressmakers, cooks, preceptors for the "gosses," and
curé!
And this brigandage was rampant everywhere. There was so little safety
in the Midi from Marseilles to Toulon and Toulouse that one could not
travel without an escort. In the Var, the Bouches-du-Rhône, Vaucluse,
from Digne and Draguignan, to Avignon and Aix, one had to pay ransom. A
placard placed along the roads informed the traveller that unless he
paid a hundred francs in advance, he risked being killed. The receipt
given to the driver served as a passport. Theft by violence was so much
the custom that certain villages in the Lower Alps were openly known as
the abode of those who had no other occupation. On the banks of the
Rhône travellers were charitably warned not to put up at certain
solitary inns for fear of not reappearing therefrom. On the Italian
frontier they were the "barbets"; in the North the "garroteurs"; in the
Ardèche the "bande noire"; in the Centre the "Chiffoniers"; in Artois,
Picardie, the Somme, Seine-Inférieure, the Chartrain country, the
Orléanais, Loire-Inférieure, Orne, Sarthe, Mayenne, Ille-et-Vilaine,
etc., and Ile-de-France to the very gates of Paris, but above all in
Calvados, Finistère and La Manche where royalism served as their flag,
the "chauffeurs" and the bands of "Grands Gars" and "Coupe et Tranche,"
which under pretence of being Chouans attacked farms or isolated
dwellings, and inspired such terror that if one of them were arrested
neither witness nor jury could be found to condemn him. Politics
evidently had nothing to do with these exploits; it was a private war.
And the Chouans professed to wage it only against the government. So
long as they limited themselves to fighting the gendarmes or national
guards in bands of five or six hundred, to invading defenceless places
in order to cut down the trees of liberty, burn the municipal papers,
and pillage the coffers of the receivers and school-teachers--(the State
funds having the right to return to their legitimate owner, the King),
they could be distinguished from professional malefactors. But when they
stopped coaches, extorted ransom from travellers and shot constitutional
priests and purchasers of the national property, the distinction became
too subtle. There was no longer any room for it in the year VIII and IX
when, vigorous measures having almost cleared the country of the bands
of "chauffeurs" and other bandits who infested it, the greater number of
those who had escaped being shot or guillotined joined what remained of
the royalist army, last refuge of brigandage.
In such a time Moisson's adventure was not at all extraordinary. We can
only accuse it of being too simple. It was the mildest scene of a huge
melodrama in which he and his mother had played the part of supers. But
slight as was the episode, it had all the attraction of the unknown for
me. Of Tournebut and its owners I knew nothing. Who, in reality, was
this Mme. de Combray, sanctified by Balzac? A fanatic, or an
intriguer?--And her daughter Mme. Acquet? A heroine or a lunatic?--and
the lover? A hero or an adventurer?--And the husband, the lawyer and the
friends of the house? Mme. Acquet more than all piqued my curiosity. The
daughter of a good house disguised as a hussar to stop the mail like
Choppart! This was not at all commonplace! Was she young and pretty?
Moisson knew nothing about it; he had never seen her or her lover or
husband, Mme. de Combray having quarrelled with all of them.
I was most anxious to learn more, but to do that it would be necessary
to consult the report of the trial in the record office at Rouen. I
never had time. I mentioned it to M. Gustave Bord, to Frédéric Masson
and M. de la Sicotière, and thought no more about it even after the
interesting article published in the _Temps_, by M. Ernest Daudet, until
walking one day with Lenôtre in the little that is left of old Paris of
the Cité, the house in the Rue Chanoinesse, where Balzac lodged Mme. de
la Chanterie, reminded me of Moisson, whose adventure I narrated to
Lenôtre, at that time finishing his "Conspiration de la Rouërie." That
was sufficient to give him the idea of studying the records of the
affair of 1807, which no one had consulted before him. A short time
after he told me that the tower of Tournebut was still in existence, and
that he was anxious for us to visit it, the son-in-law of the owner of
the Château of Aubevoye, M. Constantin, having kindly offered to conduct
us.
On a fine autumn morning the train left us at the station that served
the little village of Aubevoye, whose name has twice been heard in the
Courts of Justice, once in the trial of Mme. de Combray and once in that
of Mme. de Jeufosse. Those who have no taste for these sorts of
excursions cannot understand their charm. Whether it be a little
historical question to be solved, an unknown or badly authenticated fact
to be elucidated, this document hunt with its deceptions and surprises
is the most amusing kind of chase, especially in company with a delver
like Lenôtre, endowed with an admirable _flair_ that always puts him on
the right track. There was, moreover, a particular attraction in this
old forgotten tower, in which we alone were interested, and in examining
into Moisson's story!
Of the château that had been built by the Marechal de Marillac, and
considerably enlarged by Mme. de Combray, nothing, unhappily, remains
but the out-buildings, a terrace overlooking the Seine, the court of
honour turned into a lawn, an avenue of old limes and the ancient fence.
A new building replaced the old one fifty years ago. The little château,
"Gros-Mesnil," near the large one has recently been restored.
But the general effect is the same as in 1804. Seeing the great woods
that hug the outer wall so closely, one realises how well they lent
themselves to the mysterious comings and goings, to the secret councils,
to the rôle destined for it by Mme. de Combray, preparing the finest
room for the arrival of the King or the Comte d'Artois, and in both the
great and little château, arranging hiding-places, one of which alone
could accommodate forty armed men.
The tower is still there, far from the château, at the summit of a
wooded hill in the centre of a clearing, which commands the river
valley. It is a squat, massive construction, of forbidding aspect, such
as Moisson described, with thick walls, and windows so narrow that they
look more like loopholes. It seems as if it might originally have been
one of the guard-houses or watch-towers erected on the heights from
Nantes to Paris, like the tower of Montjoye whose ditch is recognisable
in the Forest of Marly, or those of Montaigu and Hennemont, whose ruins
were still visible in the last century. Some of these towers were
converted into mills or pigeon-houses. Ours, whose upper story and
pointed roof had been demolished and replaced by a platform at an
uncertain date, was flanked by a wooden mill, burnt before the
Revolution, for it is not to be found in Cassini's chart which shows
all in the region. The tower and its approaches are still known as the
"burnt mill."
There remains no trace of the excavation which was in front of the
entrance in 1804, and which must have been the last vestige of an old
moat. The threshold crossed, we are in the circular chamber; at the end
facing the door is the window, the bars of which have been taken down;
on the left a modern chimneypiece replaces the old one, and on the right
is the staircase, in good condition. The trap-door has disappeared from
under it, the cellar being abandoned as useless. On the first floor as
on the second, where the partitions have been removed, there are still
traces of them, with fragments of wall-paper. The very little daylight
that filters through the windows justifies Mme. Moisson's exclamation,
"It is a prison!" The platform, from which the view is very fine, has
been renewed, like the staircase. But from top to bottom all corresponds
with Moisson's description.
All that remained now was to find out how one could get into the cellar
from outside. We had two excellent guides; our kind host, M. Constantin,
and M. l'Abbé Drouin, the curé of Aubevoye, who knew all the local
traditions. They mentioned the "Grotto of the Hermit!" O
Ducray-Duminil!--Thou again!
The grotto is an old quarry in the side of the hill towards the Seine,
below the tower and having no apparent communication with it, but so
situated that an underground passage of a few yards would unite them.
The grotto being now almost filled up, the entrance to this passage has
disappeared. Looking at it, so innocent in appearance now under the
brush and brambles, I seemed to see some Chouan by star-light, eye and
ear alert, throw himself into it like a rabbit into its hole, and creep
through to the tower, to sleep fully dressed on the pallet on the second
floor. Evidently this tower, planned as were all Mme. de Combray's
abodes, was one of the many refuges arranged by the Chouans from the
coast of Normandy to Paris and known only to themselves.
But why was Mme. Moisson accommodated there without being taken into her
hostess's confidence? If Mme. de Combray wished to avert suspicion by
having two women and a child there, she might have told them so; and if
she thought Mme. Moisson too excitable to hear such a confession, she
should not have exposed her to nocturnal mysteries that could only tend
to increase her excitement! When Phélippeaux was questioned, during the
trial of Georges Cadoudal, about Moisson's father, who had disappeared,
he replied that he lived in the street and island of Saint-Louis near
the new bridge; that he was an engraver and manager of a button factory;
that Mme. Moisson had a servant named R. Petit-Jean, married to a
municipal guard. Was it through fear of this woman's writing
indiscreetly to her husband that Mme. de Combray remained silent? But in
any case, why the tower?
However this may be, the exactness of Moisson's reminiscences was
proved. But the trap-door had not been forced, as he believed, by
Chouans fleeing after some nocturnal expedition. This point was already
decided by the first documents that Lenôtre had collected for this
present work. There was no expedition of the sort in the neighbourhood
of Tournebut during the summer of 1804. They would not have risked
attracting attention to the château where was hidden the only man whom
the Chouans of Normandy judged capable of succeeding Georges, and whom
they called "Le Grand Alexandre"--the Vicomte Robert d'Aché. Hunted
through Paris like all the royalists denounced by Querelle, he had
managed to escape the searchers, to go out in one of his habitual
disguises when the gates were reopened, to get to Normandy by the left
bank of the Seine and take refuge with his old friend at Tournebut,
where he lived for fourteen months under the name of Deslorières, his
presence there never being suspected by the police.
He was certainly, as well as Bonnoeil, Mme. de Combray's eldest son,
one of the three guests with whom Moisson took supper on the evening of
his arrival. The one who was always playing cards or tric-trac with the
Marquise, and whom she called her lawyer, might well have been d'Aché
himself. As to the stealthy visitors at the tower, given the presence of
d'Aché at Tournebut, it is highly probable that they were only passing
by there to confer with him, taking his orders secretly in the woods
without even appearing at the château, and then disappearing as
mysteriously as they had come.
For d'Aché in his retreat still plotted and made an effort to resume,
with the English minister, the intrigue that had just failed so
miserably, Moreau having withdrawn at the last minute. The royalist
party was less intimidated than exasperated at the deaths of the Duke
d'Enghien, Georges and Pichegru, and did not consider itself beaten even
by the proclamation of the Empire, which had not excited in the
provinces--above all in the country--the enthusiasm announced in the
official reports.
In reality it had been accepted by the majority of the population as a
government of expediency, which would provisionally secure threatened
interests, but whose duration was anything but certain. It was too
evident that the Empire was Napoleon, as the Consulate had been
Bonaparte--that everything rested on the head of one man. If an infernal
machine removed him, royalty would have a good opportunity. His life was
not the only stake; his luck itself was very hazardous. Founded on
victory, the Empire was condemned to be always victorious. War could
undo what war had done. And this uneasiness is manifest in contemporary
memoirs and correspondence. More of the courtiers of the new régime than
one imagines were as sceptical as Mme. Mère, economising her revenues
and saying to her mocking daughters, "You will perhaps be very glad of
them, some day!" In view of a possible catastrophe many of these kept
open a door for retreat towards the Bourbons, and vaguely encouraged
hopes of assistance that could only be depended on in case of their
success, but which the royalists believed in as positive and immediate.
As to the disaster which might bring it about, they hoped for its early
coming, and promised it to the impatient Chouans--the disembarkation of
an Anglo-Russian army--the rising of the West--the entrance of Louis
XVIII into his good town of Paris--and the return of the Corsican to his
island! Predictions that were not so wild after all. Ten years later it
was an accomplished fact in almost all its details. And what are ten
years in politics? Frotté, Georges, Pichegru, d'Aché, would only have
had to fold their arms. They would have seen the Empire crumble by its
own weight.
We made these reflections on returning to the château while looking at
the terrace in the setting sun, at the peaceful winding of the Seine and
the lovely autumn landscape that Mme. de Combray and d'Aché had so often
looked at, at the same place and hour, little foreseeing the sad fate
the future had in store for them.
The misfortunes of the unhappy woman--the deplorable affair of Quesnay
where the coach with state funds was attacked by Mme. Acquet's men, for
the profit of the royalist exchequer and of Le Chevalier; the
assassination of d'Aché, sold to the imperial police by La Vaubadon, his
mistress, and the cowardly Doulcet de Pontécoulant, who does not boast
of it in his "Mémoires,"--have been the themes of several tales,
romances and novels, wherein fancy plays too great a part, and whose
misinformed authors, Hippolyte Bonnelier, Comtesse de Mirabeau,
Chennevières, etc., have taken great advantage of the liberty used in
works of imagination. There is only one reproach to be made--that they
did not have the genius of Balzac. But we may criticise more severely
the so-called historical writings about Mme. de Combray, her family and
residences, and the Château of Tournebut which M. Homberg shows us
flanked by four feudal towers, and which MM. Le Prévost and Bourdon say
was demolished in 1807.
Mme. d'Abrantès, with her usual veracity, describes the luxurious
furniture and huge lamps in the "labyrinths of Tournebut, of which one
must, as it were, have a plan, so as not to lose one's way." She shows
us Le Chevalier, crucifix in hand, haranguing the assailants in the wood
of Quesnay (although he was in Paris that day to prove an alibi), and
gravely adds, "I know some one who was in the coach and who alone
survived, the seven other travellers having been massacred and their
bodies left on the road." Now there was neither coach nor travellers,
and no one was killed!
M. de la Sicotière's mistakes are still stranger. At the time that he
was preparing his great work on "Frotté and the Norman Insurrections,"
he learned from M. Gustave Bord that I had some special facts concerning
Mme. de Combray, and wrote to ask me about them. I sent him a résumé of
Moisson's story, and asked him to verify its correctness. And on that he
went finely astray.
Mme. de Combray had two residences besides her house at Rouen; one at
Aubevoye, where she had lived for a long while, the other thirty leagues
away, at Donnay, in the department of Orne, where she no longer went, as
her son-in-law had settled himself there. Two towers have the same name
of Tournebut; the one at Aubevoye is ours; the other, some distance from
Donnay, did not belong to Mme. de Combray.
Convinced solely by the assertions of MM. Le Prévost and Bourdon that in
1804 the Château of Aubevoye and its tower no longer existed, and that
Mme. de Combray occupied Donnay at that date, M. de la Sicotière
naturally mistook one Tournebut for the other, did not understand a
single word of Moisson's story, which he treated as a chimera, and in
his book acknowledges my communications in this disdainful note:
"Confusion has arisen in many minds between the two Tournebuts, so
different, however, and at such a distance from each other, and has
given birth to many strange and romantic legends; inaccessible
retreats arranged for outlaws and bandits in the old tower,
nocturnal apparitions, innocent victims paying with their lives the
misfortune of having surprised the secrets of these terrible
guests...."
It is pleasant to see M. de la Sicotière point out the confusion he
alone experienced. But there is better to come! Here is a writer who
gives us in two large volumes the history of Norman Chouannerie. There
is little else spoken of in his book than disguises, false names, false
papers, ambushes, kidnappings, attacks on coaches, subterranean
passages, prisons, escapes, child spies and female captains! He states
himself that the affair of the Forest of Quesnay was "tragic, strange
and mysterious!" And at the same time he condemns as "strange" and
"romantic" the simplest of all these adventures--that of Moisson! He
scoffs at his hiding-places in the roofs of the old château, and it is
precisely in the roofs of the old château that the police found the
famous refuge which could hold forty men with ease. He calls the
retreats arranged for the outlaws and bandits "legendary," at the same
time that he gives two pages to the enumeration of the holes, vaults,
wells, pits, grottoes and caverns in which these same bandits and
outlaws found safety! So that M. de la Sicotière seems to be laughing at
himself!
I should reproach myself if I did not mention, as a curiosity,
the biography of M. and Mme. de Combray, united in one person in
the "Dictionaire Historique" (!!!) of Larousse. It is unique of
its kind. Names, places and facts are all wrong. And the crowning
absurdity is that, borne out by these fancies, fragments are given
of the supposed Mémoires that Félicie (!) de Combray wrote after the
Restoration--forgetting that she was guillotined under the Empire!
With M. Ernest Daudet we return to history. No one had seriously studied
the crime of Quesnay before him. Some years ago he gave the correct
story of it in _Le Temps_ and we could not complain of its being only
what he meant it to be--a faithful and rapid résumé. Besides, M. Daudet
had only at his disposal the portfolios 8,170, 8,171, and 8,172 of the
Series F7 of the National Archives, and the reports sent to Réal by
Savoye-Rollin and Licquet, this cunning detective beside whom Balzac's
Corentin seems a mere schoolboy. Consequently the family drama escapes
M. Daudet, who, for that matter, did not have to concern himself with
it. It would not have been possible to do better than he did with the
documents within his reach.
Lenôtre has pushed his researches further. He has not limited himself to
studying, bit by bit, the voluminous report of the trial of 1808, which
fills a whole cupboard; to comparing and opposing the testimony of the
witnesses one against the other, examining the reports and enquiries,
disentangling the real names from the false, truth from error--in a
word, investigating the whole affair, a formidable task of which he only
gives us the substance here. Aided by his wonderful instinct and the
persistency of the investigator, he has managed to obtain access to
family papers, some of which were buried in old trunks relegated to the
attics, and in these papers has found precious documents which clear up
the depths of this affair of Quesnay where the mad passion of one poor
woman plays the greatest part.
And let no one imagine that he is going to read a romance in these
pages. It is an _historical_ study in the severest meaning of the word.
Lenôtre mentions no fact that he cannot prove. He risks no hypothesis
without giving it as such, and admits no fancy in the slightest detail.
If he describes one of Mme. Acquet's toilettes, it is because it is
given in some interrogation. I have seen him so scrupulous on this
point, as to suppress all picturesqueness that could be put down to his
imagination. In no _cause celèbre_ has justice shown more exactitude in
exposing the facts. In short, here will be found all the qualities that
ensured the success of his "Conspiration de la Rouërie," the chivalrous
beginning of the Chouannerie that he now shows us in its decline,
reduced to highway robbery!
As for me, if I have lingered too long by this old tower, it is because
it suggested this book; and we owe some gratitude to these mute
witnesses of a past which they keep in our remembrance.
Victorien Sardou.
The House of the Combrays
CHAPTER I
THE TREACHERY OF JEAN-PIERRE QUERELLE
Late at night on January the 25th, 1804, the First Consul, who, as it
often happened, had arisen in order to work till daylight, was looking
over the latest police reports that had been placed on his desk.
His death was talked of everywhere. It had already been announced
positively in London, Germany and Holland. "To assassinate Bonaparte"
was a sort of game, in which the English were specially active. From
their shores, well-equipped and plentifully supplied with money, sailed
many who were desirous of gaining the great stake,--obdurate Chouans and
fanatical royalists who regarded as an act of piety the crime that would
rid France of the usurper. What gave most cause for alarm in these
reports, usually unworthy of much attention, was the fact that all of
them were agreed on one point--Georges Cadoudal had disappeared. Since
this man, formidable by reason of his courage and tenacity of purpose,
had declared war without mercy on the First Consul, the police had
never lost sight of him. It was known that he was staying in England,
and he was under surveillance there; but if it was true that he had
escaped this espionage, the danger was imminent, and the predicted
"earthquake" at hand.
Bonaparte, more irritated than uneasy at these tales, wished to remove
all doubt about the matter. He mistrusted Fouché, whose devotion he had
reason to suspect, and who besides had not at this time--officially at
least--the superintendence of the police; and he had attached to himself
a dangerous spy, the Belgian Réal. It was on this man that Bonaparte, on
certain occasions, preferred to rely. Réal was a typical detective. The
friend of Danton, he had in former days, organised the great popular
manifestations that were to intimidate the Convention. He had penetrated
the terrible depths of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and the Committee of
Public Safety. He knew and understood how to make use of what remained
of the old committees of sections, of "septembriseurs" without
occupation, lacqueys, perfumers, dentists, dancing masters without
pupils, all the refuse of the revolution, the women of the Palais-Royal:
such was the army he commanded, having as his lieutenants Desmarets, an
unfrocked priest, and Veyrat, formerly a Genevese convict, who had been
branded and whipped by the public executioner. Réal and these two
subalterns were the principal actors in the drama that we are about to
relate.
On this night Bonaparte sent in haste for Réal. In his usual manner, by
brief questions he soon learned the number of royalists confined in the
tower of the Temple or at Bicêtre, their names, and on what suspicions
they had been arrested. Quickly satisfied on all these points he ordered
that before daylight four of the most deeply implicated of the prisoners
should be taken before a military commission; if they revealed nothing
they were to be shot in twenty-four hours. Aroused at five o'clock in
the morning, Desmarets was told to prepare the list, and the first two
names indicated were those of Picot and Lebourgeois. Picot was one of
Frotté's old officers, and during the wars of the Chouannerie had been
commander-in-chief of the Auge division. He had earned the surname of
"Egorge-Bleus" and was a Chevalier of St. Louis. Lebourgeois, keeper of
a coffee-house at Rouen, had been accused about the year 1800 of taking
part in an attack on a stage-coach, was acquitted, and like his friend
Picot, had emigrated to England. Both of these men had been denounced by
a professional instigator as having "been heard to say" that they had
come to attempt the life of the First Consul. They had been arrested at
Pont-Audemer as soon as they returned to France, and had now been
imprisoned in the Temple for nearly a year.
To these two victims Desmarets added another Chouan, Piogé, nicknamed
"Without Pity" or "Strike-to-Death," and Desol de Grisolles, an old
companion of Georges and "a very dangerous royalist." And then, to show
his zeal, he added a fifth name to the list, that of Querelle,
ex-surgeon of marine, arrested four months previously, under slight
suspicion, but described in the report as a poor-spirited creature of
whom "something might be expected."
"This one," said Bonaparte on reading the name of Querelle, and the
accompanying note, "is more of an intriguer than a fanatic; he will
speak."
The same day the five, accused of enticing away soldiers and
corresponding with the enemies of the Republic, were led before a
military commission over which General Duplessis presided; Desol and
Piogé were acquitted, returned to the hands of the government and
immediately reincarcerated. Picot, Lebourgeois and Querelle, condemned
to death, were transferred to the Abbaye there to await their execution
on the following day.
"There must be no delay, you understand," said Bonaparte, "I will not
have it."
But nevertheless it was necessary to give a little time for the courage
of the prisoners to fail, and for the police to aid in bringing this
about.
There was nothing to be expected of Picot or Lebourgeois; they knew
nothing of the conspiracy and were resigned to their fate; but their
deaths could be used to intimidate Querelle who was less firm, and the
authorities did not fail to make the most of the opportunity. He was
allowed to be present during all the preparations; he witnessed the
arrival of the soldiers who were to shoot his companions; he saw them
depart and was immediately told that it was "now his turn." Then to
prolong his agony he was left alone in the gloomy chamber where
Maillard's tribunal had formerly sat. This tragic room was lighted by a
small, strongly-barred window looking out on the square. From this
window the doomed man saw the soldiers who were to take him to the plain
of Grenelle drawn up in the narrow square and perceived the crowd
indulging in rude jokes while they waited for him to come out. One of
the soldiers had dismounted and tied his horse to the bars of the
window; while within the prison the noise of quick footsteps was heard,
doors opening and shutting heavily, all indicating the last
preparations....
Querelle remained silent for a long time, crouched up in a corner.
Suddenly, as if fear had driven him mad, he began to call desperately,
crying that he did not want to die, that he would tell all he knew,
imploring his gaolers to fly to the First Consul and obtain his pardon,
at the same time calling with sobs upon General Murat, Governor of
Paris, swearing that he would make a complete avowal if only he would
command the soldiers to return to their quarters. Although Murat could
see nothing in these ravings but a pretext for gaining a few hours of
life, he felt it his duty to refer the matter to the First Consul, who
sent word of it to Réal. All this had taken some time and meanwhile the
unfortunate Querelle, seeing the soldiers still under his window and the
impatient crowd clamouring for his appearance, was in the last paroxysm
of despair. When Réal opened the door he saw, cowering on the flags and
shaking with fear, a little man with a pockmarked face, black hair, a
thin and pointed nose and grey eyes continually contracted by a nervous
affection.
"You have announced your intention of making some revelations," said
Réal; "I have come to hear them."
But the miserable creature could scarcely articulate. Réal was obliged
to reassure him, to have him carried into another room, and to hold out
hopes of mercy if his confessions were sufficiently important. At last,
still trembling, and in broken words, with great effort the prisoner
confessed that he had been in Paris for six months, having come from
London with Georges Cadoudal and six of his most faithful officers; they
had been joined there by a great many more from Bretagne or England;
there were now more than one hundred of them hidden in Paris, waiting
for an opportunity to carry off Bonaparte, or to assassinate him. He
added more details as he grew calmer. A boat from the English navy had
landed them at Biville near Dieppe; there a man from Eu or Tréport had
met them and conducted them a little way from the shore to a farm of
which Querelle did not know the name. They left again in the night, and
in this way, from farm to farm, they journeyed to Paris where they did
not meet until Georges called them together; they received their pay in
a manner agreed upon. His own share was deposited under a stone in the
Champs Elysées every week, and he fetched it from there. A "gentleman"
had come to meet them at the last stage of their journey, near the
village of Saint-Leu-Taverny, to prepare for their entry into Paris and
help them to pass the barrier.
One point stood out boldly in all these revelations: Georges was in
Paris! Réal, whose account we have followed, left Querelle and hastened
to the Tuileries. The First Consul was in the hands of Constant, his
valet, when the detective was announced. Noticing his pallor, Bonaparte
supposed he had just come from the execution of the three condemned men.
"It is over, isn't it?" he said.
"No, General," replied Réal.
And seeing his hesitation the Consul continued: "You may speak before
Constant."
"Well then,--Georges and his band are in Paris."
On hearing the name of the only man he feared Bonaparte turned round
quickly, made the sign of the cross, and taking Réal by the sleeve led
him into the adjoining room.
So the First Consul's police, so numerous, so careful, and so active,
the police who according to the _Moniteur_ "had eyes everywhere," had
been at fault for six months! A hundred reports were daily piled up on
Réal's table, and not one of them had mentioned the goings and comings
of Georges, who travelled with his Chouans from Dieppe to Paris,
supported a little army, and planned his operations with as much liberty
as if he were in London. These revelations were so alarming that they
preferred not to believe them. Querelle must have invented this absurd
story as a last resource for prolonging his life. To set at rest all
doubt on this subject he must be convinced of the imposture. If it was
true that he had accompanied the "brigands" from the sea to Paris, he
could, on travelling over the route, show their different
halting-places. If he could do this his life was to be spared.
From the 27th January, when he made his first declarations, Querelle was
visited every night by Réal or Desmarets who questioned him minutely.
The unfortunate creature had sustained such a shock, that, even while
maintaining his avowals, he would be seized with fits of madness, and
beating his breast, would fall on his knees and call on those whom fear
of death had caused him to denounce, imploring their pardon. When he
learned what was expected of him he appeared to be overwhelmed, not at
the number of victims he was going to betray, but because he was aghast
at the idea of leading the detectives over a road that he had traversed
only at night, and that he feared he might not remember. The expedition
set out on February 3d. Réal had taken the precaution to have an escort
of gendarmes for the prisoner whom Georges and his followers might try
to rescue. The detachment was commanded by a zealous and intelligent
officer, Lieutenant Manginot, assisted by a giant called Pasque, an
astute man celebrated for the sureness of his attack. They left Paris at
dawn by the Saint-Denis gate and took the road to l'Isle-Adam.
The first day's search was without result. Querelle thought he
remembered that a house in the village of Taverny had sheltered the
Chouans the night before their entry into Paris; but at the time he had
not paid any attention to localities, and in spite of his efforts, he
could be positive of nothing. The next day they took the Pontoise road
from Pierrelaye to Franconville,--with no more success. They returned
towards Taverny by Ermont, le Plessis-Bouchard and the Château de
Boissy. Querelle, who knew that his life was at stake, showed a feverish
eagerness which was not shared by Pasque nor Manginot, who were now
fully persuaded that the prisoner had only wanted to gain time, or some
chance of escape. They thought of abandoning the search and returning to
Paris, but Querelle begged so vehemently for twenty-four hours' reprieve
that Manginot weakened. The third day, therefore, they explored the
environs of Taverny and the borders of the forest as far as Bessancourt.
Querelle now led them by chance, thinking he recognised a group of
trees, a turn of the road, even imagining he had found a farm "by the
particular manner in which the dog barked."
At last, worn out, the little band were returning to Paris when, on
passing through the village of Saint-Leu, Querelle gave a triumphant
cry! He had just recognised the long-looked for house, and he gave so
exact a description of it and its inhabitants that Pasque did not
hesitate to interrogate the proprietor, a vine-dresser named Denis
Lamotte. He laid great stress on the fact that he had a son in the
service of an officer of the Consul's guard; his other son, Vincent
Lamotte, lived with him. The worthy man appeared very much surprised at
the invasion of his house, but his peasant cunning could not long
withstand the professional cleverness of the detective, and after a few
minutes he gave up.
He admitted that at the beginning of July last he had received a person
calling himself Houvel, or Saint-Vincent, who under pretence of buying
some wine, had proposed to him to lodge seven or eight persons for a
night. Lamotte had accepted. On the evening of the 30th August Houvel
had reappeared and told him that the men would arrive that night. He
went to fetch them in the neighbourhood of l'Isle-Adam, and his son
Vincent accompanied him to serve as guide to the travellers, whom he met
on the borders of the wood of La Muette. They numbered seven, one of
whom, very stout and covered with sweat, stopped in the wood to change
his shirt. They all appeared to be very tired, and only two of them were
on horseback. They arrived at Lamotte's house at Saint-Leu about two
o'clock in the morning; the horses were stabled and the men stretched
themselves out on the straw in one of the rooms of the house. Lamotte
noticed that each of them carried two pistols. They slept long and had
dinner about twelve o'clock. Two individuals, who had driven from Paris
and left their cabriolets, one at the "White Cross" the other at the
"Crown," talked with the travellers who, about seven o'clock, resumed
their journey to the capital. Each of the "individuals" took one in his
cab; two went on horseback and the others awaited the phaeton which ran
between Taverny and Paris.
This account tallied so well with Querelle's declarations that there
was no longer any room for doubt. The band of seven was composed of
Georges and his staff; the "stout man" was Georges himself, and Querelle
gave the names of the others, all skilful and formidable Chouans.
Lamotte, on his part, did not hesitate to name the one who had conducted
the "brigands" to the wood of La Muette. He was called Nicolas
Massignon, a farmer of Jouy-le-Comte. Pasque set out with his gendarmes,
and Massignon admitted that he had brought the travellers from across
the Oise to the Avenue de Nesles, his brother, Jean-Baptiste Massignon,
a farmer of Saint-Lubin, having conducted them thither. Pasque
immediately took the road to Saint-Lubin and marched all night. At four
o'clock in the morning he arrived at the house of Jean-Baptiste, who,
surprised in jumping out of bed, remembered that he had put up some men
that his brother-in-law, Quentin-Rigaud, a cultivator at Auteuil, had
brought there. Pasque now held four links of the chain, and Manginot
started for the country to follow the track of the conspirators to the
sea. Savary had preceded him in order to surprise a new disembarkation
announced by Querelle. Arrived at the coast he perceived, at some
distance, an English brig tacking, but in spite of all their precautions
to prevent her taking alarm, the vessel did not come in. They saw her
depart on a signal given on shore by a young man on horseback, whom
Savary's gendarmes pursued as far as the forest of Eu, where he
disappeared.
In twelve days, always accompanied by Querelle, Manginot had ended his
quest, and put into the hands of Réal such a mass of depositions that it
was possible, as we shall show, to reconstruct the voyage of Georges and
his companions to Paris from the sea.
On the night of August 23, 1803, the English cutter "Vincejo," commanded
by Captain Wright, had landed the conspirators at the foot of the cliffs
of Biville, a steep wall of rocks and clay three hundred and twenty feet
high. From time immemorial, in the place called the hollow of Parfonval
there had existed an "estamperche," a long cord fixed to some piles,
which was used by the country people for descending to the beach. It was
necessary to pull oneself up this long rope by the arms, a most painful
proceeding for a man as corpulent as Georges. At last the seven Chouans
were gathered at the top of the cliff, and under the guidance of Troche,
son of the former procureur of the commune of Eu, and one of the most
faithful adherents of the party, they arrived at the farm of La Poterie,
near the hamlet of Heudelimont, about two leagues from the coast. Whilst
the farmer, Detrimont, was serving them drinks, a mysterious personage,
who called himself M. Beaumont, came to consult with them. He was a tall
man, with the figure of a Hercules, a swarthy complexion, a high
forehead and black eyebrows and hair. He disappeared in the early
morning.
Georges and his companions spent the whole of the 24th at La Poterie.
They left the farm in the night and marched five leagues to Preuseville,
where a M. Loisel sheltered them. The route was cleverly planned not to
leave the vast forest of Eu, which provided shaded roads, and in case of
alarm, almost impenetrable hiding-places. On the night of the 26th they
again covered five leagues, through the forest of Eu, arriving at Aumale
at two o'clock in the morning, and lodging with a man called Monnier,
who occupied the ancient convent of the Dominican Nuns. "The stout man"
rode a black horse which Monnier, for want of a stable, hid in a
corridor in the house, the halter tied to the key of the door. As for
the men, they threw themselves pell-mell on some straw, and did not go
out during the day. M. Beaumont had reappeared at Aumale. He arrived on
horseback and, after passing an hour with the conspirators, had left in
the direction of Quincampoix. They had seen him again with Boniface
Colliaux, called Boni, at their next stage, Feuquières, four leagues
off, which they reached on the night of the 27th. They passed the 28th
with Leclerc, five leagues further on, at the farm of Monceaux which
belonged to the Count d'Hardivilliers, situated in the commune of
Saint-Omer-en-Chaussée. From there, avoiding Beauvais, the son of
Leclerc had guided them to the house of Quentin-Rigaud at Auteuil, and
on the 29th he had taken them to Massignon, the farmer of Saint-Lubin,
who in turn had passed them on, the next day, to his brother Nicolas,
charged, as we have seen, to help them cross the Oise and direct them to
the wood of La Muette, where Denis Lamotte, the vine-dresser of
Saint-Leu, had come to fetch them.
Such was the result of Manginot's enquiries. He had reconstructed
Georges' itinerary with most remarkable perspicacity and this was the
more important as the chain of stations from the sea to Paris
necessitated long and careful organisation, and as the conspirators used
the route frequently. Thus, two men mentioned in the disembarkation of
August 23d had returned to Biville in mid-September. On October 2d
Georges and three of his officers, coming from Paris, had again
presented themselves before Lamotte, who had conducted them to the wood
of La Muette, where Massignon was waiting for them. It was proved that
their journeys had been made with perfect regularity; the same guides,
the same night marches, the same hiding-places by day. The house of
Boniface Colliaux at Feuquières, that of Monnier at Aumale, and the farm
of La Poterie seemed to be the principal meeting-places. Another passage
took place in the second fortnight of November, and another in December,
corresponding to a new disembarkation. In January, 1804, Georges made
the journey for the fourth time, to await at Biville the English
corvette bringing Pichegru, the Marquis de Rivière and four other
conspirators. A fisherman called Étienne Horné gave some valuable
details of this arrival. He had noticed particularly the man who
appeared to be the leader--"a fat man, with a full, rather hard face,
round-shouldered, and with a slight trouble in his arms."
"These gentlemen," he added, "usually arrived at night, and left about
midnight; they were satisfied with our humble fare, and always kept
together in a corner, talking."
When the tide was full Horné went down to the beach to watch for the
sloop. The password was "Jacques," to which the men in the boat replied
"Thomas."
Manginot, as may well be imagined, arrested all who in any way had
assisted the conspirators, and hurried them off to Paris. The tower of
the Temple became crowded with peasants, with women in Normandy caps,
and fishermen of Dieppe, dumbfounded at finding themselves in the famous
place where the monarchy had suffered its last torments. But these were
only the small fry of the conspiracy, and the First Consul, who liked to
pose as the victim exposed to the blows of an entire party, could not
with decency take these inoffensive peasants before a high court of
justice. While waiting for chance or more treachery to reveal the refuge
of Georges Cadoudal, the discovery of the organisers of the plot was
most important, and this seemed well-nigh impossible, although Manginot
had reason to think that the centre of the conspiracy was near Aumale or
Feuquières.
His attention had been attracted by a deposition mentioning the black
horse that Georges had ridden from Preuseville to Aumale--the one that
the school-master Monnier had hidden in a corridor of his house. With
this slight clue he started for the country. There he learned that a
workman called Saint-Aubin, who lived in the hamlet of Coppegueule, had
been ordered to take the horse to an address on a letter which Monnier
had given him. This man, when called upon to appear, remembered that he
had led the horse "to a fine house in the environs of Gournay." When he
arrived there a servant had taken the animal to the stables, and a lady
had come out and asked for the letter, but he denied all knowledge of
the lady's name or the situation of the house.
Manginot resolved to search the country in company with Saint-Aubin, but
he was either stupid or pretended to be so, and refused to give any
assistance. He led the gendarmes six leagues, as far as Aumale, and
said, at first, that he recognised the Château de Mercatet-sur-Villers,
but on looking carefully at the avenues and the arrangement of the
buildings, he declared he had never been there. The same thing happened
at Beaulevrier and at Mothois; but on approaching Gournay his memory
returned, and he led Manginot to a house in the hamlet of Saint-Clair
which he asserted was the one to which Monnier had sent him. On entering
the courtyard he recognised the servant to whom he had given the horse
six months before, a groom named Joseph Planchon. Manginot instantly
arrested the man, and then began his search.
The house belonged to an ex-officer of marine, François Robert d'Aché,
who rarely occupied it, being an ardent sportsman and preferring his
estates near Neufchâtel-en-Bray, where there was more game. Saint-Clair
was occupied by Mme. d'Aché, an invalid who rarely left her room, and
her two daughters, Louise and Alexandrine, as well as d'Aché's mother, a
bedridden octogenarian, and a young man named Caqueray, who was also
called the Chevalier de Lorme, who farmed the lands of M. and Mme.
d'Aché, whose property had recently been separated by law. Caqueray
looked upon himself as one of the family, and Louise, the eldest girl,
was betrothed to him.
Nothing could have been less suspicious than the members of this
patriarchal household, who seemed to know nothing of politics, and whose
tranquil lives were apparently unaffected by revolutions. The absence of
the head of so united a family was the only astonishing thing about it.
But Mme. d'Aché and her daughters explained that he was bored at
Saint-Clair and usually lived in Rouen, that he hunted a great deal, and
spent his time between his relatives who lived near Gaillon and friends
at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. They could not say where he was at present,
having had no news of him for two months.
But on questioning the servants Manginot learned some facts that changed
the aspect of affairs. Lambert, the gardener, had recently been shot at
Evreux, convicted of having taken part with a band of Chouans in an
attack on the stage-coach, Caqueray's brother had just been executed for
the same cause at Rouen. Constant Prévot, a farm hand, accused of having
killed a gendarme, had been acquitted, but died soon after his return to
Saint-Clair. Manginot had unearthed a nest of Chouans, and only when he
learned that the description of d'Aché was singularly like that of the
mysterious Beaumont who had been seen with Georges at La Poterie, Aumale
and Feuquières, did he understand the importance of his discovery.
After a rapid and minute inquiry, he took it upon himself to arrest
every one at Saint-Clair, and sent an express to Réal, informing him of
the affair, and asking for further instructions.
It had been the custom for several years, when a person was denounced to
the police as an enemy of the government, or a simple malcontent, to
have his name put up in Desmarets' office, and to add to it, in
proportion to the denunciations, every bit of information that could
help to make a complete portrait of the individual. That of d'Aché was
consulted. There were found annotations of this sort: "By reason of his
audacity he is one of the most important of the royalists," "Last
December he took a passport at Rouen for Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where he
was called by business," "His host at Saint-Germain, Brandin de
Saint-Laurent, declares that he did not sleep there regularly, sometimes
two, sometimes three days at a time." At last a letter was intercepted
addressed to Mme. d'Aché, containing this phrase, which they recognised
as Georges' style: "Tell M. Durand that things are taking a good
turn,... his presence is necessary.... He will have news of me at the
Hôtel de Bordeaux, rue de Grenelle, Saint-Honoré, where he will ask for
Houvel." Now Houvel was the unknown man who, first of all, had gone to
the vine-dresser of Saint-Leu to persuade him to aid the "brigands."
Thus d'Aché's route was traced from Biville to Paris and the conclusion
drawn that, knowing all the country about Bray, where he owned estates,
he had been chosen to arrange the itinerary of the conspirators and to
organise their journeys. He had accompanied them from La Poterie to
Feuquières, sometimes going before them, sometimes staying with them in
the farms where he had found for them places of refuge.
In default of Georges, then, d'Aché was the next best person to seize,
and the First Consul appreciated this fact so keenly that he organised
two brigades of picked soldiers and fifty dragoons. But they only served
to escort poor sick Mme. d'Aché, her daughter Louise and their friend
Caqueray, who were immediately locked up--the last named in the Tower of
the Temple, and the two women in the Madelonnettes. The infirm old
grandmother remained at Saint-Clair, while Alexandrine wished to follow
her mother and sister, and was left quite at liberty. But d'Aché could
not be found. Manginot's army had searched the whole country, from
Beauvais to Tréport, without success; they had sought him at
Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where he was said to be hidden, at
Saint-Denis-de-Monts, at Saint-Romain, at Rouen. The prefects of Eure
and Seine-Inférieure were ordered to set all their police on his track.
The result of this campaign was pitiable, and they only succeeded in
arresting d'Aché's younger brother, an inoffensive fellow of feeble
mind, appropriately named "Placide," who was nicknamed "Tourlour," on
account of his lack of wit and his rotundity. His greatest fear was of
being mistaken for his brother, which frequently happened. As the elder
d'Aché could never be caught, Placide, who loved tranquillity and
hardly ever went away from home, was invariably taken in his stead. It
happened again this time, and Manginot seized him, thinking he had done
a fine thing. But the first interview undeceived him. However, he sent
word of his capture to Réal, who, in his zeal to execute the First
Consul's orders, took upon himself to determine that Placide d'Aché was
as dangerous a royalist "brigand" as his brother. He ordered the
prisoner to be brought under a strong escort to Paris, determining to
interrogate him himself. But as soon as he had seen "Tourlour," and had
asked him a few questions, including one as to his behaviour during the
Terror, and received for answer, "I hid myself with mamma," Réal
understood that such a man could not be brought before a tribunal as a
rival to Bonaparte. He kept him, however, in prison, so that the name of
d'Aché could appear on the gaol-book of the Temple.
In the meantime, on the 9th of March 1804, at the hour when Placide
d'Aché was being interrogated, an event occurred, which transformed the
drama and hastened its tragic dénouement.