"I am going to die, my sister, and I bequeath you my son. I do not doubt that you will show him all a mother's tenderness and care. I beg you also to have all the firmness and vigilance that I should have had in forming his character and heart."Unfortunately, in leaving you the child that is so dear to me, I cannot also leave you a fortune equal to that which I inherited from my parents. I reproach myself, more than for any other fault in my life, for having diminished the inheritance they transmitted to me. Bring him up according to his actual fortune, and make him an artisan, if you must, rather than commit him to the care of strangers."One of my greatest regrets in quitting this life, is leaving it without having shown my gratitude to you and your daughter."Good-bye; I shall live, I hope, in your remembrance, and you will keep me alive in that of my son.
"I am going to die, my sister, and I bequeath you my son. I do not doubt that you will show him all a mother's tenderness and care. I beg you also to have all the firmness and vigilance that I should have had in forming his character and heart.
"Unfortunately, in leaving you the child that is so dear to me, I cannot also leave you a fortune equal to that which I inherited from my parents. I reproach myself, more than for any other fault in my life, for having diminished the inheritance they transmitted to me. Bring him up according to his actual fortune, and make him an artisan, if you must, rather than commit him to the care of strangers.
"One of my greatest regrets in quitting this life, is leaving it without having shown my gratitude to you and your daughter.
"Good-bye; I shall live, I hope, in your remembrance, and you will keep me alive in that of my son.
"Le Chevalier."
Night had come—a cold misty winter night—when the cab that was to take the prisoner to his execution arrived at the door of the Abbaye. It was a long way from Saint-Germain-des-Près to the barriers by way of the Rue du Four and Rue de Grenelle, the Avenue de l'École Militaire, and the tortuous way that is now the Rue Dupleix. The damp fog made the night seem darker; few persons were about, and the scene must have been peculiarly gloomy and forbidding. The cab stopped in the angle formed by the barrier of Grenelle, and on the bare ground the condemned man stood with his back to the wall of the enclosure. It was the custom at night executions to place a lighted lantern on the breast of the victim as a target for the men.
It was all over at six o'clock. While the troop was returning to town the grave-diggers took the corpse which had fallen beneath the wall and carried it to the cemetery of Vaugirard; a neighbouring gardener and an old man of eighty, whom curiosity had led to the corpse of this unknown Chouan, served as witnesses to the death certificate.
The death of Le Chevalier put an end to the prosecution of the affair of Quesnay. He was one of those prisoners of whom the grand judge said "that they could not be set at liberty, but that the good of the State required that they should not appear before the judges"; and they feared that by pushing the investigations farther they might bring on some great political trial that would agitate the whole west of France, always ready for an insurrection, and shown in the reports to be organised for a new Chouan outburst. It is certain that d'Aché's capture would have embarrassed Fouché seriously, and in default of causing him to disappear like Le Chevalier, he would much have preferred to see him escape the pursuit of his agents. The absence of these two leaders in the plot would enable him to represent the robbery of June 7th, as a simple act of brigandage which had no political significance whatever.
They therefore imposed silence on the gabblings of Lefebre, who had become a prey to such incontinence of denunciations that he only stopped them to lament his fate and curse those who had drawn him into the adventure; they moderated Licquet's zeal, and the prefect confided to him the drawing up of the general report of the affair, a task of which he acquitted himself so well that his voluminous work seemed to Fouché "sufficiently luminous and circumstantial to be submitted as it was to his Majesty."
Then they began, but in no haste,to concern themselves with the trial of the other prisoners. It was necessary, according to custom, to interrogate and confront the forty-seven persons imprisoned; of this number the prosecution only held thirty-two, of whom twenty-three were present. These were Flierlé, Harel, Grand-Charles, Fleur d'Épine and Le Héricey who by Allain's orders had attacked the waggon; the Marquise de Combray, her daughter and Lefebre, instigators of the crime; Gousset the carrier; Alexandre Buquet, Placène, Vannier, Langelley, who had received the money; Chauvel and Lanoë as accomplices, and the innkeepers of Louvigny, d'Aubigny and elsewhere who had entertained the brigands. Those absent were d'Aché, Allain, Le Lorault called "La Jeunesse," Joseph Buquet, the Dupont girl, and the friends of Le Chevalier or Lefebre who were compromised by the latter's revelations—Courmaceul, Révérend, Dusaussay, etc., Grenthe, called "Cœur-le-Roi," had died in the conciergerie during the enquiry. Mme. de Combray's gardener, Châtel, had committed suicide a few days after his arrest. As to Placide d'Aché and Bonnœil, it was decided not to bring them to trial but to take them later before a military commission. Everything was removed that could give the trial political significance.
Mme. de Combray, who was at last enlightened as to the kind of interest taken in her by Licquet, and awakened from the illusions that the detective had so cleverly nourished, had been able to communicate directly with her family. Her son Timoléon had never approved of her political actions and since the Revolution had stayed away from Tournebut; but as soon as he heard of their arrest he hurried to Rouen to be near his mother and brother in prison. The letters he exchanged with Bonnœil, as soon as it was permitted, show a strong sense of the situation on the part of both, irreproachable honesty and profound friendship. This family, whom it suited Licquet to represent as consisting of spiteful, dissolute or misguided people, appears in a very different light in this correspondence. The two brothers were full of respect for their mother, and tenderly attached to their sister: unfortunate and guilty as she was, they never reproached her, nor made any allusion to facts well-known and forgiven. They were all leagued against the common enemy, Acquet, whom they considered the cause of all their suffering. This man had returned from the Temple strengthened by the cowardly service he had rendered, and entered Donnay in triumph; he did not try to conceal his joy at all the catastrophes that had overtaken the Combrays, and treated them as vanquished enemies. The family held a council. The advice of Bonnœil and Timoléon, as well as of the Marquise, was to sacrifice everything to save Mme. Acquet. They knew that her husband's denunciations made her the chief culprit, and that the accusation would rest almost entirely on her. They determined to appeal to Chauveau-Lagarde, whom the perilous honour of defending Marie-Antoinette before the Revolutionary tribunal had rendered illustrious. The great advocate undertook the defence of Mme. Acquet and sent a young secretary named Ducolombier, who usually lived with him, to Rouen to study the case—"an intriguer calling himself doctor," wrote Licquet scornfully. Ducolombier stayed in Rouen and set himself to examine the condition of the Combrays' fortune. Mme. de Combray had consented some years back to the sale of a part of her property, and Timoléon, in the hope of averting financial disaster and being of use to his mother by diminishing her responsibility, had succeeded in having a trustee appointed for her.
The matter was brought to Rouen and it was there that, "for the safety of the State," the trial took place that excited all Normandy in advance. Curiosity was greatly aroused by the crime committed by "ladies of the château," and surprising revelations were expected, the examination having lasted more than a year and having brought together an army of witnesses from around Falaise and Tournebut. Mme. de Combray's house in the Rue des Carmélites had become the headquarters of the defence. Mlle. Querey had come out of prison after several weeks' detention, and was there looking after the little Acquets, who had been kept at the pension Du Saussay in ignorance of what was going on around them: the three children still suffered from the ill-treatment they had received in infancy. Timoléon also lived in the Rue des Carmélites when the interests of his family did not require his presence in Falaise or Paris. There, also, lived Ducolombier, who had organised a sort of central office in the house where the lawyers of the other prisoners could come and consult. Mme. de Combray had chosen Maître Gady de la Vigne of Rouen to defend her; Maître Denise had charge of Flierlé's case, and Maître le Bouvier was to speak for Lefebre and Placène.
Chauveau-Lagarde arrived in Rouen on December 1, 1808. He had scarcely done so when he received a long epistle from Acquet de Férolles, in which the unworthy husband tried to dissuade him from undertaking the defence of his wife, and to ruin the little testimony for the defence that Ducolombier had collected. It seems that this scoundrelly proceeding immediately enlightened the eminent advocate as to the preliminaries of the drama, for from this day he proved for the Combray family not only a brilliant advocate, but a friend whose devotion never diminished.
The trial opened on December 15th in the great hall of the Palais. A crowd, chiefly peasants, collected as soon as the doors were opened in the part reserved for the public. A platform had been raised for the twenty-three prisoners, among whom all eyes searched for Mme. Acquet, very pale, indifferent or resigned, and Mme. de Combray, very much animated and with difficulty induced by her counsel to keep silent. Besides the president, Carel, the court was composed of seven judges, of whom three were military; the imperial and special Procurer-General, Chopais-Marivaux, occupied the bench.
From the beginning it was evident that orders had been given to suppress everything that could give political colour to the affair. As neither d'Aché, Le Chevalier, Allain nor Bonnœil was present, nor any of the men who could claim the honour of being treated as conspirators and not as brigands, the judges only had the small fry of the plot before them, and the imperial commissary took care to name the chiefs only with great discretion. He did it by means of epithets, and in a melodramatic tone that caused the worthy people who jostled each other in the hall to shiver with terror.
Never had the gilded panels, which since the time of Louis XII had formed the ceiling of the great hall of the Palais, heard such astonishing eloquence; for three hours the Procurer Chopais-Marivaux piled up his heavy sentences, pretentious to the point of unintelligibility. When, after having recounted the facts, the magistrate came to the flight of Mme. Acquet and her sojourn with the Vanniers and Langelley, and it was necessary without divulging Licquet's proceedings to tell of her arrest, he became altogether incomprehensible. He must have thought himself lucky in not having before him, on the prisoners' bench, a man bold enough to show up the odious subterfuges that had been used in order to entrap the conspirators and obtain their confessions; there is no doubt that such a revelation would have gained for the two guilty women, if not the leniency of the judges, the sympathy at least of the public, who all over the province were awaiting with anxious curiosity the slightest details of the trial. The gazettes had been ordered to ignore it; theJournal de Rouenonly spoke of it once to state that, as it lacked space to reproduce the whole trial, it preferred to abstain altogether; and but for a few of Licquet's notes, nothing would be known of the character of the proceedings.
The interrogation of the accused and the examination of the witnesses occupied seven sittings. On Thursday, December 22d, the Procurer-General delivered his charge. The prosecution tried above all to show up the antagonism existing between Mme. de Combray and M. Acquet de Férolles. The latter's denunciations had borne fruit; the Marquise was represented as having tried "to get rid of her son-in-law by poisoning his drink." And the old story of the bottles of wine sent to Abbé Clarisse and of his inopportune death were revived; all the unpleasant rumours that had formerly circulated around Donnay were amplified, made grosser, and elevated to the position of accomplished facts. It was decided that poison "was a weapon familiar to the Marquise of Combray," and as, after having replied satisfactorily to all the first questions asked her, she remained mute on this point, a murmur of disapprobation ran round the audience, to the great joy of Licquet. "The prisoner," he notes, "whose sex and age at first rendered her interesting, has lost to-day every vestige of popularity."
We know nothing of Mme. Acquet's examination, and but little of Chauveau-Lagarde's pleading; a leaf that escaped from his portfolio and was picked up by Mme. de Combray gives a few particulars. This paper has some pencilled notes, and two or three questions written to Mme. Acquet on the prisoners' bench, to which she scrawled a few words in reply. We find there a sketch of the theme which the advocate developed, doubtless to palliate his client's misconduct.
"Mme. Acquet is reproached with her liaisons with Le Chevalier; she can answer—or one can answer for her—that she suffered ill-treatment of all kinds for four years from a man who was her husband only from interest, so much so that he tried to get rid of her.... Fearful at one time of being poisoned, at another of having her brains dashed out,... her suit for separation had brought her in touch with Le Chevalier, whom she had not known until her husband let him loose on her in order to bring about an understanding...."
During the fifteen sittings of the court a restless crowd filled the hall, the courts of the Palais, and the narrow streets leading to it. At eight o'clock in the morning of December 30th, the president, Carel, declared the trial closed, and the court retired to "form its opinions." Not till three o'clock did the bell announce the return of the magistrates. The verdict was immediately pronounced. Capital punishment was the portion of Mme. Acquet, Flierlé, Lefebre, Harel, Grand-Charles, Fleur d'Épine, Le Héricey, Gautier-Boismale, Lemarchand and Alexandre Buquet. The Marquise de Combray was condemned to twenty-two years' imprisonment in irons, and so were Lerouge, called Bornet, Vannier and Bureau-Placène. The others were acquitted, but had to be detained "for the decision of his Excellency, the minister-of-police." The Marquise was, besides, to restore to the treasury the total sum of money taken. Whilst the verdict was being read, the people crowded against the barriers till they could no longer move, eagerly scanning the countenances of the two women. The old Marquise, much agitated, declaimed in a loud voice against the Procurer-General: "Ah! the monster! The scoundrel! How he has treated us!"
Mme. Acquet, pale and impassive, seemed oblivious of what was going on around her. When she heard sentence of death pronounced against her, she turned towards her defender, and Chauveau-Lagarde, rising, asked for a reprieve for his client. Although she had been in prison for fourteen months, she was, he said, "in an interesting condition." There was a murmur of astonishment in the hall, and while, during the excitement caused by this declaration, the court deliberated on the reprieve, one of the condemned, Le Héricey, leapt over the bar, fell with all his weight on the first rows of spectators, and by kicks and blows, aided by the general bewilderment, made a path for himself through the crowd, and amid shouts and shoves had already reached the door when a gendarme nabbed him in passing and threw him back into the hall, where, trampled on and overcome with blows, he was pushed behind the bar and taken away with the other condemned prisoners. The reprieve asked for Mme. Acquet was pronounced in the midst of the tumult, the crush at the door of the great hall being so great that many were injured.
The verdict, which soon became known all over the town, was in general ill received. Ifthe masses showed a dull satisfaction in the punishment of the Combray ladies, saying "that neither rank nor riches had counted, and that, guilty like the others, they were treated like the others," the bourgeois population of Rouen, still very indulgent to the royalists, disapproved of the condemnation of the two women, who had only been convicted of a crime by which neither of them had profited. The reprieve granted to Mme. Acquet, "whose declaration had deceived no one," seemed a good omen, indicating a commutation of her sentence. The nine "brigands" condemned to death received no pity. Lefebre was not known in Rouen, and his attitude during the trial had aroused no sympathy; the others were but vulgar actors in the drama, and only interested the populace hungry for a spectacle on the scaffold. The executions would take place immediately, the judgments pronounced by the special court being without appeal, like those of the former revolutionary tribunals.
The nine condemned men were taken to the conciergerie. It was night when their "toilet" was begun. The high-executioner, Charles-André Ferey, of an old Norman family of executioners, had called on his cousins Joanne and Desmarets to help him, and while the scaffold was being hastily erected on the Place du Vieux-Marché, they made preparations in the prison. In the anguish of this last hour on earth Flierlé's courage weakened. He sent a gaoler to the imperial procurer to ask "if a reprieve would be granted to any one who would make important revelations." On receiving a negative reply the German seemed to resign himself to hisfate. "Since that is the case," he said, "I will carry my secret to the tomb with me."
The doors of the conciergerie did not open until seven in the evening. By the light of torches the faces of the condemned were seen in the cart, moving above the crowds thronging the narrow streets. The usual route from the prison to the scaffold was by the Rue du Gros-Horloge, and this funeral march by torchlight and execution at midnight in December must have been a terrifying event. The crowd, kept at a distance, probably saw nothing but the glimmering light of the torches in the misty air, and the shadowy forms moving on the platform. According to theJournal de Rouenof the next day, Flierlé mounted first, then Harel, Grand-Charles, Fleur d'Épine and Le Héricey who took part with him in the attack on June 7th. Lefebre "passed" sixth. The knife struck poor Gautier-Boismale badly, as well as Alexandre Buquet, who died last. The agony of these two unfortunates was horrible, prolonged as it was by the repairs necessary for the guillotine to continue its work. The bloody scene did not end till half-past eight in the morning.
The next day, December 31st, the exhibition on the scaffold of Mme. de Combray, Placène, Vannier, and Lerouge, all condemned to twenty-two years' imprisonment, was to take place. But when they went to the old Marquise's cell she was found in such a state of exasperation, fearful crises of rage being succeeded by deep dejection, that they had to give up the idea of removing her. The three men alone were therefore tied to the post, where they remained for six hours. As soon as they returned to the conciergerie they were sent in irons to the House of Detention at the general hospital, whence they were to go to the convict prison.
The Marquise had not twenty-two years to live. The thought of ending her days in horrible Bicêtre with thieves, beggars and prostitutes; the humiliation of having been defeated, deceived and made ridiculous in the eyes of all Normandy; and perhaps more than all, the sudden comprehension that it had all been a game, that the Revolution would triumph in the end, that she, a great and powerful lady—noble, rich, a royalist—was treated the same as vulgar criminals, was so cruel a blow, that it was the general impression that she would succumb to it. It is impossible nowadays to realise what an effect these revelations must have produced on a mind obstinately set against all democratic realities. For nearly a month the Marquise remained in a state of stupefaction; from the day of her condemnation till January 15th it was impossible to get her to take any kind of nourishment. She knew that they were watching for the moment when she would be strong enough to stand the pillory, and perhaps she had resolved to die of hunger. There had been some thought—and this compassionate idea seems to have originated with Licquet—of sparing the aged woman this supreme agony, but the Procurer-General showed such bitter zeal in the execution of the sentence, that the prefect received orders fromRéal to proceed. He writes on January 29th: "I am informed of her condition daily. She now takes light nourishment, but is still extremely feeble; we could not just now expose this woman to the pillory without public scandal."
What was most feared was the indignation of the public at sight of the torture uselessly inflicted on an old woman who had already been sufficiently punished. The prefect's words, "without scandal," showed how popular feeling in Rouen had revolted at the verdict. More than one story got afloat. As the details of the trial were very imperfectly known, no journal having published the proceedings, it was said that the Marquise's only crime was her refusal to denounce her daughter, and widespread pity was felt for this unhappy woman who was considered a martyr to maternal love and royalist faith. Perhaps some of this universal homage was felt even in the prison, for towards the middle of February the Marquise seemed calmer and morally strengthened. The authorities profited by this to order her punishment to proceed. It was February the 17th, and as one of her "attacks" was feared, they prudently took her by surprise. She was told that Dr. Ducolombier, coming from Chauveau-Lagarde, asked to see her at the wicket. She went down without suspicion and was astonished to find in place of the manshe expected, two others whom she had never seen. One was the executioner Ferey, who seized her hands and tied her. The doors opened, and seeing the gendarmes, the cart and the crowd, she understood, and bowed her head in resignation.
On the Place du Vieux-Marché the scaffold was raised, and a post to which the text of the verdict was affixed. The prisoner was taken up to the platform; she seemed quite broken, thin, yet very imposing, with her still black hair, and her air of "lady of the manor." She was dressed in violet silk, and as she persisted in keeping her head down, her face was hidden by the frills of her bonnet. To spare her no humiliation Ferey pinned them up; he then made her sit on a stool and tied her to the post, which forced her to hold up her head.
What she saw at the foot of the scaffold brought tears of pride to her eyes. In the first row of the crowd that quietly and respectfully filled the place, ladies in sombre dresses were grouped as close as possible to the scaffold, as if to take a voluntary part in the punishment of the old Chouanne; and during the six hours that the exhibition lasted the ladies of highest rank and most distinguished birth in the town came by turns to keep her company in her agony; some of them even spread flowers at the foot of the scaffold, thus transforming the disgrace into an apotheosis.
The heart of the Marquise, which had not softened through seventeen months of torture and anxiety, melted at last before this silent homage; tears were seen rolling down her thin cheeks, and the crowd was touched to see the highest ladies in the town sitting round this old unhappy woman, and saluting her with solemn courtesies.
At nightfall Mme. de Combray was taken back to the conciergerie; later in the evening she was sent to Bicêtre, and several days afterwards Chopais-Marivaux, thinking he had served the Master well, begged as the reward of his zeal for the cross of the Legion of Honour.
D'Aché, however, had not renounced his plans; the arrest of Le Chevalier, Mme. de Combray and Mme. Acquet was not enough to discourage him. It was, after all, only one stake lost, and he was the sort to continue the game. It is not even certain that he took the precaution, when Licquet was searching for himall over Normandy, to leave the Château of Montfiquet at Mandeville, where he had lived since his journey to England in the beginning of 1807. Ten months after the robbery of Quesnay he was known to be in the department of the Eure; Licquet, who had just terminated his enquiry, posted to Louviers, d'Aché, he found, had been there three days previously. From where had he come? From Tournebut, where, in spite of the search made, he could have lived concealed for six months in some well-equipped hiding-place? Unlikely as this seems, Licquet was inclined to believe it, so much was his own cunning disconcerted by the audacious cleverness of his rival. The letter in which he reports to Réal his investigation in the Eure, is stamped with deep discouragement; he did not conceal the fact that the pursuit of d'Aché was a task as deceptive as it was useless. Perhaps he also thought that Le Chevalier's case was a precedent to be followed; d'Aché would have been a very undesirable prisoner to bring before a tribunal, and to get rid of him without scandal would be the best thing for the State. Licquet felt that an excess of zeal, bringing on a spectacular arrest such as that of Georges Cadoudal, would be ill-received in high quarters, and he therefore showed some nonchalance in his search for the conspirator.
D'Aché, meanwhile, showed little concern on learning of the capture of his accomplices. Lost in his illusions he took no care for his own safety, and remained at Mandeville, organising imaginary legions on paper, arranging the stages of the King's journey to Paris, and discussing with the Montfiquets certain points of etiquette regardingthe Prince's stay at their château on the day following his arrival in France. One day, however, when they were at table—it was in the spring of 1808—a stranger arrived at the Château de Mandeville, and asked for M. Alexandre (the name taken by d'Aché, it will be remembered, at Bayeux). D'Aché saw the man himself, and thinking his manner suspicious, and his questions indiscreet, he treated him as a spy and showed him the door, but not before the intruder had launched several threats at him.
This occurrence alarmed M. de Montfiquet, and he persuaded his guest to leave Mandeville for a time. During the following night they both started on foot for Rubercy, where M. Gilbert de Mondejen, a great friend and confidant of d'Aché's, was living in hiding from the police in the house of a Demoiselle Genneville. This old lady, who was an ardent royalist, welcomed the fugitives warmly; they were scarcely seated at breakfast, however, when a servant gave the alarm. "Here come the soldiers!" she cried.
D'Aché and Mondejen rushed from the room and bounded across the porch into the courtyard just as the gendarmes burst in at the gate. They would have been caught if a horse had not slipped on the wet pavement and caused some confusion, during which they shut themselves into a barn, escaped by a door at the back, and jumping over hedges and ditches gained a little wood on the further side of the Tortoue brook.
But d'Aché had been seen, and from that day hewas obliged to resume his wandering existence, living in the woods by day and tramping by night. He was entirely without resources, for he had no money, but was certain of finding a refuge, in case of need, in this region where malcontents abounded and all doors opened to them. In this way he reached the forest of Serisy, a part of which had formerly belonged to the Montfiquets; it was here that the abandoned mines were situated that had been mentioned to Licquet as Allain's place of refuge. Though obliged to abandon the Château de Mandeville, where, as well as at Rubercy, the gendarmes had made a search, d'Aché did not lack shelter around Bayeux. A Madame Chivré, who lived on the outskirts of the town, had for fifteen years been the providence of the most desperate Chouans, and d'Aché was sure of a welcome from her; but he stayed only a few days.
Mme. Amfrye also assisted him. This woman who never went out except to church, and was seen every morning with eyes downcast, walking to Saint-Patrice with her servant carrying her prayer book, was one of the fiercest royalists of the region. She looked after the emigrants' funds and took charge of their correspondence. Once a week a priest rang her door-bell; it was the Abbé Nicholas, curé of Vierville, a little fishing village. The Abbé, whose charity was proverbial, and accounted for his visits to Mme. Amfrye, was in reality a second David l'Intrépide; mass said and his beads told, he got into a boat and went alone to the islands of Saint-Marcouf, where an exchange of letters was made with the English emissaries, the good priestbringing his packet back to Bayeux under his soutane.
D'Aché could also hide with Mademoiselle Dumesnil, or Mlle. Duquesnay de Montfiquet, to both of whom he had been presented by Mme. de Vaubadon, an ardent royalist who had rendered signal service to the party during the worst days of the Terror. She was mentioned among the Normans who had shown most intelligent and devoted zeal for the cause.
Born de Mesnildot, niece of Tourville, she had married shortly before the Revolution M. le Tellier de Vaubadon, son of a member of the Rouen Parliament, a handsome man, amiable, loyal, elegant, and most charmingly sociable. She was medium-sized, not very pretty, but attractive, with a very white skin, tawny hair, and graceful carriage. Two sons were born of this union, and on the outbreak of the Revolution M. de Vaubadon emigrated. After several months of retreat in the Château of Vaubadon, the young woman tired of her grass-widowhood, which seemed as if it would be eternal, and returned to Bayeux where she had numerous relations. The Terror was over; life was reawakening, and the gloomy town gave itself up to it gladly. "Never were balls, suppers, and concerts more numerous, animated and brilliant in Bayeux than at this period." Mme. de Vaubadon's success was marked. When some of her papers were seized in the year IX the following note from an adorer was found: "All the men who have had the misfortune to see you have been mortally wounded. I therefore implore you not to stay long in this town, not toleave your apartment but at dusk, and veiled. We hope to cure our invalids by cold baths and refreshing drinks; but be gracious enough not to make incurables."
So that her children should not be deprived of their father's fortune, which the nation could sequestrate as the property of anémigré, Mme. de Vaubadon, like many other royalists, had sued for a divorce. All those who had had recourse to this extremity had asked for an annulment of the decree as soon as their husbands could return to France, and had resumed conjugal relations. But Mme. de Vaubadon did not consider her divorce a mere formality; she intended to remain free, and even brought suit against her husband for the settlement of her property. This act, which was severely criticised by the aristocracy of Bayeux, alienated many of her friends and placed her somewhat on the outskirts of society. From that time lovers were attributed to her, and it is certain that her conduct became more light. She scarcely concealed her liaison with Guérin de Bruslart, the leader of the Norman Chouans, the successor of Frotté, and a true type of the romantic brigand, who managed to live for ten years in Normandy and even in Paris, without falling into one of the thousand traps set for him by Fouché. Bruslart arrived at his mistress's house at night, his belt bristling with pistols and poniards, and "always ready for a desperate hand-to-hand fight."
Together with this swaggerer Mme. de Vaubadon received a certain Ollendon, a Chouan of doubtful reputation, who was said to have gone over to the police through need of money. Mme. de Vaubadon, since her divorce, had herself been in a precarious position. She had dissipated her own fortune, which had already been greatly lessened by the Revolution. She was now reduced to expedients, and seeing closed to her the doors of many of the houses in Bayeux to which her presence had formerly given tone, she went to Caen and settled in the Rue Guilbert nearly opposite the Rue Coupée.
Whether it was that Ollendon had decided to profit by her relations with the Chouans, or that Fouché had learned that she was in need and would not refuse good pay for her services, Mme. de Vaubadon was induced to enter into communication with the police. The man whom in 1793 Charlotte Corday had immortally branded with a word, Senator Doulcet de Pontécoulant, undertook to gain this recruit for the imperial government.
If certain traditions are to be trusted, Pontécoulant, who was supposed to be one of Acquet de Férolles' protectors, had insinuated to Mme. de Vaubadon that "her intrigues with the royalists had long been known in high places, and an order for her arrest and that of d'Aché, who was said to be her lover, was about to be issued." "You understand," he added, "that the Emperor is as merciful as he is powerful, that he has a horror of punishment and only wants to conciliate, but that he must crush, at all costs, the aid given to England by the agitation on the coasts. Redeem your past.You know d'Aché's retreat: get him to leave France; his return will be prevented, but the certainty of his embarkation is wanted, and you will be furnished with agents who will be able to testify to it."
In this way Mme. de Vaubadon would be led to the idea of revealing d'Aché's retreat, believing that it was only a question of getting him over to England; but facts give slight support to this sugared version of the affair. After the particularly odious drama that we are about to relate, all who had taken part in it tried to prove for themselves a moral alibi, and to throw on subordinates the horror of a crime that had been long and carefully prepared. Fouché, whom few memories disturbed, was haunted by this one, and attributed to himself a rôle as chivalrous as unexpected. According to him, d'Aché, in extremity, had tried a bold stroke. This man, who, since Georges' death, had so fortunately escaped all the spies of France, had of his own will suddenly presented himself before the Minister of Police, to convert him to royalist doctrines! Fouché had shown a loyalty that equalled his visitor's boldness. "I do not wish," he said, "to take advantage of your boldness and have you arrestedhic et nunc; I give you three days to get out of France; during this time I will ignore you completely; on the fourth day I will set my men on you, and if you are taken you must bear the consequences."
This is honourable, but without doubt false. Besides the improbability of this conspirator offering himself withoutreason to the man who had hunted him so long, it is difficult to imagine that such a meeting could have taken place without any mention of it being made in the correspondence in the case. None of the letters exchanged between the Minister of Police and the prefects makes any allusion to this visit; it seems to accord so little with the character of either that it must be relegated to the ranks of the legends with which Fouché sought to hide his perfidies. It is certain that a snare was laid for d'Aché, that Mme. de Vaubadon was the direct instrument, that Pontécoulant acted as intermediary between the minister and the woman; but the inventor of the stratagem is unknown. A simple recital of the facts will show that all three of those named are worthy to have combined in it.
Public rumour asserts that Mme. de Vaubadon had been d'Aché's mistress, but she did not now know where he was hidden. In the latter part of August, 1809, she went to Bayeux to find out from her friend Mlle. Duquesnay de Montfiquet if d'Aché was in the neighbourhood, and if so, with whom. Mlle. de Montfiquet, knowing Mme. de Vaubadon to be one of the outlaw's most intimate friends, told her that he had been living in the town for a long time, and that she went to see him every week. The matter ended there, and after paying some visits, Mme. de Vaubadon returned by coach the same evening to Caen.
It became known later that she had a long interview with Pontécoulant the next day, during which it was agreed that she should deliver up d'Aché, in return for which Fouché would pay her debts and give her a pension. But she attached a strange condition to the bargain; she refused "to act with the authorities, and only undertook to keep her promise if they put at her disposal, while leaving her completelyindependent, a non-commissioned officer of gendarmerie, whom she was to choose herself, and who would blindly obey her orders, without having to report to his chiefs." Perhaps the unfortunate woman hoped to retain d'Aché's life in her keeping, and save him by some subterfuge, but she had to deal with Pontécoulant, Réal and Fouché, three experienced players whom it was difficult to deceive. They accepted her conditions, only desiring to get hold of d'Aché, and determined to do away with him as soon as they should know where to catch him.
On Thursday, September 5th, Mme. de Vaubadon reappeared in Bayeux, and went to Mlle. Duquesnay de Montfiquet to tell her of the imminent danger d'Aché was in, and to beg her to ensure his safety by putting her in communication with him. We now follow the story of a friend of Mme. de Vaubadon's family who tried to prove her innocent, if not of treachery, at least of the crime that was the result of it. Mlle. de Montfiquet had great confidence in her friend's loyalty, but not in her discretion, and obstinately refused to take Mme. de Vaubadon to d'Aché. The former, fearing that action would be taken without her, returned to the charge, but encountered a firm determination to be silent that rendered her insistence fruitless. In despair at the possibility of having aroused suspicions that might lead to the disappearance of d'Aché, she resolved not to leave the place.
"I do not wish to be seen in Bayeux," she said to her friend, "I am going to sleep here."
"But I have only one bed."
"I will share it with you."
During the night, as the two women's thoughts kept them from sleeping, Mme. de Vaubadon changed her tactics.
"You have no means of saving him," she hinted, "whilst all my plans are laid. I have at my disposal a boat that for eight or nine hundred francs will take him to England; I have some one to take him to the coast, and two sailors to man the boat. If you will not tell me his retreat, at least make a rendezvous where my guide can meet him. If you refuse he may be arrested to-morrow, tried, and shot, and the responsibility for his death will fall on you."
Mlle. de Montfiquet gave up; she promised to persuade d'Aché to go to England. It was now Friday, September 6th. It was settled that at ten o'clock in the evening of the following day she herself should take him to the village of Saint-Vigor-le-Grand, at the gates of Bayeux. She would advance alone to meet the guide sent by Mme. de Vaubadon; the men would say "Samson," to which Mlle. de Montfiquet would answer "Félix," and only after the exchange of these words would she call d'Aché, hidden at a distance.
Mme. de Vaubadon returned to Caen, arriving at home before midday. Most of the frequenters of her salon at this period were aspirants for her favours, and among whom was a young man of excellent family, M. Alfred de Formigny, very much in love, and consequently very jealous of Ollendon, who was then supposed to be the favoured lover. In the evening of this day, M. de Formigny went to Mme. de Vaubadon's. He was told that she was not at home, but as he saw a light on the ground floor, and thought he could distinguish the silhouette of a man against the curtains, he watched the house and ascertained that its mistress was having an animated conversation with a visitor whose back only could be seen, and whom he believed to be his rival. Wishing to make sure of it, and determined to have an explanation, he stood sentinel before the door of the house. "Soon a man wrapped in a cloak came out, who, seeing that he was watched, pulled the folds of it up to his eyes. M. de Formigny, certain that it was Ollendon, threw himself on the man, and forced off the cloak." But he felt very sheepish when he found himself face to face with Foison, quartermaster of gendarmerie, who, not less annoyed, growled out a few oaths, and hastily made off. The same evening M. de Formigny told his adventure to some of his friends, but his indiscretion had no consequences, it seemed, Mme. de Vaubadon's reputation being so much impaired that a new scandal passed unnoticed.
Meanwhile Mlle. de Montfiquet had kept her promise. As soon as her friend left her, she went to Mlle. Dumesnil's, where d'Aché had lived for the last six weeks, and told him of Mme. de Vaubadon's proposition. The offer was so tempting, it seemed so truly inspired by the most zealous and thoughtful affection, and came from so trusted a friend, that he did not hesitate to accept. It appears, however, that he was not in much danger in Bayeux, and took little pains to conceal himself, for on Saturday morning he piously took the sacrament at the church of Saint-Patrice, then returned to Mlle. Dumesnil's and arranged some papers. As soon as it was quite dark that evening Mlle. de Montfiquet came to fetch him, and found him ready to start. He was dressed in a hunting jacket of blue cloth, trousers of ribbed green velvet and a waistcoat of yellow piqué. He put two loaded English pistols in the pockets of his jacket and carried a sword-cane. Mlle. de Montfiquet gave him a little book of "Pensées Chrétiennes," in which she had written her name; then, accompanied by her servant, she led him across the suburbs to Saint-Vigor-le-Grand. She found Mme. de Vaubadon's guide at the rendezvous before the church door; it was Foison, whom she recognised. The passwords exchanged, d'Aché came forward, kissed Mlle. de Montfiquet's hand, bade her adieu, and started with the gendarme. The anxious old lady followed him several steps at a distance, and saw standing at the end of the wall of the old priory of Saint-Vigor, two men in citizen's dress, who joined the travellers. All four took the cross road that led by the farm of Caugy to Villiers-le-Sec. They wished, by crossing the Seule at Reviers, to get to the coast at Luc-sur-Mer, seven leagues from Bayeux, where the embarkation was to take place.
When d'Aché and his companions left Bayeux, Luc-sur-Mer was in a state of excitement. The next day, Sunday, lots were to be drawn for the National Guard, and the young people of the village, knowing that this fête was only "conscription in disguise," had threatened to prevent the ceremony, to surround the Mairie and burn the registers and the recruiting papers. What contributed to the general uneasiness was the fact that four men who were known to be gendarmes in disguise had been hovering about, chiefly on the beach; they had had the audacity to arrest two gunners, coast-guards in uniform and on duty, and demand their papers. A serious brawl had ensued. At night the same men "suddenly thrust a dark lantern in the face of every one they met."
M. Boullée, the Mayor of Luc, lived at the hamlet of Notre-Dame-de-la-Délivrande, some distance from the town, and in much alarm at the disturbances watched with his servants through part of the night of the 7th-8th. At one o'clock in the morning, while he was with them in a room on the ground floor, a shot was heard outside and a ball struck the window frame. They rushed to the door, and in the darkness saw a man running away; the cartouche was still burning in the courtyard. M. Boullée immediately sent to the coast-guards to inform them of the fact, and to ask for a reinforcement of two men who did not arrive till near four o'clock. Having passed the night patrolling at some distance from La Délivrande, they had not heard the shot that had alarmed the mayor, but towards half-past three had heard firing and a loud "Help, help!" in the direction of the junction of the road from Bayeux with that leading to the sea.
It was now dawn and M. Boullée, reassured by the presence of the two gunners, resolved to go out and explore the neighbourhood. On the road to Luc, about five hundred yards from his house, a peasant hailed him, and showed him, behind a hayrick almost on the edge of the road, the body of a man. The face had received so many blows as to be almost unrecognisable; the left eye was coming out of the socket; the hair was black, but very grey on the temples, and the beard thin and short. The man lay on his back, with a loaded pistol on each side, about two feet from the body; the blade and sheath of a sword-cane had rolled a little way off, and near them was the broken butt-end of a double-barrelled gun. On raising the corpse to search the pockets, the hands were found to be strongly tied behind the back. No papers were found that could give any clue to his identity, but only a watch, thirty francs in silver, and a little book on the first page of which was written the name "Duquesnay de Montfiquet."
The growing daylight now made an investigation possible. Traces of blood were found on the road to Luc from the place where the body lay,to its junction with the road to Bayeux, a distance of about two hundred yards. It was evident that the murder had been committed at the spot where the two roads met, and that the assassins had carried the corpse to the fields and behind the hayrick to retard discovery of the crime. The disguised gendarmes whose presence had so disturbed the townsfolk had disappeared. A horse struck by a ball was lying in a ditch. It was raised, and though losing a great deal of blood, walked as far as the village of Mathieu, on the road to Caen, where it was stabled.
These facts having been ascertained, M. Boullée's servants and the peasants whom curiosity had attracted to the spot, escorted the dead body, which had been put on a wheelbarrow, to La Délivrande. It was laid in a barn near the celebrated chapel of pilgrimages, and there the autopsy took place at five in the afternoon. It was found that "death was due to a wound made by the blade of the sword-cane; the weapon, furiously turned in the body, had lacerated the intestines." Three balls had, besides, struck the victim, and five buckshot had hit him full in the face and broken several teeth; of two balls fired close to the body, one had pierced the chest above the left breast, and the other had broken the left thigh, and one of the murderers had struck the face so violently that his gun had broken against the skull.
The mayor had been occupied with the drawing of lots all day, and only found time to write and inform the prefect of the murder when the doctors had completed their task. He was in great perplexity, for the villagers unanimously accused the gendarmes of the mysterious crime. It was said that at dawn that morning the quartermaster Foison and four of his men had gone into an inn at Mathieu, one of them carrying a gun with the butt-end broken. While breakfasting, these "gentlemen," not seeing a child lying in a closed bed, had taken from a tin box some "yellow coins" which they divided, and the inference drawn was thatthe gendarmes had plundered a traveller whom they knew to be well-supplied, and sure of impunity since they could always plead a case of rebellion, had got rid of him by murder. This was the sense of the letter sent to Caffarelli by the Mayor of Luc on the evening of the 8th. The next morning Foison appeared at La Délivrande to draw up the report. When Boullée asked him a few questions about the murder, he answered in so arrogant and menacing a tone as to make any enquiry impossible. Putting on a bold face, he admitted that he had been present at the scene of the crime. He said that while he was patrolling the road to Luc with four of his men, two individuals appeared whom he asked for their papers. One of them immediately fled, and the other discharged his pistols; the gendarmes seized him, and in spite of his desperate resistance succeeded in bringing him down. He stayed dead on the ground, "having been struck several times during the struggle."
"But his pistols were still loaded," said some one.
Foison made no reply.
"But his hands were tied," said the mayor.
Foison tried to deny it.
"Here are the bands," saidBoullée, drawing from his pocket the ribbon taken from the dead man's hands. And as Captain Mancel, who presided at the interview, remarked that those were indeed the bands used by gendarmes, Foison left the room with more threats, swearing that he owed an account to no one.
The news of the crime had spread with surprising rapidity, and indignation was great wherever it was heard. In writing to Réal, Caffarelli echoed public feeling:
"How did it happen that four gendarmes were unable to seize a man who had struggled for a long time? How came it that he was, in a way, mutilated? Why, after having killed this man, did they leave him there, without troubling to comply with any of the necessary formalities? Ask these questions, M. le Comte; the public is asking them and finds no answer. What is the reply, if, moreover, as is said, the person was seized, his hands tightly tied behind his back, and then shot? What are the terrible consequences to be expected from these facts if they are true? How will the gendarmes be able to fulfil their duties without fear of being treated as assassins or wild beasts?"
It must be mentioned that as soon as the crime was committed, Foison had gone to Caen and given Pontécoulant the papers found on d'Aché, which contained information as to the political and military situation on the coast of Normandy, and on the possibility of a disembarkation. Pontécoulant had immediately posted off, and on the morning of the 11th told Fouché verbally of the manner in which Foison and Mme. de Vaubadon had acquitted themselves of their mission. Itremained to be seen how the public would take things, and Caffarelli's letter presaged no good; what would it be when it became known that the gendarme assassins had acted with the authorisation of the government? Happily, a confusion arose that retarded the discovery of the truth. In the hope of determining the dead man's identity, the Mayor of Luc had exposed the body to view, and many had come to see it, including some people from Caen. Four of these had unanimously recognised the corpse as that of a clock-maker of Paris, named Morin-Cochu, well known at the fairs of Lower Normandy. Fouché allowed the public to follow this false trail, and it was wonderful to see his lieutenants, Desmarets, Veyrat, Réal himself, looking for Morin-Cochu all over Paris as if they were ignorant of the personality of their victim. And when Morin-Cochu was found alive and well in his shop in the Rue Saint-Denis, which he had not left for four years, they began just as zealously to look for his agent Festau, who might well be the murdered man.
Caffarelli, however, was not to be caught in this clumsy trap. He knew how matters stood now, and showed his indignation. He wrote very courageously to Réal: "You will doubtless ask me, M. le Comte, why I have not tried to show up the truth? My answer is simple: it is publicly rumoured that the expedition of the gendarmes was ordered by M. the Senator Comte de P——, to whom were given the papers found on the murdered man, and who has gone to Paris, no doubt to transmit them to his Excellency the Minister of Police. Ought I not to respect the secret of theauthorities?"
And all that had occurred in his department for the two last years that it had not been considered advisable to tell him of, all the irregularities that in his desire for peace he had thought he should shut his eyes to, all the affronts that he had patiently endured, came back to his mind. He felt his heart swell with disgust at cowardly acts, dishonourable tools, and odious snares, and nobly explained his feelings:
"Certainly I am not jealous of executing severe measures and I should like never to have any of that kind to enforce. But I owe it to myself as well as to the dignity of my office not to remain prefect in name only, and if any motives whatever can destroy confidence in me to this point on important matters I must simply be told of it and I shall know how to resign without murmuring. It is not permissible to treat a man whose honesty and zeal cannot be mistaken, in the manner in which I have been treated for some time. I cannot conceal from you, M. le Comte, that I am keenly wounded at the measures that have been taken towards me. It has been thought better to put faith in people of tarnished and despicable reputation, the terror of families, than in a man who has only sought the good of the country he represented, and known no other ambition than that of acting wisely."