Another way was thought of, and on March 22d the order to open all the gates was given. Fouché foresaw that in their anxiety to leave Paris all of Georges' accomplices who had not been caught would hasten to return to Normandy, and thanks to the watchfulness exercised, a clean sweep might be made of them. The cleverly conceived idea had some result. On the 25th a peasant called Jacques Pluquet of Meriel, near l'Isle-Adam, when working in his field on the border of the wood of La Muette, saw four men in hats pulled down over cotton caps, and with strong knotted clubs, coming towards him. They asked him if they could cross the Oise at Meriel. Pluquet replied that it was easy to do so, "but there were gendarmes to examine all who passed." At that they hesitated. They described themselves as conscript deserters coming from Valenciennes who wished to get back to their homes. Pluquet's account is so picturesque as to be worth quoting:
"I asked them where they belonged; they replied in Alençon. I remarked that they would have trouble in getting there without being arrested. One of them said: 'That is true, for after what had just happened in Paris, everywhere is guarded.' Then, allowing the three others to go on ahead, he said to me, 'But if they arrest us, what will they do to us?' I replied: 'They will take you back to your corps, from brigade to brigade.' On that he said, 'If they catch us, they will make us do ten thousand leagues.' And he left me to regain his comrades, the youngest of whom might have been twenty-two years old and seemed very sad and tired."
The next morning some people at Auvers found a little log cabin in a wood in which the four men had spent the night. They were seen on the following days, wandering in the forest of l'Isle-Adam. At last, on April 1st they went to the ferryman of Meriel, Eloi Cousin, who was sheltering two gendarmes. While they were begging the ferryman to take them in his boat, the gendarmes appeared, and the men fled. A pistol shot struck one of them, and a second, who stopped to assist his comrade, was also taken. The two others escaped to the woods.
The wounded man was put in a boat and taken to the hospital at Pontoise, where he died the next day. Réal, who was immediately informed of it, immediately sent Querelle, whom he was carefully keeping in prison to use in case of need, and he at once recognised the corpse to be that of Raoul Gaillard, called Houvel, or Saint-Vincent, the friend of d'Aché, the principal advance-agent of Georges. The other prisoner was his brother Armand, who was immediately taken to Paris and thrown into the Temple.
The commune of Meriel had deserved well of the country, and the First Consul showed his satisfaction in a dazzling manner. He expressed a desire to make the acquaintance of this population so devoted to his person, and on the 8th of April, the sous-prefet of Pontoise presented himself at the Tuileries at the head of all the men of the village. Bonaparte congratulated them personally, and as a more substantial proof of his gratitude, distributed among them a sum of 11,000 francs, found in Raoul Gaillard's belt.
This was certainly a glorious event for the peasants of Meriel, but it had an unexpected result. When they returned the next day they learned that a stranger, "well dressed, well armed and mounted on a fine horse," profiting by their absence, had gone to the village, and, "after many questions addressed to the women and children, had gone to the place where Raoul Gaillard was wounded, trying to find out if they had not found a case, to which he seemed to attach great importance." This incident reminded them that, in the boat that took him to Pontoise, Raoul Gaillard, then dying, had anxiously asked if a razor-case had been found among his things. On receiving a negative reply, "he had appeared to be very much put out, and was heard to murmur that the fortune of the man who would discover this case was made."
The visits of this stranger—since seen, "in the country, on the heights and near the woods,"—his threats of vengeance, and this mysterious case, provided matter for a report that perplexed Réal. Was this not d'Aché? A great hunt was organised in the forest of Carnelle, but it brought no result. Four days later they explored the forest of Montmorency, where some signs of the "brigands'" occupation were seen, but of d'Aché no trace at all, and in spite of the fierceness that Réal's men, incited by the promise of large rewards, brought to this chase of the Chouans, after weeks and months of research, of enquiries, tricks, false trails followed, and traps uselessly laid, it had to be admitted that the police had lost the scent, and that Georges' clever accomplice had long since disappeared.