As he came with an offer of work to be well paid for, Allain was well received by Mme. Harel, who with her children was reduced to extreme poverty. It was a question, he said, "of a surveying operation authorised by the government." Harel came out of hiding in the evening, and eagerly accepted his old chief's proposition, and as the latter needed some strong pole-carriers, Harel presented two friends to the "General" under the names of "Grand-Charles" and "Cœur-le-Roi." Allain completed his party by the enrollment of three others, Le Héricey, called "La Sagesse"; Lebrée, called "Fleur d'Épine"; and Le Lorault, called "La Jeunesse." They drank a cup of cider together, and left the same evening, Allain and Flierlé leading them.
In six stages they arrived at Caen, and Allain took them to Le Chevalier's house in the Rue Saint Sauveur. They had to stay there three weeks. They were put in the loft on some hay, and Chalange, Le Chevalier's servant, who took them their food, always found them sleeping or playing cards. In order not to awaken the suspicions of the usual tradespeople, Lerouge, called "Bornet," formerly a baker, undertook to make the bread for the house in the Rue Saint-Sauveur. One day he brought in his bread cart four guns procured by Lefebre; Harel cleaned them, took them to pieces, and hid them in a bundle of straw. Then the guns were put on a horse which Lerouge led out at night from the cellar which opened on the Rue Quimcampoix at the back of the house. The men followed, and under Allain's guidance crossed the town; when they reached the extremity of the Faubourg de Vaucelles they stopped and distributed the arms. Lerouge went back to town with the horse, and the little troop disappeared on the highroad.
At about five leagues from Caen, after having passed Langannerie, where a brigade of gendarmerie was stationed, the Falaise road traverses a small but dense thicket called the wood of Quesnay. The men stopped there, and passed a whole day hidden among the trees. The following night Allain led them a three hours' march to a large abandoned house, whose doors were open, and installed them in the loft on some hay. This was the Château of Donnay.
Le Chevalier had not deceived himself. Mme. Acquet had received his suggestion with enthusiasm; the thought that she would be useful to her hero, that she would share his danger, blinded her to all other considerations. She had offered Allain and his companions the hospitality of Bijude, without any fear of compromising her lover, who made long sojourns there, and she decided on the audacious plan of lodging them with her husband, who, inhabiting a wing of the Château of Donnay, abandoned the main body of the château, which could be entered from the back without being seen. Perhaps she hoped to throw a suspicion of complicity on Acquet if the retreat should be discovered. As to Le Chevalier, learning that d'Aché had just left Mandeville and gone to England "after having announced his speedy return with the prince, with munitions, money, etc.," he left for Paris, having certain arrangements, he said, to make with the "Comité secret." Before quitting La Bijude, he enjoined his mistress, in case the coup should be made in his absence, to remit the money seized to Dusaussay, who would bring it to him in Paris where the committee awaited it. She gave him a curl of her fine black hair to have a medallion made of it, and made him promise "that he would not forget to bring her some good eau-de-cologne." They then embraced each other, and he left. It was May 17, 1807, and this was the last time she saw him.
She did not remain idle, but herself prepared the food of the seven men lodged in the château. Bundles of hay and straw served them for beds; they were advised not to go out, even for the most pressing needs and they stayed there ten days. Every evening Mme. Acquet appeared in this malodorous den, holding her parasol in her gloved hands, dressed in a light muslin, and a straw hat. She was usually accompanied by her servant Rosalie Dupont, a big strong girl, and Joseph Buquet a shoemaker at Donnay both carrying large earthen plates containing baked veal and potatoes. It was the hour of kindliness and good cheer; the châtelaine did not disdain to preside at the repast, coming and going among the unkempt men, asking if these "good fellows" needed anything and were satisfied with their fare. She was the most impatient of all; whether she took the political illusions of those who had drawn her into the affair seriously, and was anxious to expose herself for "the good cause"; whether her fatal passion for La Chevalier had completely blinded her, she took her share in the attack that was being prepared, which it seemed to her, would put an end to all her misfortunes. She had already committed an act of foolish boldness in receiving and keeping Allain's recruits in a house occupied by her husband, and in daring to visit them there herself; she was thus compromising herself, as if she enjoyed it, under the eyes of her most implacable enemy, and no doubt Acquet, informed by his well-trained spies, of all that happened, refrained from intervention for fear of interrupting an adventure in which his wife must lose herself irremediably.
Mme. Acquet also behaved as if she was certain of the complicity of the whole country; she arranged the slightest details of the expedition with astonishing quickness of mind. With her own hands she made large wallets of coarse cloth, to carry provisions for the party, and contain the money taken from the chests. She hastened to Falaise to ask Lefebre to receive Allain and Flierlé while awaiting the hour of action. Lefebre who had already fixed his price and exacted a promise of twelve thousand francs from the funds, would only, however, half commit himself. He nevertheless agreed to lodge Allain and Flierlé in the vacant building in the Faubourg Saint-Laurent. Reassured on this point Mme. Acquet returned to Donnay; during the night of 28th May, the men left the château without their arms and were conducted to a barn, where they were left all day alone with a small cask of cider which they soon emptied. Mme. Acquet was meanwhile preparing another retreat for them. A short way from the Church of Donnay there was an isolated house belonging to the brothers Buquet, who were devoted to the Combrays; Joseph, the shoemaker, had in the absence of Le Chevalier, been known as Mme. Acquet's lover in the village, and if in the absence of any definite testimony, it is possible to save this poor woman's memory from this new accusation, we must still recognise the fact that she exercised an extraordinary influence over this man. He submitted to her blindly "by the rights she had granted him," said a report addressed to the Emperor. Whatever the reason, she had only to say the word for Joseph Buquet to give her his house, and the six men took possession next day. The Buquets' mother undertook to feed them for four days; they left her at dusk on the 2d June; Joseph showed them the road and even led them a short way.
The poor fellows dragged along till morning, losing themselves often and not daring to ask the way or to follow beaten tracks. They met Allain at dawn, one mile from Falaise, on the edge of a wood near the hamlet of Jalousie; he took them across Aubigny to an isolated inn at the end of the village.
Lefebre had presented Allain to the innkeeper the night before, asking if he would receive "six honest deserters whom the gendarmes tormented," for a few days, and the man had replied that he would lodge them with pleasure.