Seclusion, isolation and trouble had in no way softened the Marquise de Combray's harsh nature. From the very first day, this woman, accustomed to living in a château, had accommodated herself to the life of a prisoner without abating anything of her haughty and despotic character. Her very illusions remained intact. She imagined that from her cell she still directed her confederates and agents, whom she considered one and all as servants, never suspecting that the permission to write letters, of which she made such bad use, was only a trap set for her ingenuous vanity. In less than a month she had written more than a hundred letters to her fellow-prisoners, which all passed through Licquet's hands. To one she dictated the answers he was to give, to another she counselled silence,—setting herself up to be an absolute judge of what they ought to say or to hold back, being quite unable to imagine that any of these unhappy people might prefer life to the pleasure of obeying her. She would have treated as a liar any one, be he who he might, who affirmed that all her accomplices had deserted her, that Soyer had hastened to disclose the secret hiding-places at Tournebut, that Mlle. Querey had told all about what she had seen, that Lanoë pestered Caffarelli with his incessant revelations, and that Lefebre, whom nothing but prudence kept silent, was very near telling all he knew to save his own head.
The Marquise was ignorant of all these defections. Licquet had created such an artificial atmosphere around her that she lived under the delusion that she was as important as before. Convinced that nobody was her equal in finesse and authority, she considered the detective sufficiently clever to deal with a person of humble position, but believed that as soon as she cared to trouble herself to bring it about, he would become entirely devoted to her. And Licquet, with his almost genial skilfulness, so easily fathomed the Marquise's proud soul—was such a perfect actor in the way he stood before her, spoke to her, and looked at her with an air of submissive admiration,—that it was no wonder she thought he was ready to serve her; and as she was not the sort of woman to use any discretion with a man of his class, she immediately despatched the turnkey to offer him the sum of 12,000 francs, half down, if he would consent to promote her interests. Licquet appeared very grateful, very much honoured, accepted the money, which he put in the coffers of the prefecture, and the very same day read a letter in which Mme. de Combray informed her accomplices of the great news: "We have the little secretary under our thumb."
Ah! what great talks Licquet and the prisoner had, now they had become friends. From the very first conversation he satisfied himself that she did not know Mme. Acquet's hiding-place; but the lawyer Lefebre, who had at last ceased to be dumb, had not concealed the fact that it might be learned through a laundress at Falaise named Mme. Chauvel, and Licquet immediately informed Mme. de Combray of this fact and represented to her, in a friendly manner, the danger in which her daughter's arrest would involve her, and insinuated that the only hope of security lay in the escape to England of Mme. Acquet, "on whose head the government had set a price."
The idea pleased the Marquise; but who would undertake to discover the fugitive and arrange for her embarcation? Whom dared she trust, in her desperate situation? Licquet seemed the very one; he, however, excused himself, saying that a faithful man, carrying a letter from Mme. de Combray, would do as well, and the Marquise never doubted that her daughter would blindly follow her advice—supported by a sufficient sum of money to live abroad while awaiting better days. It remained to find the faithful man. The Marquise only knew of one, who, quite recently, at her request, had consented to go and look for the yellow horse, which he had killed and skinned, and who, she said, had acquitted himself so cleverly of his mission. She was never tired of praising this worthy fellow, who only existed, as every one knew, in her own imagination; she admitted that she did not know him personally, but had corresponded with him through the medium of the woman Delaitre, who had been placed near her; but she knew that he was the woman's husband, captain of a boat at Saint Valery-en-Caux, and, in addition, a relation of poor Raoul Gaillard, whom the Marquise remembered even in her own troubles.
Licquet listened quite seriously while his victim detailed the history of this fictitious person whom he himself had invented; he assured her that the choice was a wise one, for he had known Delaitre for a long time as a man whose loyalty was beyond all doubt. As there could be no question of introducing him into the prison, Licquet kindly undertook to acquaint him with the service expected of him, and to give him the three letters which Mme. de Combray was to write immediately. The first, which was very confidential, was addressed to the good Delaitre himself; the second was to be handed, at the moment of going on board, to Maugé, a lawyer at Valery, who was to provide the necessary money for the fugitive's existence in England; the third accredited Delaitre to Mme. Acquet. The Marquise ordered her daughter to follow the honest Captain, whom she represented as a tried friend; she begged her, in her own interest and that of all their friends, to leave the country without losing a day; and she concluded by saying that in the event of her obeying immediately, she would provide generously for all her wants; then she signed and handed the three letters to Licquet, overwhelming him with protestations of gratitude.
All the detective had to do was to procure a false Delaitre, since the real did not exist. They selected an intelligent man, of suitable bearing, and making out a detailed passport, despatched him to Falaise, armed with the Marquise's letters, to have an interview with the laundress. Five days later he returned to Rouen. The Chauvels, on seeing Mme. de Combray's letters, quite unsuspectingly gave the messenger a warm welcome. The gendarme, however, did not approve of the idea of crossing to England. Mme. Acquet, he said, was very well hidden in Caen, and nobody suspected where she was. What was the use of exposing her to the risk of embarking at a well watched port. But as Delaitre insisted, saying that he had a commission from Mme. de Combray which he must carry out, Chauvel, whose duty kept him at Falaise, arranged to meet the Captain at Caen on the 2d of October. He wished to present him himself to Mme. Acquet, and to help his mistress in this matter on which her future depended. Thus it was that on the 1st of October, Licquet, now sure of success, put the false Captain Delaitre in the coach leaving for Caen, having given him as assistants, a nephew of the same name and a servant, both carefully chosen from amongst the wiliest of his assistants. The next day the three spies got out at the Hôtel du Pare in the Faubourg de Vaucelles at Caen, which Chauvel had fixed as the meeting-place, and whither he had promised to bring Mme. Acquet.
Six weeks previously, when quitting Falaise on the 23d August, after the examination to which Caffarelli had subjected her, Mme. Acquet, still ignorant of her mother's arrest, had proposed going to Tournebut, in order to hide there for some time before starting for Paris, where she hoped to find Le Chevalier. She had with her her third daughter, Céline, a child of six years, whom she counted on getting rid of by placing her at the school kept at Rouen by the ladies Dusaussay, where the two elder girls already were. They were accompanied by Chauvel's sister, a woman named Normand.
She went first to Caen where she was to take the diligence, and lodged with Bessin at the Coupe d'Or in the Rue Saint-Pierre. Chauvel came there the following day to say good-bye to his friend and they dined together. While they were at table, a man, whom the gendarme did not know, entered the room and said a few words to Mme. Acquet, who went into the adjoining room with him. It was Lemarchand, the innkeeper at Louvigny, Allain's host and friend. Chauvel grew anxious at this private conversation, and seeing the time of the diligence was approaching, opened the door and warned Mme. Acquet that she must get ready to start. To his great surprise, she replied that she was no longer going, as important interests detained her in Caen. She begged him to escort the woman Normand and the little girl to the coach, and gave him the address of a lawyer in Rouen with whom the child could be left. The gendarme obeyed, and when he went back to the Coupe d'Or an hour later, his mistress had left. He returned sadly to Falaise.
Lemarchand, who had been informed of Mme. Acquet's journey, came to tell her, from Allain, that "a lodging had been found for her where she would be secure, and that, if she did not wish to go, she had only to come to the Promenade Saint-Julien at nightfall, and some one would meet her and escort her to her new hiding-place." It may well be that a threat of denouncing her, if she left the country, was added to this obliging offer. At any rate she was made to defer her journey. Towards ten o'clock at night, according to Lemarchand's advice, she reached the Promenade Saint-Julien alone, walked up and down under the trees for some time, and seeing two men seated on a bench, she went and sat down beside them. At first they eyed each other without saying a word; at last, one of the strangers asked her if she were not waiting for some one. Upon her answering in the affirmative they conferred for a moment, and then gave their names. They were the lawyer Vannier and Bureau de Placène, two intimate friends of Le Chevalier's. Mme. Acquet, in her turn, mentioned her name, and Vannier offering her his arm, escorted her to his house in the Rue Saint-Martin.
They held a council next day at breakfast. Lemarchand, Vannier, and Bureau de Placène appeared very anxious to keep Mme. Acquet. She was, they said, sure of not being punished as long as she did not quit the department of Calvados. Neither the prefect nor the magistrates would trouble to enquire into the affair, and all the gentry of Lower Normandy had declared for the family of Combray, which was, moreover, connected with all the nobility in the district. Such were the ostensible reasons which the three confederates put forth, their real reason was only a question of money. They imagined that Mme. Acquet had the free disposal of the treasure buried at the Buquets, which amounted to more than 40,000 francs. Finding her ready to rejoin Le Chevalier, and persuaded that she would carry the remainder of this stolen money to her lover, they thought it well to stop her and the money, to which they believed they had a right—Lemarchand as Allain's friend and creditor, Placène in his capacity of cashier to the Chouans. The lawyer Vannier, as liquidator of Le Chevalier's debts, had offered to keep Mme. Acquet prisoner until they had succeeded in extorting the whole sum from her.