The House of the Combrays

by G. Lenotre

It was thus that Licquet summarised his first conversation with Mme. Acquet. He had been certain for some time that her unbridled passion for her hero held such a place in her heart that it had stifled all other feeling. For his sake she had harboured Allain's men; for him she had so often gone to brave the scornful reception of Joseph Buquet; and for him she had so long endured the odious life in Vannier's house. Licquet decided that so violent a passion, "well handled," might throw some new light on affairs. This incomparable comedian should have been seen playing his cruel game. In what manner did he listen to the love-sick confidences of his prisoner? In what sadly sympathetic tones did he reply to the glowing pictures she drew of her lover? For she spoke of little else, and Licquet listened silently until the moment when, in a burst of feeling, he took both her hands, and as if grieved at seeing her duped, exclaiming with hypocritical regard: "My poor child! Is it not better to tell you everything?" made her believe that Le Chevalier had denounced her. She refused at first to believe it. Why should her lover have done such an infamous thing? But Licquet gave reasons. Le Chevalier, while in the Temple had learned, from Vannier or others, of her relations with Chauvel, and in revenge had set the police on the track of his faithless friend. And so the man for whom she had sacrificed her life no longer loved her! Licquet, in order to torture her, overwhelmed the unhappy woman with the intentionally clumsy consolation that only accentuates grief. She wept much, and had but one thing to say.

"I should like to save him in spite of his ingratitude."

This was not at all what the detective wished. He had hoped she would, in her turn, accuse the man who had betrayed her; but he could gain nothing on this point. She felt no desire for revenge. The letters she wrote to Le Chevalier (Licquet encouraged correspondence between prisoners) are full of the sadness of a broken but still loving heart.

"It is not when a friend is unfortunate that one should reproach him, and I am far from doing so to you, in spite of your conduct as regards me. You know I did everything for you,—I am not reproaching you for it,—and after all, you have denounced me! I forgive you with all my heart, if that can do you any good, but I know your reason for being so unjust to me; you thought I had abandoned you, but I swear to you I had not."

There was not much information in that for Licquet, and in the hope of learning something, he excited Mme. Acquet strongly against d'Aché. According to him d'Aché was the one who first "sold them all"; it was he who caused Le Chevalier to be arrested, to rid himself of a troublesome rival after having compromised him; it was to d'Aché alone that the prisoners owed all their misfortunes. And Licquet found a painful echo of his insinuations in all Mme. Acquet's letters to her lover; but he found nothing more. "You know that Delorriere d'Aché is a knave, a scoundrel; that he is the cause of all your trouble; that he alone made you act; you did not think of it yourself, and he advised you badly. He alone deserves the hatred of the government. He is abhorred and execrated as he deserves to be, and there is no one who would not be glad to give him up or kill him on the spot. He alone is the cause of your trouble. Recollect this; do not forget it."

It is not necessary to say that these letters never reached Le Chevalier, who was secretly confined in the tower of the Temple until Fouché decided his fate. He was rather an embarrassing prisoner; as he could not be directly accused of the robbery of Quesnay in which he had not taken part, and as they feared to draw him into an affair to which his superb gift of speech, his importance as a Chouan gentleman, his adventurous past and his eloquent professions of faith might give a political significance similar to that of Georges Cadoudal's trial, there remained only the choice of setting him at liberty or trying him simply as a royalist agent. Now, in 1808 they did not wish to mention royalists. It was understood that they were an extinct race, and orders were given to no longer speak of them to the public, which must long since have forgotten that in very ancient days the Bourbons had reigned in France.

Thus, Réal did not know what was to become of Le Chevalier when Licquet conceived the idea of giving him a rôle in his comedy. We have not yet obtained all the threads of this new intrigue. Whether Licquet destroyed certain over-explicit papers, or whether he preferred in so delicate a matter to act without too much writing, there remain such gaps in the story that we have not been able to establish the correlation of the facts we are about to reveal. It is certain that the idea of exploiting Mme. Acquet's passion and promising her the freedom of her lover in exchange for a general confession, was originated by Licquet. He declares it plainly in a letter addressed to Réal. By this means they obtained complete avowals from her. On December 12th she gave a detailed account of her adventurous life from the time of her departure from Falaise until her arrest; a few days later she gave some details of the conspiracy of which d'Aché was the chief, to which we shall have to return. What must be noted at present is this remarkable coincidence: on the 12th she spoke, after receiving Licquet's formal promise to ensure Le Chevalier's escape, and on the 14th he actually escaped from the Temple. Had Licquet been to Paris between these two dates? It seems probable; for he speaks in a letter of a "pretended absence" which might well have been real.

The manner of Le Chevalier's escape is strange enough to be described. By reason of his excited condition, "which threw him into continual transports, and which had seemed to the concierge of the prison to be the delirium of fever," he had been lodged, not in the tower itself, but in a dependence, one of whose walls formed the outer wall of the prison, and overlooked the exterior courts. He had been ill for several days, and being subject to profuse sweats had asked to have his sheets changed frequently, and so was given several pairs at a time. On December 13th, at eight in the morning, the keeper especially attached to his person (Savard) had gone in to arrange the little dressing-room next to Le Chevalier's chamber. Returning at one o'clock to serve dinner, he found the prisoner reading; at six in the evening another keeper (Carabeuf), bringing in a light, saw him stretched on his bed. The next day on going into his room in the morning, they found that he had fled.

Le Chevalier had made in the wall of his dressing-room, which was two yards thick, a hole large enough to slip through. They saw that he had done it with no other tool than a fork; two bits of log, cut like wedges, had served to dislodge and pull out the stones. The operation had been so cleverly managed, all the rubbish having been carefully taken from within, that no trace of demolition appeared on the outside. The prisoner (Vandricourt) who was immediately below had not noticed any unwonted noise, although he did not go to bed till eleven o'clock. Le Chevalier, whose cell was sixteen feet above the level of the court, had also been obliged to construct a rope to descend by; he had plaited it with long strips cut from a pair of nankeen breeches and the cover of his mattress. Having got into the courtyard during the night by this means, he had to wait till the early morning when bread was brought in for the prisoners. The concierge of the Temple was in the habit of going back to bed after having admitted the baker, and the gate remained open for "a quarter of an hour and longer, while bread was being delivered at the wickets."

People certainly escaped from the Temple as much as from any other prison. The history of the old tower records many instances of men rescued by their friends in the face of gaolers and guard, but confederates were necessary for the success of these escapes. Given the topography of the Temple in 1807, it would seem impossible for one man alone, with no outside assistance, to have pierced a wall six feet thick in a few hours, and to have crossed the old garden of the grand prior, where in order to reach the street he would either have had to climb the other wall of the enclosure, or to pass the palace and courts to get to the door—that of the Rue du Temple—which, as stated in the official report, remained open every morning for twenty minutes during the baker's visit. The impossibility of success leads us to think that if Le Chevalier triumphed over so many obstacles, it was because some one made it easy for him to do so.