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.
CHAPTER IX
THE FATE OF D'ACHÉ
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 him all 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 regarding the 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 he was 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.