So all these green goslings trotted off on a visit of inspection, to decide which room was to be fitted up as a chapel, which was to be library, which were to be devoted to studies, and which to serve as dormitories.
Meanwhile Collet had free range over the college. He broke open the treasury of the society and filled his pockets with the money found there. He visited the chapel, and carried off all the sacred vessels; he cleared out all the desks and lockers, and left behind, as the superior afterwards said, “nothing but my spectacles, to enable me another time to look sharper after rogues.”
Collet departed, with all his spoil, and took the road to Anjou; he next turned up at Bessac in a hotel, where, through vague hints thrown out, he allowed it to be supposed that he was the Emperor Napoleon, escaped from Ste. Helena, and in hiding—awaiting his opportunity to reascend the imperial throne. The loyal Bonapartists called on him and were graciously received, and they offered him money which he also graciously accepted and promised to repay with usury and with honours when he came to his own again. At last the mayor became alarmed, called on him, and respectfully intimated that he himself was in danger of being called to account for harbouring in the place the illustrious fugitive; that personally he was devoted to his imperial master, and that for this very reason he was solicitous for his welfare. He feared that the secret of his presence at Bessac was divulged, and it was quite possible that an attempt would be made to assassinate the fugitive. He accordingly strongly urged Collet to remove to a place where he was not in such danger.
Collet accordingly departed; went to Rochebeaucourt, where he took up his lodging with the commissary of the police.
In the meantime accurate descriptions of Collet had been sent throughout France to the police, and this commissary had received them. Yet never for a moment did it occur to him that the gentleman of aristocratic appearance and with a purse well lined, who paid so promptly and liberally for his pension, could be the man so much sought for.
From Rochebeaucourt Collet went to Le Mans, where he figured as a well-to-do bourgeois, devoted to charitable actions; a man of irreproachable life. But there, finally, he was arrested, tried, and sentenced to twenty years’ hard labour, and to be branded as a felon. In prison he remained for twenty years, and died on the eve of the day when his chains were to be struck off, in November, 1840.
This extraordinary story does not so much prove how gullible men are, as how good and trustworthy most men are, so that when we do come across a rogue who takes advantage of us, it is like an earthquake that shakes us out of our moral equilibrium.
Some very interesting excursions may be made from Nice to places accessible by electric tram or by train.
VILLEFRANCHE