his intention of following the girl in the hope of discovering her father’s retreat, but Langelley and the others assured him that it would be a waste of time.  The young girl alone knew where the outlaw was hidden and “each time she went to take him news, she disguised herself, entered a house, disguised herself afresh before leaving, went into another house, changed her costume yet again, and so on.  It was impossible to be sure when she came out of each house that it was the same person who had gone in, and to know in which her father was.”  Two days later the girl reappeared.  She said that her father had gone to his own home near Cherbourg, where “he had property.”  He wanted to sell his furniture and lease his land before going to England.  This was the other side of the terrible “General Antonio.”  He was a good father and a small landed proprietor.  Delaitre realised that this was a defeat, and that Allain was not easily to be beguiled.  He did not persist, but packed up his traps and returned to Rouen.

This check was all the more painful to Licquet, since he had hoped that by attracting Allain, d’Ache would also be ensnared.  Without the latter, who was evidently the head of the conspiracy, only the inferiors could be arraigned, and the part of the principal criminal would have to be passed over in silence, in consequence of which the affair would sink to the proportions of common highway robbery.  Stimulated by these motives, and still more so by his amour-propre, Licquet set out for Caen.  His joy in action was so keen that it pervades all his reports.  He describes himself as taking the coach with Delaitre, his nephew and “two or three active henchmen.”  He is so sure of success that he discounts it in advance:  “I do not know,” he writes to Real, “whether I am flattering myself too much, but I am tempted to hope that the author will be called for at the end of the play.”

It is to be regretted that we have no details of this expedition.  In what costume did Licquet appear at Caen?  What personality did he assume?  How did he carry out his manoeuvres between Mme. Acquet’s friends, his confederate Delaitre and the Prefect Caffarelli, without arousing any one’s suspicion or wounding their susceptibilities?  It is impossible to disentangle this affair; he was an adept at troubling water that he might safely fish in it, and seemed jealous to such a degree of the means he employed, that he would not divulge the secret to any one.  With an instinctive love of mystification, he kept up during his journey an official correspondence with his prefect and a private one with Real.  He told one what he would not confess to the other; he wrote to Savoye-Rollin that he was in a hurry to return to Rouen, while by the same post he asked Real to get him recalled to Paris during the next twenty-four hours.  “If you adopt this idea, Monsieur, you must be kind enough to select a pretext which will not wound or even scratch any one’s amour-propre.”