The “any one” mentioned here is Savoye-Rollin.  What secret had Licquet discovered, that he did not dare to confide, except orally, and then only to the Imperial Chief of Police?  We believe that we are not wrong in premising that scarcely had he arrived at Caen when he laid hands on a witness so important, and at the same time so difficult to manipulate, that he was himself frightened at this unexpected coup de theatre.

Whilst ferreting about in the prisons to which he had obtained access that he might talk to Lanoe and the Buquets, he met Acquet de Ferolles, who had been forgotten there for three months.  Whether Mme. de Placene was, as Vannier suspected, employed by the police and knew Licquet’s real personality, or whether the latter found another intermediary, it is certain that he obtained Acquet de Ferolles’ confidence from the beginning, and that he got the credit of having him set at liberty.  It was after this interview that Licquet asked Real to recall him to Paris for twenty-four hours.  His journey took place in the early days of November, and on the 12th, on an order from Real Acquet was rearrested and taken in a post-chaise from Donnay to Paris, escorted by a sergeant of police.  On the 16th he was entered in the Temple gaol-book, and Real, who hastened to interrogate him, showed him great consideration, and promised that his detention should not be long.  A note, which is still to be found among the papers connected with this affair, seems to indicate that this incarceration was not of a nature to cause great alarm to the Lord of Donnay:  “M.  Acquet has been taken to Paris that he may not interfere with the proceedings against his wife....  It is known that he is unacquainted with his wife’s offence, but M. Real believes it necessary to keep him at a distance.”  That was not the tone in which the police of that period usually spoke of their ordinary prisoners, and it seems advisable to call attention to the fact.  Let us add that the royalists detained in the Temple were not taken in by it.  M. de Revoire, an old habitue of the prison, who spent the whole of the Imperial period in captivity told the Combray family after the Restoration, that all the prisoners considered Acquet “as a spy, an informer, the whole time he was in the Temple.”  After a week’s imprisonment and three weeks’ surveillance in Paris, he was set at liberty and returned to Donnay.

From the comparison of these facts and dates, is one not led to infer that Licquet had persuaded Acquet without much difficulty we may be sure, to become his wife’s accuser?  But the desire not to compromise himself, and still more the dread of reprisals, shut the mouth of the unworthy husband at Caen, eager though he was to speak in Paris, provided that no one should suspect the part he was playing; hence this sham imprisonment in the Temple—­evidently Licquet’s idea—­which gave him time to make revelations to Real.