There was not much information in that for Licquet, and in the hope of learning something, he excited Mme. Acquet strongly against d’Ache.  According to him d’Ache 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’Ache 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’Ache 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 Fouche 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, Real did not know what was to become of Le Chevalier when Licquet conceived the idea of giving him a role 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 Real.  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’Ache 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.