In what way was the son used to capture the father?  We have never been able thoroughly to clear up this mystery.  The accounts that have been given of this great detective feat are evidently fantastic, and remain inexplicable without the intervention of a comrade betraying Le Chevalier after having given him unequivocal proofs of devotion.  Thus, it has been said that Real, “having recourse to extraordinary means,” could have caused the arrest of “the sister-in-law and daughter of the fugitive, and their incarceration in the prisons of Caen with filthy and disreputable women.”  Le Chevalier, informed of their incarceration—­by whom?—­would have offered himself in place of the two women, and the police would have accepted the bargain.

Told in this manner, the story does not at all agree with the documents we have been able to collect.  Le Chevalier had no daughter, and no trace is to be found of the transference of Mme. Thiboust to Caen.  The other version is no more admissible.  Scarcely out of the Temple, we are assured, the outlaw would not have been able to resist the desire to see his son, and would have sent to beg Mme. Thiboust—­by whom again?—­to bring him to the Passage des Panoramas.  Naturally the police would follow the woman and child, and Le Chevalier be taken in their arms.  It is difficult to imagine so sharp a man setting such a childish trap for himself, even if his adventurous life had not accustomed him for a long time to live apart from his family.

The truth is certainly far otherwise.  It is necessary, first of all, to know who let Le Chevalier out of prison.  Mme. de Noel, one of his relations, said later, that “they had offered employment to the prisoner if he would denounce his accomplice,” which offer he haughtily refused.  As his presence was embarrassing, his gaolers were ordered “to let him go out on parole in the hope that he would not come back,” and could then be condemned for escaping.  Le Chevalier profited by the favour, but returned at the appointed time.  This toleration was not at all surprising in this strange prison, the theatre of so many adventures that will always remain mysteries.  Desmarets tells how the concierge Boniface allowed an important prisoner, Sir Sidney Smith, to leave the Temple, “to walk, take baths, dine in town, and even go out hunting;” the commodore never failed to return to sleep in his cell, and “took back his parole in reentering.”

It was necessary then, for some one to undertake to get Le Chevalier out of the Temple, as he would not break his parole when he was outside; and this explains the simulated escape.  What cannot be established, unfortunately, is the part taken by Fouche and Real.  Were they the instigators or the dupes?  Did they esteem it better to feign ignorance, or was it in reality the act of subalterns working unknown to their chiefs?  In any case, no one for a moment believed in the wall two yards thick bored through in one night by the aid of a fork, any more than in the rope-ladder made from a pair of nankeen breeches.  Real, in revenge, dismissed the concierge of the prison, put the gaoler Savard in irons, and exacted a report on “all the circumstances that could throw any light on the acquaintances the prisoner must have had in the prison to facilitate his escape.”