They therefore imposed silence on the gabblings of Lefebre, who had become a prey to such incontinence of denunciations that he only stopped them to lament his fate and curse those who had drawn him into the adventure; they moderated Licquet’s zeal, and the prefect confided to him the drawing up of the general report of the affair, a task of which he acquitted himself so well that his voluminous work seemed to Fouche “sufficiently luminous and circumstantial to be submitted as it was to his Majesty.”

Then they began, but in no haste, to concern themselves with the trial of the other prisoners.  It was necessary, according to custom, to interrogate and confront the forty-seven persons imprisoned; of this number the prosecution only held thirty-two, of whom twenty-three were present.  These were Flierle, Harel, Grand-Charles, Fleur d’Epine and Le Hericey who by Allain’s orders had attacked the waggon; the Marquise de Combray, her daughter and Lefebre, instigators of the crime; Gousset the carrier; Alexandre Buquet, Placene, Vannier, Langelley, who had received the money; Chauvel and Lanoe as accomplices, and the innkeepers of Louvigny, d’Aubigny and elsewhere who had entertained the brigands.  Those absent were d’Ache, Allain, Le Lorault called “La Jeunesse,” Joseph Buquet, the Dupont girl, and the friends of Le Chevalier or Lefebre who were compromised by the latter’s revelations—­Courmaceul, Reverend, Dusaussay, etc., Grenthe, called “Coeur-le-Roi,” had died in the conciergerie during the enquiry.  Mme. de Combray’s gardener, Chatel, had committed suicide a few days after his arrest.  As to Placide d’Ache and Bonnoeil, it was decided not to bring them to trial but to take them later before a military commission.  Everything was removed that could give the trial political significance.

Mme. de Combray, who was at last enlightened as to the kind of interest taken in her by Licquet, and awakened from the illusions that the detective had so cleverly nourished, had been able to communicate directly with her family.  Her son Timoleon had never approved of her political actions and since the Revolution had stayed away from Tournebut; but as soon as he heard of their arrest he hurried to Rouen to be near his mother and brother in prison.  The letters he exchanged with Bonnoeil, as soon as it was permitted, show a strong sense of the situation on the part of both, irreproachable honesty and profound friendship.  This family, whom it suited Licquet to represent as consisting of spiteful, dissolute or misguided people, appears in a very different light in this correspondence.  The two brothers were full of respect for their mother, and tenderly attached to their sister:  unfortunate and guilty as she was, they never reproached her, nor made any allusion to facts well-known and forgiven.  They were all leagued against the common enemy, Acquet, whom they considered the cause of all their suffering.  This man had returned from the Temple strengthened