The case thus stated, the discussion could only become a scandal.  Bonnoeil disclosed the fact that his brother-in-law, on being asked by a third person what influences he could bring to bear in order to obtain Mme. Acquet’s pardon, had replied that “such steps offered little chance of success, and that from the moment the unhappy woman was condemned, the best way to save her from dying on the scaffold, would be to poison her in prison.”  A fresh suit was begun.  The correspondence which passed between the exasperated Combrays and their brother-in-law, who succeeded in maintaining his self-control, must have made all reconciliation impossible.  A letter in Bonnoeil’s handwriting is sufficient to illustrate the style: 

“Is it charitable for an old French chevalier, a defender of the Faith and of the Throne, to increase the sorrows on which his two brothers-in-law are feeding in the silence of oblivion?  Does he hope in his exasperation that he will be able to force them into a repetition of the story of the crimes committed by Desrues, Cartouche, Pugatscheff, Shinderhannes, and other impostors, thieves, garrotters and ruffians, who have rendered themselves famous by their murders, poisonings, cruelties and cowardly actions?  They promise that, once their case is decided, they will not again trouble Sieur Acquet de Ferolles.”

The invectives were, to say the least, ill-timed.  The Combrays had gone to law in order to force this man, whom they compared to the most celebrated assassins, to undertake the education of their sister’s three children.  These orphans, for whose schooling at the Misses Dusaussay’s no one was ready to pay, were pitied by all who knew of their situation.  Some pious ladies mentioned it to the Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen, who kindly offered to subscribe towards the cost of their education.  The Combrays proudly refused, for which Acquet naturally blamed them.  “They think their nieces would be dishonoured by accepting a favour,” he wrote.

Mme. de Combray might perhaps have yielded, if any one had made her understand that her granddaughters were the only stake she had left.  In fact, since Mme. Acquet’s death, no stone had been left unturned to obtain the old Marquise’s pardon.  Ducolombier even went to Navarre to entreat the help of the Empress Josephine, whose credit did not stand very high.  We can understand that after the official notification of the imperial divorce, and as soon as the great event became known, the Combrays, renouncing their relationship (which was of the very slightest) with the Tascher de la Pageries, began immediately to count in advance on the clemency of the future Empress, be she who she might.  When it was certain that an Archduchess was to succeed General Beauharnais’s widow on the throne of France, Ducolombier set out for Vienna in the hope of outstripping the innumerable host of those who went there as petitioners.  It does not appear that he got farther than Carlsruhe, and his journey was absolutely fruitless; but it soon became known that the imperial couple intended making a triumphal progress through the north of France, ending at Havre or Rouen, and it was then decided that the little Acquets should appear again.