After passing three years in Rouen, Mme. de Combray returned to Tournebut in the spring of 1796, with her royalist passions and illusions as strong as ever.  She had declared war on the Revolution, and believed that victory was assured at no distant period.  It is a not uncommon effect of political passion to blind its subjects to the point of believing that their desires and hopes are imminent realities.  Mme. de Combray anticipated the return of the King so impatiently that one of her reasons for returning to the chateau was to prepare apartments for the Princes and their suite in case the debarkation should take place on the coast of Normandy.  Once before, in 1792, Gaillon had been designated as a stopping-place for Louis XVI in case he should again make the attempt that had been frustrated at Varennes.  The Chateau de Gaillon was no longer habitable in 1796, but Tournebut, in the opinion of the Marquise, offered the same advantages, being about midway between the coast and Paris.  Its isolation also permitted the reception of passing guests without awakening suspicion, while the vast secret rooms where sixty to eighty persons could hide at one time, were well suited for holding secret councils.  To make things still safer, Mme. de Combray now acquired a large house, situated about two hundred yards from the walls of Tournebut, and called “Gros-Mesnil” or “Le Petit Chateau.”  It was a two-story building with a high slate roof; the court in front was surrounded by huts and offices; a high wall enclosed the property on all sides, and a pathway led from it to one of the doors in the wall surrounding Tournebut.

As soon as she was in possession of the Petit Chateau, Mme. de Combray had some large secret places constructed in it.  For this work she employed a man called Soyer who combined the functions of intendant, maitre d’hotel and valet-de-chambre at Tournebut.  Soyer was born at Combray, one of the Marquise’s estates in Lower Normandy, and entered her service in 1791, at the age of sixteen, in the capacity of scullion.  He had gone with his mistress to Rouen during the Terror, and since the return to Tournebut she had given the administration of the estate into his hands.  In this way he had authority over the domestics at the chateau, who numbered six, and among whom the chambermaid Querey and the gardener Chatel deserve special mention.  Each year, about Easter, Mme. de Combray went to Rouen, where under pretext of purchases to make and rents to collect, she remained a month.  Only Soyer and Mlle. Querey accompanied her.  Besides her patrimonial house in the Rue Saint-Amand, she had retained the quiet house in the Faubourg Bouvreuil which still served as a refuge for the exiles sought by the police of the Directory, and as a depot for the refractories who were sure of finding supplies there and means of rejoining the royalist army.  Tournebut itself, admirably situated between Upper and Lower Normandy, became the refuge