felt the iron grasp in which she was held tightened around her, and such was the prestige of the extraordinary hero who personified the whole regime, that even those he had vanquished did not disguise their admiration.  The King of Spain—­a Bourbon—­sent him the insignia of the Golden Fleece.  The world was fascinated and history shows no example of material and moral power comparable to that of Napoleon when the Holy Father crossed the mountains to recognise and hail him as the instrument of Providence, and anoint him Caesar in the name of God.

It was, however, just at this time that d’Ache, an exile, concealed in the Chateau of Tournebut, without a companion, without a penny, without a counsellor or ally other than the aged woman who gave him refuge, conceived the astonishing idea of struggling against the man before whom all Europe bowed the knee.  Looked at in this light it seems madness, but undoubtedly d’Ache’s royalist illusions blinded him to the conditions of the duel he was to engage in.  But these illusions were common to many people for whom Bonaparte, at the height of his power, was never anything but an audacious criminal whose factitious greatness was at the mercy of a well-directed and fortunate blow.

Fouche’s police had not given up hopes of finding the fugitive.  They looked for him in Paris, Rouen, Saint-Denis-du-Bosguerard, near Bourgtheroulde, where his mother possessed a small estate; they watched closest at Saint-Clair whither his wife and daughters had returned after the execution of Georges.  The doors of the Madelonnettes prison had been opened for them and they had been informed that they must remove themselves forty leagues from Paris and the coast; but the poor woman, almost without resources, had not paid attention to this injunction, and they were allowed to remain at Saint-Clair in the hope that d’Ache would tire of his wandering life, and allow himself to be taken at home.  As to Placide, as soon as he found himself out of the Temple, and had conducted his sister-in-law and nieces home, he returned to Rouen, where he arrived in mid-July.  Scarcely had he been one night in his lodging in the Rue Saint-Patrice, when he received a letter—­how, or from where he could not say—­announcing that his brother had gone away so as not to compromise his family again, and that he would not return to France until general peace was proclaimed, hoping then to obtain permission from the government to end his days in the bosom of his family.

D’Ache, however, was living in Tournebut without much mystery.  The only precaution he took was to avoid leaving the property, and he had taken the name of “Deslorieres,” one of the pseudonyms of Georges Cadoudal, “as if he wanted to name himself as his successor.”  Little by little the servants became accustomed to the presence of this guest of whom Mme. de Combray took such good care “because he had had differences with the government,” as she said.  Under pretext of repairs undertaken in the church of Aubevoye, the cure of the parish was invited to celebrate mass every Sunday in the chapel of the chateau, and d’Ache could thus be present at the celebration without showing himself in the village.