long in noticing the mysterious behaviour of the occupants.  There were conferences conducted in whispers, visitors who arrived at night and left at dawn, secret comings and goings, in short, all the strange doings of a houseful of conspirators, so that the good cure one day took Lanoe aside and recommended him to be prudent, “predicting that he would get himself into serious difficulties if he did not quit the service of the Marquise as soon as possible.”  Mme. de Combray, in her exasperation, called the Abbe “Concordataire,” an epithet which, from her, was equivalent to renegade.  She had the imprudence to add that the reign of the “usurper would not last forever, and that the princes would soon return at the head of an English army and restore everything.”  In her wrath she left the parsonage, making a great commotion, and went to beg shelter from her farmer Hebert, who lived in a cottage used as a public house, called La Bijude, where the road from Harcourt met that from Cesny.  Acquet was triumphant.  The astonished Abbe remained passive; and as ill luck would have it, fell ill and died a few days afterwards.  A report was circulated, emanating from the chateau, that he had died of grief caused by Mme. de Combray.  Then people began to talk in whispers about a certain basket of white wine with which she had presented the poor priest.  A week later all those who sided with Acquet were convinced that the Marquise had poisoned the Abbe Clerisse, “after having been imprudent enough to take him into her confidence.”  Feeling ran high in the village.  Acquet affected consternation.  The authorities, no doubt informed by him, began making investigations when a nephew of the Marquise, M. de Saint Leonard, Mayor of Falaise, who was on very good terms with the Court, came down to hush up the affair and impose silence on the mischief-makers.

This first bout between Acquet de Ferolles and the family de Combray resulted in d’Ache’s being forbidden the house of his old friend.  Feeling herself in the clutches of an enemy who was always on the watch, she did not dare to expose to denunciation a man on whose head the fate of the monarchy rested.  D’Ache did not come to La Bijude the whole winter.  Mme. de Combray lived there alone with her son Bonnoeil and the farmer Hebert.  She had the house done up and repainted, but it distressed her to be so meanly lodged, and she regretted the lofty halls and the quiet of Tournebut.  At the beginning of Lent, 1806, she sent Lanoe for the last time to Mandeville to arrange with d’Ache some means of correspondence, and with Bonnoeil she again started for Gaillon, determined never again to set foot on her estates in Lower Normandy as long as her son-in-law reigned there, and thoroughly convinced that the fast approaching return of the King would avenge all the humiliations she had lately endured.  She had, moreover, quarrelled with her daughter, who had only come to Donnay twice during her mother’s stay, and had there displayed only a very moderate appreciation of d’Ache’s plans, and had seemed entirely uninterested in the annoyance caused to the Marquise, and her exodus to La Bijude.