so rapidly, once the blow was struck, that it seemed they must have taken refuge in one of the neighbouring houses.  Suspicion fell on the Chateau de Mussegros, situated about three leagues from Authevernes; but nobody then thought of Tournebut, the owners of which had been absent for seven months.  It was only in March that Mme. de Combray returned there, and it was in April that d’Ache, having laid in a good stock of money, decided to cross the channel and convey to the princes the good wishes of their faithful provinces in the west.

D’Ache had not wasted his time during his stay at Mandeville.  It was a difficult enterprise in existing circumstances to arrange his crossings with any chance of success.  The embarkation was easy enough, and David the Intrepid had undertaken to see to it; but it was especially important to secure a safe return, and a secret landing on the French coast, lined as it was by patrols, watched day and night by custom-house officers, and guarded by sentinels at every point where a boat could approach the shore, offered almost insuperable difficulties.  D’Ache selected a little creek at the foot of the rocks of Saint Honorine, scarcely two leagues from Trevieres and David, who knew all the coast guards in the district, bribed one of them to become an accomplice.

It was on a stormy night at the end of April, 1806, that d’Ache put to sea in a boat seventeen feet long, which was steered by David the Intrepid.  After tossing about for fifty hours, they landed in England.  David immediately stood out to sea again, while d’Ache took the road to London.

One can easily imagine what the feelings of these royalist fanatics must have been when they approached the princes to whom they had devoted so many years of their lives, hunted over France and pursued like malefactors; how they must have anticipated the welcome in London that their devotion merited.  They were prepared to be treated like sons by the King, as friends by the princes, as leaders by the emigrants, who were only waiting to return till France was reconquered for them.  The deception was cruel.  The emigrant world, so easy to dupe on account of its misfortunes, and immeasurable vanity, had fallen a victim to so many false Chouans—­spies in disguise and barefaced swindlers, who each brought plans for the restoration, and after obtaining money made off and were never seen again—­that distrust at last had taken the place of the unsuspecting confidence of former days.  Every Frenchman who arrived in London was considered an adventurer, and as far as we can gather from this closed page of history,—­for those, who tried the experiment of a visit to the exiled princes, have respectfully kept silence on the subject of their discomfiture—­it appears that terrible mortifications were in store for the militant royalists who approached the emigrant leaders.  D’Ache did not escape disillusionment, and though he did not disclose the incidents of his stay in London, we know that at first he was thrown into prison, and that for two months he could not succeed in obtaining an interview with the Comte d’Artois, much less with the exiled King.