M. de la Chapelle, the most influential man at the little court at Hartwell, sent for him and questioned him about his plans, but was opposed to his being received by the princes, though he put him in communication with King George’s ministers, every person who brought news of any plot against Napoleon’s government being sure of a welcome and a hearing from the latter.

After three weeks of conferences the expedition which was to support a general rising of the peasants in the West, was postponed till the spring of 1807.  A feigned attack on Port-en-Bessin would allow of their surprising the islands of Tahitou and Saint-Marcouf as well as Port-Bail on the western slope of the Cotentin.  The destruction of the roads, which protect the lower part of the peninsula, would insure the success of the undertaking by cutting off Cherbourg which, attacked from behind, would easily be carried, resistance being impossible.  The invading army, concentrating under the forts of the town, in which they would have a safe retreat, would descend by Carenton on Saint-Lo and Caen to meet the army of peasants and malcontents whose cooperation d’Ache guaranteed.  He undertook to collect twenty thousand men; the English government offered the same number of Russian and Swedish soldiers, and to provide for their transportation to the coast of France.  Pending this, d’Ache was given unlimited credit on the banker Nourry at Caen.

His stay in London lasted nearly three months.  Towards the end of July an English frigate took him to the fleet where Admiral Saumarez received him with great deference, and equipped a brig with fourteen cannon to convey him to the shore.  When, at night, they were within a gunshot of the coast of Saint-Honorine, d’Ache himself made the signals agreed upon, which were quickly answered by the coast guard on shore.  An hour afterwards David the Intrepid’s boat hailed the English brig, and before daybreak d’Ache was back at Mandeville, sharing with his hosts the joy he felt at the success of his voyage.  They began to make plans immediately.  It was decided on the spot that the Chateau de Monfiquet should shelter the King during the first few days after he landed.  Eight months were to elapse before the beginning of the campaign, and as money was not lacking this time was sufficient for d’Ache to prepare for operations.

We may as well mention at once that the English Cabinet, while playing on the fanaticism of d’Ache, as they had formerly done on that of Georges Cadoudal and so many others, had not the slightest intention of keeping their promises.  Their hatred of Napoleon suggested to them the infamous idea of exciting the naive royalists of France by raising hopes they never meant to satisfy.  They abandoned them once they saw their dupes so deeply implicated that there was no drawing back, caring little if they helped them to the scaffold, desirous only of maintaining agitations in France and of driving them into such desperate straits