that some assassin might arise from among them who would rid the world of Bonaparte.  Here lies, doubtless, one of the reasons why the exiled princes so obstinately refused to encourage their partisans’ attempts.  Did they know of the snares laid for these unhappy creatures?  Did they not dare to put them on their guard for fear of offending the English government?  Was this the rent they paid for Hartwell?  The history of the intrigues which played around the claimant to the throne is full of mystery.  Those who were mixed up in them, such as Fauche-Bonel or Hyde de Neuville were ruined, and it required the daylight of the Restoration to open the eyes of the persons most interested to the fact that certain professions of devotion had been treacherous.

As far as d’Ache was concerned it seems fairly certain that he did not receive any promise from the princes, and was not even admitted to their presence; the English ministers alone encouraged him to embark on this extraordinary adventure, in which they were fully determined to let him ruin himself.  Therefore the “unlimited” credit opened at the banker Nourry’s was only a bait:  while making the conspirators think they would never want for money, the credit was limited beforehand to 30,000 francs, a piece of duplicity which enraged even the detectives who, later on, discovered it.

It is not easy to follow d’Ache in the mysterious work upon which he entered:  the precautions he took to escape the police have caused him to be lost to posterity as well.  Some slight landmarks barely permit our following his trail during the few years which form the climax of his wonderful career.

We find him first of all during the autumn of 1806, at La Bijude, where Mme. de Combray, who had remained at Tournebut had charged Bonnoeil and Mme. Acquet to go and receive him.  There was some question of providing him with a messenger familiar with the haunts of the Chouans and the dangers connected with the task.  To fulfil this duty Mme. Acquet proposed a German named Flierle whom Le Chevalier recommended.  Flierle had distinguished himself in the revolt of the Chouans; a renowned fighter, he had been mixed up in every plot.  He was in Paris at the time of the eighteenth Fructidor; he turned up there again at the moment when Saint-Rejant was preparing his infernal machine; he again spent three months there at the time of Georges’ conspiracy.  For the last two years, whilst waiting for a fresh engagement, he had lived on a small pension from the royal treasury, and when funds were low, he made one of his more fortunate companions in old days put him up; and thus he roamed from Caen to Falaise, from Mortain to Bayeux or Saint-Lo, even going into Mayenne in his wanderings.  Although he would never have acknowledged it, we may say that he was one of the men usually employed in attacking public vehicles:  in fact, he was an adept at it and went by the name of the “Teisch.”