About the same time Le Chevalier, who had just returned from a journey to Paris, heard from the lawyer Vanier, who was quite as much in debt as his client, that the pecuniary situation was desperate.  “I dread,” wrote Vanier, “the accomplishment of the psalm:  Unde veniet auxilium nobis quia perimus.”  To which Le Chevalier replied, as he invariably did:  “In six weeks, or perhaps less, the King will be again on his throne.  Brighter days will dawn, and we shall have good posts.  Now is the time to show our zeal, for those who have done nothing will, as is fair, have nothing to expect.”  He added that the hour was propitious, “since Bonaparte was in the middle of Germany with his whole army.”

He loved to talk this way, as it made him appear, as it were, Napoleon’s rival, raising him to the place he held in his own imagination.

CHAPTER V

THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY

The lawyer, Lefebre, of high stature, with broad shoulders and florid complexion, loved to dine well, and spent his time between billiards, “Calvados” and perorations in the cafes.  For taking this part in the conspiracy he expected a fat sinecure on the return of the Bourbons, in recompense for his devotion.

Early in April, 1807, Lefebre and Le Chevalier were dining together at the Hotel du Point-de-France at Argentan.  They had found Beaurepaire, Desmontis and the Cousin Dusaussay there; they went to the cafe and stayed there several hours.  Allain, called General Antonio, whom Le Chevalier had chosen as his chief lieutenant, appeared and was presented to the others.  Allain was over forty; he had a long nose, light eyes, a face pitted with smallpox, and a heavy black beard; the manner of a calm and steady bourgeois.  Le Chevalier took a playing card, tore half of it off, wrote a line on it and gave it to Allain, saying, “This will admit you.”  They talked awhile in the embrasure of a window, and the lawyer caught these words:  “Once in the church, you will go out by the door on the left, and there find a lane; it is there....”

When Allain had gone Le Chevalier informed his friends of the affair on hand.  At the approach of each term, funds were passed between the principal towns of the department; from Alencon, Saint-Lo and Evreux money was sent to Caen, but these shipments took place at irregular dates, and were generally accompanied by an escort of gendarmes.  As the carriage which took the funds to Alencon usually changed horses at Argentan, it was sufficient to know the time of its arrival in that town to deduce therefrom the hour of its appearance elsewhere.  Now Le Chevalier had secured the cooperation of a hostler named Gauthier, called “Boismale,” who was bribed to let Dusaussay know when the carriage started.  Dusaussay lived at Argentan, and by starting immediately on horseback, he could easily arrive at the place where the conspirators were posted several hours before the carriage.  Allain had just gone to find Boismale.