When he returned to the cafe, he gave the result of his efforts.  The hostler had decided to help Le Chevalier, but the affair would probably not take place for six weeks or two months, which was longer than necessary to collect the little troop needed for the expedition.  The roles were assigned:  Allain was to recruit men; the lawyer would procure guns wherewith to arm them; and besides this he allowed Allain to use a house in the Faubourg Saint-Laurent de Falaise, which he was commissioned to sell.  Here could be established “a depot for arms and provisions,” for one difficulty was to lodge and feed the recruits during the period of waiting.  Le Chevalier answered for the assistance of Mme. Acquet de Ferolles, whom he easily persuaded to hide the men for a few days at least; he also offered as a meeting-place his house in the Rue de Saint-Sauveur at Caen.

The chief outlines of the affair being thus arranged, they parted, and the next day Allain took the road, having with him as usual, a complete surveyor’s outfit, and a sort of diploma as “engineer” which served as a reference, and justified his continual moves.  He was, moreover, a typical Chouan, determined and ready for anything, as able to command a troop as to track gendarmes; bold and cunning, he knew all the malcontents in the country, and could insure their obedience.  The recruiting of this troop, armed, housed and provided for during two months, roaming the country, hiding in the woods, leading in the environs of Caen and Falaise the existence of Mohicans, without causing astonishment to a single gendarme, and, satisfied with having enough to eat and to drink, never thinking of asking what was required of them, is beyond belief.  And it was in the most brilliant year of the imperial regime, at the apogee of the much boasted administration, which in reality was so hollow.  The Chouans had sown such disorganisation in the West, that the authorities of all grades found themselves powerless to struggle against this ever-recurring epidemic.  Count Caffarelli, prefet of Calvados, in his desire to retain his office, treated the refractories with an indolence bordering on complicity, and continued to send Fouche the most optimistic reports of the excellent temper of his fellow-citizens and their inviolable attachment to the imperial constitution.

It was the middle of April, 1807.  Allain passed through Caen, where he joined Flierle, and both of them hiding by day and marching at night, gained the borders of Brittany.  Allain knew where to find men; twenty-five leagues from Caen, in the department of La Manche, some way from any highroad, is situated the village of La Mancelliere, whose men were all refractories.  General Antonio, who was very popular among the malcontents, was shown the house of a woman named Harel whose husband had joined the sixty-third brigade in the year VIII and deserted six months after, “overcome by the desire to see his wife and children.”