Le Chevalier had not deceived himself.  Mme. Acquet had received his suggestion with enthusiasm; the thought that she would be useful to her hero, that she would share his danger, blinded her to all other considerations.  She had offered Allain and his companions the hospitality of Bijude, without any fear of compromising her lover, who made long sojourns there, and she decided on the audacious plan of lodging them with her husband, who, inhabiting a wing of the Chateau of Donnay, abandoned the main body of the chateau, which could be entered from the back without being seen.  Perhaps she hoped to throw a suspicion of complicity on Acquet if the retreat should be discovered.  As to Le Chevalier, learning that d’Ache had just left Mandeville and gone to England “after having announced his speedy return with the prince, with munitions, money, etc.,” he left for Paris, having certain arrangements, he said, to make with the “Comite secret.”  Before quitting La Bijude, he enjoined his mistress, in case the coup should be made in his absence, to remit the money seized to Dusaussay, who would bring it to him in Paris where the committee awaited it.  She gave him a curl of her fine black hair to have a medallion made of it, and made him promise “that he would not forget to bring her some good eau-de-cologne.”  They then embraced each other, and he left.  It was May 17, 1807, and this was the last time she saw him.

She did not remain idle, but herself prepared the food of the seven men lodged in the chateau.  Bundles of hay and straw served them for beds; they were advised not to go out, even for the most pressing needs and they stayed there ten days.  Every evening Mme. Acquet appeared in this malodorous den, holding her parasol in her gloved hands, dressed in a light muslin, and a straw hat.  She was usually accompanied by her servant Rosalie Dupont, a big strong girl, and Joseph Buquet a shoemaker at Donnay both carrying large earthen plates containing baked veal and potatoes.  It was the hour of kindliness and good cheer; the chatelaine did not disdain to preside at the repast, coming and going among the unkempt men, asking if these “good fellows” needed anything and were satisfied with their fare.  She was the most impatient of all; whether she took the political illusions of those who had drawn her into the affair seriously, and was anxious to expose herself for “the good cause”; whether her fatal passion for La Chevalier had completely blinded her, she took her share in the attack that was being prepared, which it seemed to her, would put an end to all her misfortunes.  She had already committed an act of foolish boldness in receiving and keeping Allain’s recruits in a house occupied by her husband, and in daring to visit them there herself; she was thus compromising herself, as if she enjoyed it, under the eyes of her most implacable enemy, and no doubt Acquet, informed by his well-trained spies, of all that happened, refrained from intervention for fear of interrupting an adventure in which his wife must lose herself irremediably.