do so openly.’  When I reproached her for it some days later she said:  ’I suspected that if I had told you of it, you would not have gone.’  During the journey the ladies talked together, but the noise of the carriage prevented me from hearing what they said.  However, I heard Mme. Acquet say that this money would serve to pay some debts or to give to the unfortunate.  I also heard her say that Le Chevalier had great wit, and Mme. de Combray replied that M. d’Ache’s wit was keener; that Le Chevalier had perhaps a longer tongue....”

The itinerary arranged by Lefebre, left the main road at Saint-Andre-de-Fontenay near the hamlet of Basse-Allemagne; night was falling when Lanoe’s carriage crossed the Orne at the ferry of Athis.  From there they went to Bretteville-sur-Odon in order to enter the town as if they had come from Vire or Bayeux.  The notary had arrived during the day at Caen, and after having left his horse at the inn at Vaucelles, he crossed the town on foot and went to meet “the treasure” on the Vire road.  Just as eight was striking he reached the first houses in Bretteville and was going to turn back, astonished at not meeting the cart when Mme. Acquet called to him from a window.  He entered; Mme. de Combray and her daughter had stopped there while Lanoe was having one of the wheels mended.  They took some refreshment, rested the horses and set out again at ten o’clock.  Lefebre got in with them and when they arrived at Granville he got down and paid the duty on the two bundles of straw that were in the waggon, and then entered the town without further delay.

By the notary’s advice they had decided to take the money to Gelin’s inn, in the Rue Pavee.  Gelin was the son-in-law of Lerouge, called Bornet, whom Le Chevalier sometimes employed, but the waggon was too large to get into the courtyard of the inn; some troops had been passing that day and the house was filled with soldiers.  They could not stay there, but had to leave the money there, and while Gelin watched, the Marquise, uneasy at finding herself in such a place, unable to leave the yard because the waggon stopped the door, had to assist in unloading it.  Two men were very busy about the waggon, one of them held a dark lantern; Lefebre, Lerouge and even Mme. Acquet pulled the sacks from the straw and threw them into the house by a window on the ground floor.  Mme. de Combray seemed to feel her decadence for the first time; she found herself mixed up in one of those expeditions that she had until then represented as chivalrous feats of arms, and these by-ways of brigandage filled her with horror.

“But they are a band of rascals,” she said to Lanoe, and she insisted on his taking her away; she was obliged to pass through the inn filled with men drinking.  At last, outside, without turning round she went to the Hotel des Trois Marchands, opposite Notre-Dame, where she usually stayed.