The House of the Combrays

. D'Hozier, who was formerly page to the King and had for several months been established as a livery-stable keeper in the Ru

with white teeth and a ready smile, and dressed in the prevailing fashion. He was a close companion of d'Aché, and it was even said that they had the same mistress at Rouen. The speciality of Raoul and his brother Armand was attacking coaches which carried government money. Their takings s

He was joined there by his faithful servant Louis Picot, who had arrived in Paris the same day. The "Cloche d'Or" was a sort of headquarters for the conspirators; they filled the house, and D

ows and paved with squares of black and white marble; a walnut table with eight covers, cane-seated chairs, the door-panels representing the games of children, and striped India muslin curtains completed the decoration of this room. The next room had also four windows, and contained an ottoman and six chairs covered with blue and white Utrecht velvet, two armchairs o

were hardened by exposure and fatigue, retained a purity of mind and sincerity really touching. They never ceased to believe that "the Prince" for whom they fought would one day come and share their danger. It had been so often announced and so often put off that a little mistrust might have been forgiven them, but they had faith, and that inspired them with a thought which seemed quite simple to them but which was really sublime. While they were lodging

ent, and had made a cleverly-concealed trap-door, by means of which, in case of alarm, the tenants could descend to the ground floor and go out by an unoccupied shop whose door opened under the porch of the house. Spain took a sort of pride in his strange talent; he was very proud of a hiding-place he had made in the lodging of a friend, the tailor Michelot, in the Rue de Bussy, which Michelot himself did not suspect. The tailor was obliged to be ab

to the farm of La Poterie to receive. He lodged Pichegru with an employé of the finance department, named Verdet, who had given the Chouans the second floor of his house in the Rue du Puits-de-l'Hermite. They sta

rte. A strange plan had at first been suggested. The Comte d'Artois, at the head of a band of royalists equal in number to the Consul's escort, was to meet him on the road to Malmaison, and provoke him to single combat, but the presence of the Prince was necessary for this revival of the Combat of Thirty, and as he refused to appear, this project of rather antiquated chivalry had to be abandoned. Their next idea was to kidnap Bonaparte. Some determined men-as all of Georges' companions were-undertook to get into the park at Malmaison at night, seize Bonaparte and throw him into a carriage which thirty Chouans, dressed as dragoons, would escort as far as the coast. They actually began to put this theatrical "coup" into execution. Mention is made of it in the Memoirs of the valet Constant, and certain det

e Prefecture and promised immediate liberty in exchange for one word that would put the police on the track of Georges. He was offered 1,500 louis d'or, which they took care to count out before him, and on his refusal to betray his master, Réal had him put to the torture. Bertrand, the concierge of the dep?t, undertook the task. The unfortunate Picot's fingers were crushed by means of an o

seized Bouvet de Lozier as he was entering the house of his mistress, Mme. de Saint-Léger, in the Rue Saint-Sauveur. He was interrogated and denied everything. Thrown into the Temple, he hanged himself in the night, by tying his neckt

ese suspicions was the fact that Bouvet's hands "were horribly swollen" when he appeared before Réal the next day, and also the strange form of the declaration which he was reputed to have dictated at midnight, just as he was restored to life. "A man who comes from the gates of the tomb, s

reat was still undiscovered. The revelations that fear or torture had drawn from his associates only served to make the figure of this extraordinary man loom greater, by showing the power of his ascendancy over his companions, and the mystery that surrounded all his

the garrison had departed, with loaded arms, to the boulevards outside the walls. White placards announced that "Those who concealed the brigands would be classed with the brigands themselves"; the penalty of death attached to any one who should shelter one of them, even for twenty-four hours, without denouncing him to the police. The description of Georges and his accomplic

-de-l'Hermite. As he did not go out and his friends dared not come to se

that torture would wring the secret of his asylum from Mme. Verdet. But where could he go? The house at Chaillot, the H?tel of the Cloche d'Or, the Rue Carême-Prenant were now known to the police. Charles d'Hozier, on being consulted, showed him a retreat that he had kept for himself, which had been arranged

bove, leaving the shop untenanted save by Mlle. Hisay and a little girl of Lemoine's, who kept watch there. At night both of them went up to the room, and slept there, separated by a curtain from the beds occupied by Georges

rs had been discussing the plot that was agitating all Paris, said to her tenants, "Goodness me! You don't know about it?

an aide-de-camp of the First Consul. Some days later, when Georges asked her what

go out the same wa

tit, who had known Léridant, one of the Chouans, for a long time, saw him talking with a woman on the Boulevard Saint-Antoine. He followed him, and

afest retreat in Paris. For some years Caron, a militant royalist, had sheltered distressed Chouans, in the face of the police. He had hidden Hyde de Neuville for several weeks; his house was well provided with secret places, and for extreme cases he had made a place in his sign-po

leading to it; then he returned to watch Léridant, who lodged with a young man called Goujon, in the cul-de-sac of the Corderie, behind the old Jacobins Club. The next day, March 9th, Petit learned through his spies that Goujon had hired out a cab, No. 53, for the entire day. He hastened to the Prefecture and informed his colleague, Destavigny, who, wi

lowly up the steep Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève; the police, hugging the walls, followed it far off. Petit, the Inspector Caniolle, and the officer of the peace, Destavigny, kept nearer to it, expecting to see it stop before one of the houses in the street, when they would only have to take Georges on the threshold. But to their great disappointment the cab turned to the right, int

niolle walked behind it, Petit and Destavigny followed at a distance. Just as the carriage arrived at the corner of the Rue des Sept-Voies, four individuals came ou

an Joyaut, Burban and Raoul Gaillard, tried to stop him. Caniolle threw them off, and chased the cab which had disappeared in the Rue Saint-Etienne-des-Grès. He caught up to it

age and tried to follow the fortunes of the pursuit through the glass. The moment that he had jum

re?" asked

now, but we

ingling with blo

urn on the Place Saint-Michel, and not miss the entrance to the Rue des Fossés-Monsieur-le-Prince. He turned towards the Rue du Four, hopi

nning with all their might. Destavigny and Petit had indeed continued the pursuit, and their cries brought out all the spie

er that may be, at the top of the Rue Voltaire he jumped out into the street. Caniolle, at the same moment, left the back of the cab-which Petit, and another policeman called Buffet, had at last succeeded in outrunning,-threw himself on the reins, and allowing himself to be dragged along, mastered the horse, which stopped, exhausted. Buffet took one step towards Georges, who stretched him dead with a pistol shot; with a second ball the Chouan rid himself, for a moment at least, of Caniolle. He still thought, probably, that he could hide himself in the crowd; and perhaps he would have succeede

escorted him, more out of curiosity than anger, and one can imagine the excitement at police headquarters when they heard far off on the Quai des Orfèvres,

er. In spite of his bonds he still showed so much pride and coolness that the all-powerful funct

a look firm but gentle, as was also his voice. Although stout, his movements and manner were easy; his head quite round, with short curly hair, no whiskers, and nothing to indicate the chief of a mortal conspiracy, who had long dominated th

ng where to begin, rather foolishly reproached him with the death of Buffet, 'the father of a fa

the plot, and denied knowledge of any of his friends. He carried his generosity so far as to behave with courteous dignity even to those who had betrayed him; he even tried to excuse the indifference of the princes whos

oitiers, thousands of peasants, bourgeois and country gentlemen remained faithful to the old order, and if they were not all willing to take up arms in its cause, they could at least do much to upset the equilibrium of the new government. And could not another try to do what Georges Cadoudal had attempted? If some one with more influence over the princes than he possessed should persuade one of them to cross the Channel, what would the glory of the

dal. The capture to which Fouché and Réal attached the most importance was that of d'Aché, whose presence at Biville and Saint-Leu had been proved. For three months, in Paris even, wherever the police had worked, they had struck the trail of this same d'Aché, who appeared to have presided over the whole organisation of

t would deliver her father to the police. She had taken lodgings in the Rue Traversière-Saint-Honoré, at the H?tel des Treize-Cantons, and Réal had immediately set two spies upon her, but their reports were monotonously melancholy. "Very w

verly conceived idea had some result. On the 25th a peasant called Jacques Pluquet of Meriel, near l'Isle-Adam, when working in his field on the border of the wood of La Muette, saw four men in hats pulled down over cotton caps, and with strong knotted clubs, coming towards him. They asked him if they could cross

is, everywhere is guarded.' Then, allowing the three others to go on ahead, he said to me, 'But if they arrest us, what will they do to us?' I replied: 'They will take you back to your corps, from brigade to briga

f l'Isle-Adam. At last, on April 1st they went to the ferryman of Meriel, Eloi Cousin, who was sheltering two gendarmes. While they were begging the ferryman to take them in his bo

e, whom he was carefully keeping in prison to use in case of need, and he at once recognised the corpse to be that of Raoul Gaillard, called Houvel, or Saint-Vincent,

f this population so devoted to his person, and on the 8th of April, the sous-prefet of Pontoise presented himself at the Tuileries at the head of all the men of the villa

"after many questions addressed to the women and children, had gone to the place where Raoul Gaillard was wounded, trying to find out if they had not found a case, to which he seemed to attach great importance." This incident reminded them that, in the boat that took him t

lle, but it brought no result. Four days later they explored the forest of Montmorency, where some signs of the "brigands'" occupation were seen, but of d'Aché no trace at all, and in spite of the fierceness that Réal's men, incited by the promise of large rewards,