The House of the Combrays | Page 9

Norman Chouannerie. There is little
else spoken of in his book than disguises, false names, false papers,
ambushes, kidnappings, attacks on coaches, subterranean passages,
prisons, escapes, child spies and female captains! He states himself that
the affair of the Forest of Quesnay was "tragic, strange and
mysterious!" And at the same time he condemns as "strange" and
"romantic" the simplest of all these adventures--that of Moisson! He
scoffs at his hiding-places in the roofs of the old château, and it is
precisely in the roofs of the old château that the police found the
famous refuge which could hold forty men with ease. He calls the
retreats arranged for the outlaws and bandits "legendary," at the same
time that he gives two pages to the enumeration of the holes, vaults,
wells, pits, grottoes and caverns in which these same bandits and
outlaws found safety! So that M. de la Sicotière seems to be laughing at
himself!
I should reproach myself if I did not mention, as a curiosity, the

biography of M. and Mme. de Combray, united in one person in the
"Dictionaire Historique" (!!!) of Larousse. It is unique of its kind.
Names, places and facts are all wrong. And the crowning absurdity is
that, borne out by these fancies, fragments are given of the supposed
Mémoires that Félicie (!) de Combray wrote after the
Restoration--forgetting that she was guillotined under the Empire!
With M. Ernest Daudet we return to history. No one had seriously
studied the crime of Quesnay before him. Some years ago he gave the
correct story of it in Le Temps and we could not complain of its being
only what he meant it to be--a faithful and rapid résumé. Besides, M.
Daudet had only at his disposal the portfolios 8,170, 8,171, and 8,172
of the Series F7 of the National Archives, and the reports sent to Réal
by Savoye-Rollin and Licquet, this cunning detective beside whom
Balzac's Corentin seems a mere schoolboy. Consequently the family
drama escapes M. Daudet, who, for that matter, did not have to concern
himself with it. It would not have been possible to do better than he did
with the documents within his reach.
Lenôtre has pushed his researches further. He has not limited himself to
studying, bit by bit, the voluminous report of the trial of 1808, which
fills a whole cupboard; to comparing and opposing the testimony of the
witnesses one against the other, examining the reports and enquiries,
disentangling the real names from the false, truth from error--in a word,
investigating the whole affair, a formidable task of which he only gives
us the substance here. Aided by his wonderful instinct and the
persistency of the investigator, he has managed to obtain access to
family papers, some of which were buried in old trunks relegated to the
attics, and in these papers has found precious documents which clear up
the depths of this affair of Quesnay where the mad passion of one poor
woman plays the greatest part.
And let no one imagine that he is going to read a romance in these
pages. It is an historical study in the severest meaning of the word.
Lenôtre mentions no fact that he cannot prove. He risks no hypothesis
without giving it as such, and admits no fancy in the slightest detail. If
he describes one of Mme. Acquet's toilettes, it is because it is given in

some interrogation. I have seen him so scrupulous on this point, as to
suppress all picturesqueness that could be put down to his imagination.
In no _cause celèbre_ has justice shown more exactitude in exposing
the facts. In short, here will be found all the qualities that ensured the
success of his "Conspiration de la Rouërie," the chivalrous beginning of
the Chouannerie that he now shows us in its decline, reduced to
highway robbery!
As for me, if I have lingered too long by this old tower, it is because it
suggested this book; and we owe some gratitude to these mute
witnesses of a past which they keep in our remembrance.
Victorien Sardou.

The House of the Combrays
CHAPTER I
THE TREACHERY OF JEAN-PIERRE QUERELLE
Late at night on January the 25th, 1804, the First Consul, who, as it
often happened, had arisen in order to work till daylight, was looking
over the latest police reports that had been placed on his desk.
His death was talked of everywhere. It had already been announced
positively in London, Germany and Holland. "To assassinate
Bonaparte" was a sort of game, in which the English were specially
active. From their shores, well-equipped and plentifully supplied with
money, sailed many who were desirous of gaining the great
stake,--obdurate Chouans and fanatical royalists who regarded as an act
of piety the crime that would rid