The Man in Grey

The Man in Grey
Being episodes of the Chouan Conspiracies in Normandy during the First Empire
by Baroness Orczy
(1919)

Table of Contents
Proem
Silver-leg
The Spaniard
The Mystery of Marie Vaillant
The Emeralds of Mademoiselle Philipa
The Bourbon Prince
The Mystery of a Woman's Heart
The League of Knaves
The Arrow Poison
The Last Adventure

Proem
It has been a difficult task to piece together the fragmentary documents which alone throw a light--dim and flickering at the best--upon that mysterious personality known to the historians of the Napoleonic era as the Man in Grey. So very little is known about him. Age, appearance, domestic circumstances, everything pertaining to him has remained a matter of conjecture--even his name! In the reports sent by the all-powerful Minister to the Emperor he is invariably spoken of as "The Man in Grey." Once only does Fouche refer to him as "Fernand."
Strange and mysterious creature! Nevertheless, he played an important part--the most important, perhaps in bringing to justice some of those reckless criminals who, under the cloak of Royalist convictions and religious and political aims, spent their time in pillage, murder and arson.
Strange and mysterious creatures, too, these men so aptly named Chouans--that is, "chats-huants"; screech-owls--since they were a terror by night and disappeared within their burrows by day. A world of romance lies buried within the ruins of the chateaux which gave them shelter--Tournebut, Bouvesse, Donnai, Plelan. A world of mystery encompasses the names of their leaders and, above all, those of the women--ladies of high degree and humble peasants alike--often heroic, more often misguided, who supplied the intrigue, the persistence, the fanatical hatred which kept the fire of rebellion smouldering and spluttering even while it could not burst into actual flame. D'Ache Cadoudal, Frotte, Armand le Chevallier, Marquise de Combray, Mme. Aquet de Ferolles--the romance attaching to these names pales beside that which clings to the weird anonymity of their henchmen--"Dare-Death," "Hare-Lip," "Fear-Nought," "Silver-Leg," and so on. Theirs were the hands that struck whilst their leaders planned--they were the screech-owls who for more than twenty years terrorised the western provinces of France and, in the name of God and their King, committed every crime that could besmirch the Cause which they professed to uphold.
Whether they really aimed at the restoration of the Bourbon kings and at bolstering up the fortunes of an effete and dispossessed monarchy with money wrung from peaceable citizens, or whether they were a mere pack of lawless brigands made up of deserters from the army and fugitives from conscription, of felons and bankrupt aristocrats, will for ever remain a bone of contention between the apologists of the old regime and those of the new.
With partisanship in those strangely obscure though comparatively recent episodes of history we have nothing to do. Facts alone--undeniable and undenied--must be left to speak for themselves. It was but meet that these men--amongst whom were to be found the bearers of some of the noblest names in France--should be tracked down and brought to justice by one whose personality has continued to be as complete an enigma as their own.

Silver-leg
I
"Forward now! And at foot-pace, mind, to the edge of the wood -- or ----"
The ominous click of a pistol completed the peremptory command.
Old Gontran, the driver, shook his wide shoulders beneath his heavy caped coat and gathered the reins once more in his quivering hands; the door of the coach was closed with a bang; the postilion scrambled into the saddle; only the passenger who had so peremptorily been ordered down from the box-seat beside the driver had not yet climbed back into his place. Well! old Gontran was not in a mood to fash about the passengers. His horses, worried by the noise, the shouting, the click of firearms and the rough handling meted out to them by strange hands in the darkness, were very restive. They would have liked to start off at once at a brisk pace so as to leave these disturbers of their peace as far behind them as possible, but Gontran was holding them in with a firm hand and they had to walk -- walk! -- along this level bit of road, with the noisy enemy still present in their rear.
The rickety old coach gave a lurch and started on its way; the clanking of loose chains, the grinding of the wheels in the muddy roads, the snorting and travail of the horses as they finally settled again into their collars, drowned the coachman's muttered imprecations.
"A fine state of things, forsooth!" he growled to himself more dejectedly than savagely. "What the Emperor's police are up to no one knows. That such things can happen is past belief. Not yet six o'clock in the afternoon, and Alen?on less than five kilom��tres in front of us."
But the passenger who, on the box-seat beside him, had so patiently and silently listened to old Gontran's florid loquacity