thers 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
brigade.' On that he said, 'If they catch us, they will make us do ten
thousand leagues.' And he left me to regain his comrades, the youngest
of whom might have been twenty-two years old and seemed very sad and
tired."

The next morning some people at Auvers found a little log cabin in a
wood in which the four men had spent the night. They were seen on the
following days, wandering in the forest of 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 boat, the gendarmes appeared, and the men fled. A pistol
shot struck one of them, and a second, who stopped to assist his
comrade, was also taken. The two others escaped to the woods.

The wounded man was put in a boat and taken to the hospital at Pontoise,
where he died the next day. Real, who was immediately informed of it,
immediately sent Querelle, 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, the friend of d'Ache,
the principal advance-agent of Georges. The other prisoner was his
brother Armand, who was immediately taken to Paris and thrown into the
Temple.

The commune of Meriel had deserved well of the country, and the First
Consul showed his satisfaction in a dazzling manner. He expressed a
desire to make the acquaintance of 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 village.
Bonaparte congratulated them personally, and as a more substantial proof
of his gratitude, distributed among them a sum of 11,000 francs, found
in Raoul Gaillard's belt.

This was certainly a glorious event for the peasants of Meriel, but it
had an unexpected result. When they returned the next day they learned
that a stranger, "well dressed, well armed and mounted on a fine horse,"
profiting by their absence, had gone to the village, and, "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