For this work she
employed a man called Soyer who combined the functions of intendant,
maitre d'hotel and valet-de-chambre at Tournebut. Soyer was born at
Combray, one of the Marquise's estates in Lower Normandy, and entered
her service in 1791, at the age of sixteen, in the capacity of scullion.
He had gone with his mistress to Rouen during the Terror, and since the
return to Tournebut she had given the administration of the estate into
his hands. In this way he had authority over the domestics at the
chateau, who numbered six, and among whom the chambermaid Querey and the
gardener Chatel deserve special mention. Each year, about Easter, Mme.
de Combray went to Rouen, where under pretext of purchases to make and
rents to collect, she remained a month. Only Soyer and Mlle. Querey
accompanied her. Besides her patrimonial house in the Rue Saint-Amand,
she had retained the quiet house in the Faubourg Bouvreuil which still
served as a refuge for the exiles sought by the police of the Directory,
and as a depot for the refractories who were sure of finding supplies
there and means of rejoining the royalist army. Tournebut itself,
admirably situated between Upper and Lower Normandy, became the refuge
for all the partisans whom a particularly bold stroke had brought to the
attention of the authorities on either bank of the river, totally
separated at this time by the slowness and infrequency of communication,
and also by the centralisation of the police which prevented direct
intercourse between the different departmental authorities. It was in
this way that Mme. de Combray, having become from 1796 to 1804, the
chief of the party with the advantage of being known as such only to
the party itself, sheltered the most compromised of the chiefs of Norman
Chouannerie, those strange heroes whose mad bravery has brought them a
legendary fame, and whose names are scarcely to be found, doubtfully
spelled, in the accounts of historians.

Among those who sojourned at Tournebut was Charles de Margadel, one of
Frotte's officers, who had organised a royalist police even in Paris.
Thence he had escaped to deal some blows in the Eure under the orders of
Hingant de Saint-Maur, another habitue of Tournebut who was preparing
there his astonishing expedition of Pacy-sur-Eure. Besides Margadel and
Hingant, Mme. de Combray had oftenest sheltered Armand Gaillard, and his
brother Raoul, whose death we have related. Deville, called "Tamerlan";
the bro