thers Tellier; Le Bienvenu du Buc, one of the officers of
Hingant; also another, hidden under the name of Collin, called
"Cupidon"; a German bravo named Flierle, called "Le Marchand," whom we
shall meet again, were also her guests, without counting
"Sauve-la-Graisse," "Sans-Quartier," "Blondel," "Perce-Pataud"--actors
in the drama, without name or history, who were always sure of finding
in the "cachettes" of the great chateau or the Tour de l'Ermitage,
refuge and help.

These were compromising tenants, and it is quite easy to imagine what
amusements at Tournebut served to fill the leisure of these men so long
unaccustomed to regular occupation, and to whom strife and danger had
become absolute necessaries. Some statistics, rather hard to prove, will
furnish hints on this point. In September, 1800, the two coaches from
Caen to Paris were stopped between Evreux and Pacy, at a place called
Riquiqui, by two hundred armed brigands, and 48,000 livres belonging to
the State taken. Again, in 1800, the coach from Rouen to Pont-Audemer
was attacked by twenty Chouans and a part of the funds carried off. In
1801 a coach was robbed near Evreux; some days later the mail from Caen
to Paris was plundered by six brigands. On the highroad on the right
bank of the Seine attacks on coaches were frequent near Saint-Gervais,
d'Authevernes, and the old mill of Mouflaines. It was only a good deal
later, when the chateau of Tournebut was known as an avowed retreat of
the Chouans, that it occurred to the authorities that "by its position
at an equal distance from the two roads to Paris by Vernon and by
Magny-en-Vexin, where the mail had so often been stopped," it might well
have served as a centre of operations, and as the authors of these
outrages remained undiscovered, they credited them all to Mme. de
Combray's inspiration, and this accusation without proof is none too
bold. The theft of state funds was a bagatelle to people whom ten years
of implacable warfare had rendered blase about all brigandage. Moreover,
it was easily conceivable that the snare laid by Bonaparte for Frotte,
who was so popular in Normandy, the summary execution of the General and
his six officers, the assassination of the Duc d'Enghien, the death of
Georges Cadoudal (almost a god to the Chouans) and of his brave
companions, following so many imprisonments without trial, acts of
police treachery, traps and denunciations paid for and rewarded, had
exasperated the vanquis