im the insignia of the Golden Fleece.
The world was fascinated and history shows no example of material and
moral power comparable to that of Napoleon when the Holy Father crossed
the mountains to recognise and hail him as the instrument of Providence,
and anoint him Caesar in the name of God.

It was, however, just at this time that d'Ache, an exile, concealed in
the Chateau of Tournebut, without a companion, without a penny, without
a counsellor or ally other than the aged woman who gave him refuge,
conceived the astonishing idea of struggling against the man before whom
all Europe bowed the knee. Looked at in this light it seems madness, but
undoubtedly d'Ache's royalist illusions blinded him to the conditions of
the duel he was to engage in. But these illusions were common to many
people for whom Bonaparte, at the height of his power, was never
anything but an audacious criminal whose factitious greatness was at the
mercy of a well-directed and fortunate blow.

Fouche's police had not given up hopes of finding the fugitive. They
looked for him in Paris, Rouen, Saint-Denis-du-Bosguerard, near
Bourgtheroulde, where his mother possessed a small estate; they watched
closest at Saint-Clair whither his wife and daughters had returned after
the execution of Georges. The doors of the Madelonnettes prison had been
opened for them and they had been informed that they must remove
themselves forty leagues from Paris and the coast; but the poor woman,
almost without resources, had not paid attention to this injunction, and
they were allowed to remain at Saint-Clair in the hope that d'Ache would
tire of his wandering life, and allow himself to be taken at home. As to
Placide, as soon as he found himself out of the Temple, and had
conducted his sister-in-law and nieces home, he returned to Rouen, where
he arrived in mid-July. Scarcely had he been one night in his lodging in
the Rue Saint-Patrice, when he received a letter--how, or from where he
could not say--announcing that his brother had gone away so as not to
compromise his family again, and that he would not return to France
until general peace was proclaimed, hoping then to obtain permission
from the government to end his days in the bosom of his family.

D'Ache, however, was living in Tournebut without much mystery. The only
precaution he took was to avoid leaving the property, and he had taken
the name of "Deslorieres," one of the pseudonyms of Georges Cadoudal,
"as if h