to faggots, and felling the ancient beeches. The
very castle whose facade but lately reached to the end of the stately
avenue, suffered from his devastations. It was now nothing but a ruin
with swing-doors and a leaking roof. Here Acquet had reserved a garret
for himself, abandoning the rest of the house to the ravages of time and
the weather. Shut up in this ruin like a wild beast in his lair, he
would not permit the slightest infringement of what he called his
rights. Mme. de Combray wished to spend the harvest season of 1803 at
the chateau, where the happiest years of her life had been passed, and
where all her children had grown up, but Acquet made the bailiff turn
her out, and the Marquise took refuge in the village parsonage, which
had been sold at the time of the Revolution as national property, and
for which she had supplied half the money, when the Commune bought it
back, to restore it to its original purpose. Since no priest had yet
been appointed she was able to take up her residence there, to the
indignation of her son-in-law, who considered this intrusion as a piece
of bravado.

Two years later Mme. de Combray had still no other shelter at Donnay,
and it was to this parsonage that she brought d'Ache. They arrived there
on the evening of July 17th. A long stay in this conspicuous house,
which was always exposed to the hateful espionage of Acquet, was out of
the question for the exile. He nevertheless spent a fortnight there,
without trying to hide himself, even going so far as to hunt, and
receive several visits, among others one from Mme. Acquet, who came from
Falaise to see her mother, and thus met d'Ache for the first time. At
the beginning of August he quitted Donnay, and Mme. de Combray
accompanied him as far as the country chateau of a neighbour, M.
Descroisy, where he passed one night. At break of day he set out on
horseback in the direction of Bayeux, Mme. de Combray alone knowing
where he went.

In this neighbourhood d'Ache had the choice of several places of refuge.
He was closely connected by ties of friendship with the family of
Duquesnay de Monfiquet who lived at Mandeville near Trevieres. M. de
Monfiquet, a thoroughly loyal but quite unimportant nobleman, having
emigrated at the outbreak of the Revolution, his estate at Mandeville
had been sequestrated and his chateau pillaged and half demolished. Mme.
de Monfiquet, a clever and energetic woman, being left with six
daughters unprovided for, t