enemy who was always on the watch,
she did not dare to expose to denunciation a man on whose head the fate
of the monarchy rested. D'Ache did not come to La Bijude the whole
winter. Mme. de Combray lived there alone with her son Bonnoeil and
the farmer Hebert. She had the house done up and repainted, but it
distressed her to be so meanly lodged, and she regretted the lofty
halls and the quiet of Tournebut. At the beginning of Lent, 1806, she
sent Lanoe for the last time to Mandeville to arrange with d'Ache some
means of correspondence, and with Bonnoeil she again started for
Gaillon, determined never again to set foot on her estates in Lower
Normandy as long as her son-in-law reigned there, and thoroughly
convinced that the fast approaching return of the King would avenge all
the humiliations she had lately endured. She had, moreover, quarrelled
with her daughter, who had only come to Donnay twice during her mother's
stay, and had there displayed only a very moderate appreciation of
d'Ache's plans, and had seemed entirely uninterested in the annoyance
caused to the Marquise, and her exodus to La Bijude.

If Mme. Acquet de Ferolles was really lacking in interest, it was
because a great event had occurred in her own life.

Acquet knew that his wife's suit for a separation must inevitably be
granted. The ill-treatment she had had to endure was only too
well-known, and every one in Falaise took her part. If Acquet lost the
case, it would mean the end of the easy life he was leading at Donnay,
and he not only wished to gain time but secretly hoped that his wife
would commit some indiscretion that would regain for him if not the
sympathies of the public, at least her loss of the suit which if won,
would ruin him. In order to carry out his Machiavellian schemes, he
pretended that he wished to come to an understanding with the Combray
family, and he despatched one of his friends to Mme. Acquet to open
negotiations. This friend, named Le Chevalier, was a handsome young man
of twenty-five, with dark hair, a pale complexion and white teeth. He
had languishing eyes, a sympathetic voice and a graceful figure,
inexhaustible good-humour, despite his melancholy appearance, and
unbounded audacity. As he was the owner of a farm in the Commune of
Saint Arnould in the neighbourhood of Exmes, he was called Le Chevalier
de Saint-Arnould, which gave him the position of a nobleman. He was
moreover related to the nobility.

Less has been wri