to the throne is full of
mystery. Those who were mixed up in them, such as Fauche-Bonel or Hyde
de Neuville were ruined, and it required the daylight of the Restoration
to open the eyes of the persons most interested to the fact that certain
professions of devotion had been treacherous.

As far as d'Ache was concerned it seems fairly certain that he did not
receive any promise from the princes, and was not even admitted to their
presence; the English ministers alone encouraged him to embark on this
extraordinary adventure, in which they were fully determined to let him
ruin himself. Therefore the "unlimited" credit opened at the banker
Nourry's was only a bait: while making the conspirators think they would
never want for money, the credit was limited beforehand to 30,000
francs, a piece of duplicity which enraged even the detectives who,
later on, discovered it.

It is not easy to follow d'Ache in the mysterious work upon which he
entered: the precautions he took to escape the police have caused him to
be lost to posterity as well. Some slight landmarks barely permit our
following his trail during the few years which form the climax of his
wonderful career.

We find him first of all during the autumn of 1806, at La Bijude, where
Mme. de Combray, who had remained at Tournebut had charged Bonnoeil
and Mme. Acquet to go and receive him. There was some question of
providing him with a messenger familiar with the haunts of the Chouans
and the dangers connected with the task. To fulfil this duty Mme. Acquet
proposed a German named Flierle whom Le Chevalier recommended. Flierle
had distinguished himself in the revolt of the Chouans; a renowned
fighter, he had been mixed up in every plot. He was in Paris at the time
of the eighteenth Fructidor; he turned up there again at the moment when
Saint-Rejant was preparing his infernal machine; he again spent three
months there at the time of Georges' conspiracy. For the last two years,
whilst waiting for a fresh engagement, he had lived on a small pension
from the royal treasury, and when funds were low, he made one of his
more fortunate companions in old days put him up; and thus he roamed
from Caen to Falaise, from Mortain to Bayeux or Saint-Lo, even going
into Mayenne in his wanderings. Although he would never have
acknowledged it, we may say that he was one of the men usually employed
in attacking public vehicles: in fact, he was an adept at it and went by
the name of the "Teis