ot leave La Bijude. In the
afternoon a tanner of Placy, called Brazard, passed the house and called
to Hebert whom he saw in the garden. He told him that when he got up
that morning he had found four horses tied to his hedge. The gendarmes
from Langannerie had come and claimed them saying "they belonged to the
Falaise-Caen coach which had been attacked in the night by Chouans."
Hebert was much astonished; Mme. Acquet did not believe it; but the
report spread and by evening the news was known to the whole village.

Acquet had remained invisible for a month; his instinct of hatred and
some information slyly obtained, warned him that his wife was working
her own ruin, and he would do nothing to stop her good work. Some days
before, Aumont, his gardener, had remarked one morning that the dew was
brushed off the grass of the lawn, and showed footsteps leading to the
cellar of the chateau, but Acquet did not seem to attach any importance
to these facts.

He learned from his servant of the robbery of the coach. The next day,
Redet, the butcher of Meslay, said that ten days previously, when he was
passing the ruins of the Abbey of Val "his mare shied, frightened at the
sight of seven or eight men, who came out from behind a hedge;" they
asked him the way to Rouen. Redet, without answering, made off, and as
he told every one of this encounter, Hebert the liegeman of Mme. de
Combray, had instantly begged him not to spread it about. If Acquet had
retained any doubt, this would have satisfied him. He hurried to Meslay
to consult with his friend Darthenay, and the next day, he wrote to the
commandant of gendarmerie inviting him to search the Chateau of Donnay.

The visit took place on Friday, 12th June, and was conducted by Captain
Pinteville. Acquet offered to guide him, and the search brought some
singular discoveries. Certain doors of this great house, long abandoned,
were found with strong locks recently put on; others were nailed up and
had to be broken in. "In a dark, retired loft that it was difficult to
enter" (Acquet conducted the gendarmes) "a pile of hay still retained
the impress of six men who had slept on it"; some fresh bones, scraps of
bread and meat, and the dirt bore witness that the band had lived there;
some sheets of paper belonging to a memoir printed by Hely de
Bonnoeil, brother of Mme. Acquet were rolled into cartridges and
hidden in a corner under the tiles. They also found the sacks that the
Buquets had h