traces of them, with fragments of wall-paper. The very little daylight
that filters through the windows justifies Mme. Moisson's exclamation,
"It is a prison!" The platform, from which the view is very fine, has
been renewed, like the staircase. But from top to bottom all corresponds
with Moisson's description.

All that remained now was to find out how one could get into the cellar
from outside. We had two excellent guides; our kind host, M. Constantin,
and M. l'Abbe Drouin, the cure of Aubevoye, who knew all the local
traditions. They mentioned the "Grotto of the Hermit!" O
Ducray-Duminil!--Thou again!

The grotto is an old quarry in the side of the hill towards the Seine,
below the tower and having no apparent communication with it, but so
situated that an underground passage of a few yards would unite them.
The grotto being now almost filled up, the entrance to this passage has
disappeared. Looking at it, so innocent in appearance now under the
brush and brambles, I seemed to see some Chouan by star-light, eye and
ear alert, throw himself into it like a rabbit into its hole, and creep
through to the tower, to sleep fully dressed on the pallet on the second
floor. Evidently this tower, planned as were all Mme. de Combray's
abodes, was one of the many refuges arranged by the Chouans from the
coast of Normandy to Paris and known only to themselves.

But why was Mme. Moisson accommodated there without being taken into her
hostess's confidence? If Mme. de Combray wished to avert suspicion by
having two women and a child there, she might have told them so; and if
she thought Mme. Moisson too excitable to hear such a confession, she
should not have exposed her to nocturnal mysteries that could only tend
to increase her excitement! When Phelippeaux was questioned, during the
trial of Georges Cadoudal, about Moisson's father, who had disappeared,
he replied that he lived in the street and island of Saint-Louis near
the new bridge; that he was an engraver and manager of a button factory;
that Mme. Moisson had a servant named R. Petit-Jean, married to a
municipal guard. Was it through fear of this woman's writing
indiscreetly to her husband that Mme. de Combray remained silent? But in
any case, why the tower?

However this may be, the exactness of Moisson's reminiscences was
proved. But the trap-door had not been forced, as he believed, by
Chouans fleeing after some nocturnal expedition. This point was already
decided by t