off-shoot, were going to join many others of the same kind, whose
originators Fouche's police had despaired of finding, when an unexpected
event reawakened Licquet's fervour and suggested to him a new
machination.

CHAPTER VII

MADAME ACQUET

Seclusion, isolation and trouble had in no way softened the Marquise de
Combray's harsh nature. From the very first day, this woman, accustomed
to living in a chateau, had accommodated herself to the life of a
prisoner without abating anything of her haughty and despotic character.
Her very illusions remained intact. She imagined that from her cell she
still directed her confederates and agents, whom she considered one and
all as servants, never suspecting that the permission to write letters,
of which she made such bad use, was only a trap set for her ingenuous
vanity. In less than a month she had written more than a hundred letters
to her fellow-prisoners, which all passed through Licquet's hands. To
one she dictated the answers he was to give, to another she counselled
silence,--setting herself up to be an absolute judge of what they ought
to say or to hold back, being quite unable to imagine that any of these
unhappy people might prefer life to the pleasure of obeying her. She
would have treated as a liar any one, be he who he might, who affirmed
that all her accomplices had deserted her, that Soyer had hastened to
disclose the secret hiding-places at Tournebut, that Mlle. Querey had
told all about what she had seen, that Lanoe pestered Caffarelli with
his incessant revelations, and that Lefebre, whom nothing but prudence
kept silent, was very near telling all he knew to save his own head.

The Marquise was ignorant of all these defections. Licquet had created
such an artificial atmosphere around her that she lived under the
delusion that she was as important as before. Convinced that nobody was
her equal in finesse and authority, she considered the detective
sufficiently clever to deal with a person of humble position, but
believed that as soon as she cared to trouble herself to bring it about,
he would become entirely devoted to her. And Licquet, with his almost
genial skilfulness, so easily fathomed the Marquise's proud soul--was
such a perfect actor in the way he stood before her, spoke to her, and
looked at her with an air of submissive admiration,--that it was no
wonder she thought he was ready to serve her; and as she was not the
sort of woman to use any dis