all your trouble; that he
alone made you act; you did not think of it yourself, and he advised you
badly. He alone deserves the hatred of the government. He is abhorred
and execrated as he deserves to be, and there is no one who would not be
glad to give him up or kill him on the spot. He alone is the cause of
your trouble. Recollect this; do not forget it."

It is not necessary to say that these letters never reached Le
Chevalier, who was secretly confined in the tower of the Temple until
Fouche decided his fate. He was rather an embarrassing prisoner; as he
could not be directly accused of the robbery of Quesnay in which he had
not taken part, and as they feared to draw him into an affair to which
his superb gift of speech, his importance as a Chouan gentleman, his
adventurous past and his eloquent professions of faith might give a
political significance similar to that of Georges Cadoudal's trial,
there remained only the choice of setting him at liberty or trying him
simply as a royalist agent. Now, in 1808 they did not wish to mention
royalists. It was understood that they were an extinct race, and orders
were given to no longer speak of them to the public, which must long
since have forgotten that in very ancient days the Bourbons had reigned
in France.

Thus, Real did not know what was to become of Le Chevalier when Licquet
conceived the idea of giving him a role in his comedy. We have not yet
obtained all the threads of this new intrigue. Whether Licquet destroyed
certain over-explicit papers, or whether he preferred in so delicate a
matter to act without too much writing, there remain such gaps in the
story that we have not been able to establish the correlation of the
facts we are about to reveal. It is certain that the idea of exploiting
Mme. Acquet's passion and promising her the freedom of her lover in
exchange for a general confession, was originated by Licquet. He
declares it plainly in a letter addressed to Real. By this means they
obtained complete avowals from her. On December 12th she gave a detailed
account of her adventurous life from the time of her departure from
Falaise until her arrest; a few days later she gave some details of the
conspiracy of which d'Ache was the chief, to which we shall have to
return. What must be noted at present is this remarkable coincidence: on
the 12th she spoke, after receiving Licquet's formal promise to ensure
Le Chevalier's escape, and on the 14th he actually esca