otte and Massena."

Bernadotte and Massena! At the ministry of police they pretended to
laugh heartily at this foolish notion; but perhaps some who knew the
"true inwardness" of certain old rivalries--Fouche above all--thought it
less absurd and impossible than they admitted it to be. This fiend of a
man, with his way of searching to the bottom of his prisoners'
consciences, was just the one to find out that in France Bonaparte was
the sole partisan of the Empire. In any case these were not ideas to be
circulated freely, and from that day Real promised himself that if
Pasque and Beffara succeeded in finding Le Chevalier, he should never
divulge them before any tribunal.

The two agents had established a system of surveillance on all the
roads of Normandy, but without much hope: Le Chevalier, who had escaped
so many spies and got out of so many snares during the past eight years,
was considered to bear, as it were, a charmed life. He was taken,
however, and as his escape had seemed to be the result of the
detective's schemes, so in the manner in which he again fell into the
hands of Real's agents was Licquet's handiwork again recognised. The
latter, indeed, was the only one who knew enough to make the capture
possible. In his long conversation with Mme. Acquet, he had learned that
in leaving Caen in the preceding May, Le Chevalier had confided his
five-year-old son to his servant Marie Humon, with orders to take him to
his friend the Sieur Guilbot at Evreux. At the beginning of August the
child had been taken to Paris and placed with Mme. Thiboust, Le
Chevalier's sister-in-law.

In what way was the son used to capture the father? We have never been
able thoroughly to clear up this mystery. The accounts that have been
given of this great detective feat are evidently fantastic, and remain
inexplicable without the intervention of a comrade betraying Le
Chevalier after having given him unequivocal proofs of devotion. Thus,
it has been said that Real, "having recourse to extraordinary means,"
could have caused the arrest of "the sister-in-law and daughter of the
fugitive, and their incarceration in the prisons of Caen with filthy and
disreputable women." Le Chevalier, informed of their incarceration--by
whom?--would have offered himself in place of the two women, and the
police would have accepted the bargain.

Told in this manner, the story does not at all agree with the documents
we have been able to collect. Le Chevali