o work up like a master, and did it so
well, by dint of disguises, forged letters, surprised confidences, the
invention of imaginary persons, and other melodramatic tricks, that he
succeeded in producing at the Criminal Court at Evreux seven prisoners
against whom the evidence was so well concocted that five at least were
in danger of losing their heads. But when the imperial Procurator
arrived at the place, instead of accepting the work as completed, he
carefully examined the papers referring to the inquiry. Disgusted at the
means used to drag confessions from the accused, and indignant that his
name should have been associated with so repulsive a comedy, he asked
for explanations. Licquet attempted to brazen it out, but was scornfully
told to hold his peace. Wounded to the quick, he began a campaign of
recriminations, raillery and invective against the magistrates of Eure,
which was only ended by the unanimous acquittal of the seven innocent
persons whom he had delivered over to justice, and whose release the
Procurator himself generously demanded.

The blow fell all the heavier on Licquet as he was at the time deeply
compromised in the frauds of his friend Branzon, a collector at Rouen,
whose malversations had caused the ruin of Savoye-Rollin. The prefect's
innocence was firmly established, but Branzon, who had already been
imprisoned as a Chouan in the Temple, and whose history must have been a
very varied one, was condemned to twelve years' imprisonment in chains.

This also was a blow to Licquet. Realising, during the early days of the
Restoration, that the game he had played had brought him more enemies
than friends, he thought it wise to leave Rouen, and like so many others
lose himself among the police in Paris. Doubtless he was not idle while
he was there, and if the fire of 1871 had not destroyed the archives of
the prefecture, it would have been interesting to search for traces of
him. We seem to recognise his methods in the strangely dubious affair of
the false dauphin, Mathurin Bruneau. This obscure intrigue was connected
with Rouen; his friend Branzon, who was detained at Bicetre, was the
manager of it. A certain Joseph Paulin figured in it--a strange person,
who boasted of having received the son of Louis XVI at the door of the
temple and, for this reason, was a partisan of two dauphins. Joseph
Paulin was, in my opinion, a very cunning detective, who was, moreover,
charged with the surveillance of the be