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Updated: June 9, 2025
Acquet's three girls, the eldest now twelve, and the youngest not eight years old. Mourning garments were hastily bought for them, and they were sent to Paris on January 24th, with a Mlle. Bodinot. Every day they pursued the Emperor's carriage through the town, as he went to visit the manufactories.
We know nothing of Mme. Acquet's examination, and but little of Chauveau-Lagarde's pleading; a leaf that escaped from his portfolio and was picked up by Mme. de Combray gives a few particulars. This paper has some pencilled notes, and two or three questions written to Mme. Acquet on the prisoners' bench, to which she scrawled a few words in reply.
Of all the survivors of the affair of Quesnay she was the only one left in the conciergerie, the others having gone to serve their terms in Bicêtre or other fortresses. Whilst it had seemed possible that Mme. Acquet's friends might obtain the Emperor's interest in her case, she had received great care and attention, but since the return of her daughters from Vienna things had changed.
The men had gone as far as Caen, and obtained the prefect's authorisation to speak to Lanoë. The latter remembered that Lefebre had left the horse with him at the end of July, on returning from Tournebut, but he denied all knowledge of Mme. Acquet's retreat.
"They think their nieces would be dishonoured by accepting a favour," he wrote. Mme. de Combray might perhaps have yielded, if any one had made her understand that her granddaughters were the only stake she had left. In fact, since Mme. Acquet's death, no stone had been left unturned to obtain the old Marquise's pardon.
Acquet's lover in the village, and if in the absence of any definite testimony, it is possible to save this poor woman's memory from this new accusation, we must still recognise the fact that she exercised an extraordinary influence over this man. He submitted to her blindly "by the rights she had granted him," said a report addressed to the Emperor.
And let no one imagine that he is going to read a romance in these pages. It is an historical study in the severest meaning of the word. Lenôtre mentions no fact that he cannot prove. He risks no hypothesis without giving it as such, and admits no fancy in the slightest detail. If he describes one of Mme. Acquet's toilettes, it is because it is given in some interrogation.
Neither Fouché, Réal, the prefect nor even Licquet, who, once the verdict was given, seemed to have lost all animosity towards his victims. Only the imperial procurer, Chapais-Marivaux, seemed determined on the execution of the sentence. He had already caused two consultations to be held on the subject of Mme. Acquet's health.
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