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Acquet, killed the yellow horse, and whom she called her guardian angel. The guardian angel wrote only a few words: "Bonaparte is overthrown; the King is about to land in France; the prisons are opening everywhere. Write a letter at once to M. d'Aché which he can hand to his Majesty. I will undertake to forward it to him."
Denunciations of Acquet and his friends were heard on all sides. The letters written at this period from Bonnoeil to his brother testify to the astonishment they felt at these revelations. They made a fresh discovery every day. "M. Bruslard told me the other day that La Vaubadon wished to have him arrested, but that he took care not to fall into the trap she had set for him."
She lived with her guest for eight days in this house with the false bottom, so to speak, never appearing outside, wandering through the unfurnished rooms during the day, and returning to her hiding-place at night. They did not return to Tournebut till August 4th. The same day Soyer received a letter from Mme. Acquet, on the envelope of which she had written, "For Mama."
Acquet did not fly as soon as she heard of his intended visit, and that she consented to appear before him as if she were sure of finding help and protection. The interview took place in the house of the mayor, M. de Saint-Léonard, a relative of Mme. de Combray's, and resembled a family council rather than an examination.
The old Marquise, much agitated, declaimed in a loud voice against the Procurer-General: "Ah! the monster! The scoundrel! How he has treated us!" Mme. Acquet, pale and impassive, seemed oblivious of what was going on around her. When she heard sentence of death pronounced against her, she turned towards her defender, and Chauveau-Lagarde, rising, asked for a reprieve for his client.
Acquet had received his suggestion with enthusiasm; the thought that she would be useful to her hero, that she would share his danger, blinded her to all other considerations.
Besides the money stolen in the woods at Quesnay, which the Marquise had to refund, she had been obliged to spend money freely in order to "corrupt Licquet," for Chauveau-Lagarde's fee, for her advocate Maître Gady de la Vigne, and for Ducolombier's journeys to Paris and Vienna with the little girls, the whole outlay amounting to nearly 125,000 francs; and as the farms at Tournebut were tenantless, while Acquet retained all the estates in lower Normandy and would not allow them anything, the Marquise and her sons found their income reduced to almost nothing.
A week later all those who sided with Acquet were convinced that the Marquise had poisoned the Abbé Clérisse, "after having been imprudent enough to take him into her confidence." Feeling ran high in the village. Acquet affected consternation.
Foreseeing that this state of things could not last forever, Acquet, despite Bonnoeil's oft-repeated protests, continued to devastate Donnay, so as to get all he could out of it, cutting down the forests, chopping the elms into faggots, and felling the ancient beeches. The very castle whose façade but lately reached to the end of the stately avenue, suffered from his devastations.
She sent a confidential agent to Donnay "to obtain news of the Sieur Acquet," who was not at all satisfied and by no means at ease, as we can well imagine. It was said that he had sent for his sister to come and take care of his three children, the eldest of whom was nearly twenty years of age. Acquet pretended to be ill in order to defer his departure from Donnay.
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