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All parties conspired to promote a marriage between the young Henriette, only daughter of Madame Lechantre, and this protege of the ci-devants. Priests, nobles, creditors, each with a different interest, loyal in some, selfish in others, blind for the most part, all united in furthering the union of Bernard Bryond des Tours-Minieres with Henriette Lechantre.
That personage is, as the prosecuting officer, the police of Paris, and the Chancellor of His Imperial and Royal Majesty well know, the Sieur Bernard-Polydor Bryond des Tours-Minieres, the correspondent, since 1794, of the Comte de Lille, known elsewhere as the Baron des Tours-Minieres, and on records of the Parisian police under the name of Contenson. He is notorious.
But that which the Chancellor of His Imperial and Royal Majesty can easily verify is the infamous encouragement given by Bryond to this intimacy. Far from fulfilling his duty as guide and counsellor to a child whose poor deceived mother had trusted her to him, he took pleasure in drawing closer still the bonds that united the young Henriette to the rebel leader.
Both Bourlac and Mergi showed extraordinary bitterness against mother and daughter; they called the Baronne des Tours-Minieres 'the woman Bryond, and Madame 'the woman Lechantre. The names of accused persons in those days were all brought to one republican level, and were sometimes unrecognizable.
Vauthier agreed to notify the woman Bryond of the arrival and departure of the diligence bearing the government money, which always stopped for a time at the hotel. The woman Bryond collected the scattered brigands at the chateau de Saint-Savin, a few miles from Mortagne, where she had lived with her mother since the separation from her husband.
The notary went with the woman Bryond to Saint-Savin, where they searched in vain for an axe. The notary returned alone; half way back he met Hiley, to whom he stated that they could not obtain an axe. Hiley returned to the inn, where he ordered supper for ten persons; seven of them being the brigands, who had now returned, fully armed. Hiley made them stack their arms in the military manner.
Bryond pushed Rifoel to crime; he instigated the attacks of armed men upon the mail-coaches bearing the moneys of the government, and the levying of a heavy tribute from the purchasers of the National domain; a tax he enforced by means of tortures invented by him which carried terror through five departments.
He wandered in the shade of those Norman groves; he saw the Breton hero and Madame Bryond among the gorse and shrubbery; he inhabited the old chateau of Saint-Savin; he shared in the diverse acts of all those many personages, picturing to himself the notary, the merchant, and those bold Chouans.
The brigands, with Hiley at their head, stayed at the chateau for several days. The woman Bryond, assisted by her maid Godard, prepared with her own hands the food of these men. She had already filled a loft with hay, and there the provisions were taken to them.
The old man tells Vauthier that he must go to his nephews, who have taken large sums to the woman Bryond. But he orders him to wait outside in the road, and brings him a bag containing the small sum of twelve hundred francs, which Vauthier delivers to the woman Lechantre for her daughter. At Leveille's request, Vauthier returns to Bourget, who this time sends for his nephews.
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