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For taking this part in the conspiracy he expected a fat sinecure on the return of the Bourbons, in recompense for his devotion. Early in April, 1807, Lefebre and Le Chevalier were dining together at the Hôtel du Point-de-France at Argentan. They had found Beaurepaire, Desmontis and the Cousin Dusaussay there; they went to the café and stayed there several hours.
Lanoë, in a great fright, obeyed, but Lefebre could not come before afternoon; at Noron they found Mme. Acquet in an inn to which she had dragged herself.
He had but four or five thousand men, while the town had fifty thousand inhabitants, the commander of the garrison being Joseph Palafox, a man of indomitable spirit. Lefebre, perceiving that he had been over-confident, now encamped and awaited reinforcements, which arrived on the 29th, increasing his force to twelve thousand men.
The consequences of these shameful follies were calamitous: and but for events which could not have been foreseen, must have proved fatal: for the gigantic resources of the common enemy were about to be set in motion by Napoleon himself; who, on hearing of the reverses of Dupont, Lefebre, and Junot, perceived too clearly that the affairs of the Peninsula demanded a keener eye and a firmer hand than his brother's.
They brought seven guns which were carried up to the loft. They talked; Mme. Acquet took some lemons from a little basket, and cut them into a bowl filled with white wine and brandy, and she and Lefebre drank while consulting together. The heat was intolerable and all three were overcome. Mme. Acquet had to be helped to her carriage and Lefebre undertook to conduct her to Falaise.
After various petty skirmishes, in which the insurgents of Arragon were worsted by Lefebre Desnouettes, and those of Navarre and Biscay by Bessieres, the latter officer came upon the united armies of Castile, Leon and Galicia, commanded by the Generals Cuesta and Blake, on the 14th of July, at Riosecco, and defeated them in a desperate action, in which not less than 20,000 Spaniards died.
A peasant agreed to take them for fifteen francs paid in advance, and about eight o'clock, as Mme. Acquet had not arrived they decided to start. They stopped at Croissanville a little further on, and while breakfasting, Lefebre wrote to Lanoë telling him to find Mme. Acquet at once and tell her to hasten to her mother at Tournebut. The rest of the journey was uneventful.
They didn't believe she was really married. But the doctor said she was. And he turned out to be honest. He never tried to get more money out of me. Neither did the woman. His name was Paul Lefebre, and the village was Latour. I've never heard anything from them or about them since Jack and I and you and Anne left the Château de la Tour, when you were six weeks old. I didn't wish to hear.
"Lefebre insists," wrote Savoye-Rollin to Réal, "that Le Chevalier would never tell him the names of all the conspirators. Lefebre has, however, given two names, one of which is so important and seems so improbable, that I cannot even admit a suspicion of it.
Acquet, made her maid reply that it was "too late for her to come now, that she was very ill and could receive no one." And thus the feeling that divided these two women was clearly defined. Lefebre undertook to give the letter to Abbé Moraud; he was in a great hurry to return to Falaise, where he felt much safer than at Tournebut.
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