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Updated: August 22, 2024
Was it to be believed that he had lived all this time, buried in some oubliette at Tournebut, and could one expect that Mme. de Combray would reveal the secret of his retreat? As soon as she arrived at the Conciergerie, Licquet, without showing himself, had gone to "study" his prisoner.
The matter was brought to Rouen and it was there that, "for the safety of the State," the trial took place that excited all Normandy in advance. Curiosity was greatly aroused by the crime committed by "ladies of the château," and surprising revelations were expected, the examination having lasted more than a year and having brought together an army of witnesses from around Falaise and Tournebut.
Chauvel that she was going away, and took many messages from the good woman to Mme. de Combray, with whom she said she was going to spend several days at Tournebut. On the 22d she made a bundle of her belongings, and taking the arm of the gendarme, left the washerwoman's house disguised as a peasant. Life at Tournebut resumed its usual course after Lefebre's departure.
Some fairly large woods separated it from the highroad which runs from Gaillon to Saint-Cyr-de-Vaudreuil, while the barges usually touched at the hamlet of Roule, where hacks were hired to take passengers and goods to the ferry of Muids, thereby saving them the long détour made by the Seine. Tournebut was thus isolated between these two much-travelled roads.
In making an inventory of the furniture in the château, they found amongst things forgotten in the attic the harp on which their mother had played when as a young girl she had lived at Tournebut, and a saddle which the "dragoon" may have used on her nocturnal rides towards the hill of Authevernes in pursuit of coaches. Mme. de Combray's sons kept Tournebut, and Bonnoeil continued to live there.
It was only a good deal later, when the château of Tournebut was known as an avowed retreat of the Chouans, that it occurred to the authorities that "by its position at an equal distance from the two roads to Paris by Vernon and by Magny-en-Vexin, where the mail had so often been stopped," it might well have served as a centre of operations, and as the authors of these outrages remained undiscovered, they credited them all to Mme. de Combray's inspiration, and this accusation without proof is none too bold.
Her son Timoléon had never approved of her political actions and since the Revolution had stayed away from Tournebut; but as soon as he heard of their arrest he hurried to Rouen to be near his mother and brother in prison. The letters he exchanged with Bonnoeil, as soon as it was permitted, show a strong sense of the situation on the part of both, irreproachable honesty and profound friendship.
Acquet de Férolles, and it justified Bonald's saying: "Foolish deeds done by clever men, extravagances uttered by men of intellect, crimes committed by honest people such is the story of the revolution." D'Aché had taken refuge at Tournebut.
He had left Paris as soon as the gates were opened, and whether he had escaped surveillance more cleverly than the brothers Gaillard, whether he had been able to get immediately to Saint-Germain where he had a refuge, and from there, without risking the passage of a ferry or a bridge, without stopping at any inn, had succeeded in covering in one day the fifteen leagues that separated him from Gaillon, he arrived without mishap at Tournebut where Mme. de Combray immediately shut the door of one of the hiding-places upon him.
Mme. de Combray never again quitted Tournebut, where she lived with her son Bonnoeil, waited upon by Catherine Querey, who had been faithful to her in her misfortunes. Except for this faithful girl, the Marquise had made a clean sweep of all her old servants. None of them are to be found among the persons who surrounded her during the Restoration.
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