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Updated: June 22, 2025
Lefebre had ridden it from Tournebut; but was that a fact to be so carefully concealed? Why did the Marquise in her confidential letters insist on this point? "Say that the lawyer returned to his house on foot," is a sentence that we find in each of her letters. Since no mystery was made of the journey, why was its means of accomplishment important?
It was a two-story building with a high slate roof; the court in front was surrounded by huts and offices; a high wall enclosed the property on all sides, and a pathway led from it to one of the doors in the wall surrounding Tournebut. As soon as she was in possession of the Petit Château, Mme. de Combray had some large secret places constructed in it.
Among those who sojourned at Tournebut was Charles de Margadel, one of Frotté's officers, who had organised a royalist police even in Paris. Thence he had escaped to deal some blows in the Eure under the orders of Hingant de Saint-Maur, another habitué of Tournebut who was preparing there his astonishing expedition of Pacy-sur-Eure.
Once before, in 1792, Gaillon had been designated as a stopping-place for Louis XVI in case he should again make the attempt that had been frustrated at Varennes. The Château de Gaillon was no longer habitable in 1796, but Tournebut, in the opinion of the Marquise, offered the same advantages, being about midway between the coast and Paris.
She had the house done up and repainted, but it distressed her to be so meanly lodged, and she regretted the lofty halls and the quiet of Tournebut.
Acquet that she must start immediately for Tournebut by Saint-Sylvain and Lisieux; then traversing the deserted streets with Lefebre, who stopped at his house to get the three thousand francs, from the robbery of June 7th, she reached the Val d'Ante and took the road to Caen. It was very dark; the storm had ceased but the rain still fell heavily.
A wall with several doors opening on the woods enclosed the château, the farm and the lower part of the park, and a wide morass, stretching from the foot of the terrace to the Seine, rendered access impossible from that side. By the marriage of Geneviève de Bois-l'Evêque, Lady of Tournebut, this mansion had passed to the family of Marillac, early in the seventeenth century.
Madame de Combray had inherited Tournebut from her mother, Madeleine Hubert, herself a daughter of a councillor in the Parliament of Normandy.
The truth is that she was a devoted friend of the royalists to whom she had rendered great service, and through her d'Aché was kept informed of what happened in Lower Normandy during his seclusion at Tournebut. Since the general pacification, tranquillity was, in appearance at least, established; Chouannerie seemed to be forgotten.
Tournebut was familiar ground to d'Aché. He was related to Mme. de Combray, and before the Revolution, when he was on furlough, he had made long visits there while "grandmère Brunelle" was still alive. He had been back since then and had spent there part of the autumn of 1803.
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