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Updated: June 6, 2025
Acquet had the free disposal of the treasure buried at the Buquets, which amounted to more than 40,000 francs.
The next day was spent in arguing with the Buquets who did not dare to resist the Marquise's commands, and at night they delivered, against their will, two sacks containing 9,000 francs in crowns which she caused to be placed in the cart, which was housed in the barn. It was impossible to take more the first time, and Mme.
Dressed as a beggar, she took the road to Donnay where formerly she had ruled as sovereign mistress; she saw again the long avenues at the end of which the façade of the château, imposing still despite its decay, commanded a view of the three terraces of the park; she walked along by the walls to reach the Buquets' cottage where Joseph, who was hiding in the neighbouring woods, occasionally returned to watch over his treasure.
If it should be found there she was lost, and it was important to get it from the Buquets and send it to the leaders of the party for whom it was intended.
Delaitre replied that it was precisely to guard against the indulgence of the Calvados authorities, that an imperial decree had laid the affair before the special court at Rouen; but the lawyer who could not see his last chance of laying hands on the Buquets' treasure disappear without feeling some annoyance, replied that nothing must be decided without the advice of their friends.
Licquet fell back with his troop, taking with him Chauvel, Mallet and Langelley, who were soon to be followed by Lanoë, Vannier, Placène and all the Buquets, save Joseph, who had not been seen again. But before starting on his return journey to Rouen, Licquet wished to pay his respects to Count Caffarelli, the Prefect of Calvados, in whose territory he had just been hunting.
When the lawyer understood that not only did his prisoner not possess a single sou, but that she could not dispose of the Buquets' treasure, he flew into a violent passion and plainly threatened to give her up to the police; he even reproached her "for what she eat," swearing that somehow or other "he would make her pay board, for he certainly was not going to feed her free of cost."
His precautions had been well taken, and once again his aplomb was about to save him, when Réal, much embarrassed by this soft spoken prisoner, thought of sending him to Caen, in the hope that confronting him with Flierlé, Grand-Charles and the Buquets might have some result.
Bureau de Placène, as "banker" to the Chouans, had advanced the claims of the royal exchequer; Allain and Lerouge the baker who showed entire disinterestedness had gone to Donnay, and with great trouble got 1,200 francs from the Buquets; five times Lerouge had gone in a little cart, by appointment, to the forest of Harcourt, where he waited under a large tree near the crossroad till Buquet brought him some money.
Acquet was desperate; prudence forbade her trying to overcome the Buquets' obstinacy, and they, in order to keep the money, asserted that it belonged to the royal exchequer, and they were responsible for it; so the unhappy woman found that she had committed a crime that the obstinacy of these rapacious peasants rendered useless.
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