distinguished from professional malefactors. But when they stopped coaches, extorted ransom from travellers and shot constitutional priests and purchasers of the national property, the distinction became too subtle. There was no longer any room for it in the year VIII and IX when, vigorous measures having almost cleared the country of the bands of "chauffeurs" and other bandits who infested it, the greater number of those who had escaped being shot or guillotined joined what remained of the royalist army, last refuge of brigandage.

In such a time Moisson's adventure was not at all extraordinary. We can only accuse it of being too simple. It was the mildest scene of a huge melodrama in which he and his mother had played the part of supers. But slight as was the episode, it had all the attraction of the unknown for me. Of Tournebut and its owners I knew nothing. Who, in reality, was this Mme. de Combray, sanctified by Balzac? A fanatic, or an intriguer?—And her daughter Mme. Acquet? A heroine or a lunatic?—and the lover? A hero or an adventurer?—And the husband, the lawyer and the friends of the house? Mme. Acquet more than all piqued my curiosity. The daughter of a good house disguised as a hussar to stop the mail like Choppart! This was not at all commonplace! Was she young and pretty? Moisson knew nothing about it; he had never seen her or her lover or husband, Mme. de Combray having quarrelled with all of them.

I was most anxious to learn more, but to do that it would be necessary to consult the report of the trial in the record office at Rouen. I never had time. I mentioned it to M. Gustave Bord, to Frédéric Masson and M. de la Sicotière, and thought no more about it even after the interesting article published in the Temps, by M. Ernest Daudet, until walking one day with Lenôtre in the little that is left of old Paris of the Cité, the house in the Rue Chanoinesse, where Balzac lodged Mme. de la Chanterie, reminded me of Moisson, whose adventure I narrated to Lenôtre, at that time finishing his "Conspiration de la Rouërie." That was sufficient to give him the idea of studying the records of the affair of 1807, which no one had consulted before him. A short time after he told me that the tower of Tournebut was still in existence, and that he was anxious for us to visit it, the son-in-law of the owner of the Château of Aubevoye, M. Constantin, having kindly offered to conduct us.

On a fine autumn morning the train left us at the station that served the little village of Aubevoye, whose name has twice been heard in the Courts of Justice, once in the trial of Mme. de Combray and once in that of Mme. de Jeufosse. Those who have no taste for these sorts of excursions cannot understand their charm. Whether it be a little historical question to be solved, an unknown or badly authenticated fact to be elucidated, this document hunt with its deceptions and surprises is the most amusing kind of chase, especially in company with a delver like Lenôtre, endowed with an admirable flair that always puts him on the right track. There was, moreover, a particular attraction in this old forgotten tower, in which we alone were interested, and in examining into Moisson's story!

Of the château that had been built by the Marechal de Marillac, and considerably enlarged by Mme. de Combray, nothing, unhappily, remains but the out-buildings, a terrace overlooking the Seine, the court of honour turned into a lawn, an avenue of old limes and the ancient fence. A new building replaced the old one fifty years ago. The little château, "Gros-Mesnil," near the large one has recently been restored.

But the general effect is the same as in 1804. Seeing the great woods that hug the outer wall so closely, one realises how well they lent themselves to the mysterious comings and goings, to the secret councils, to the rôle destined for it by Mme. de Combray, preparing the finest room for the arrival of the King or the Comte d'Artois, and in both the great and little château, arranging hiding-places, one of which alone could accommodate forty armed men.

The tower is still there, far from the château, at the summit of a wooded hill in the centre of a clearing, which commands the river valley. It is a squat, massive construction, of forbidding aspect, such as Moisson described, with thick walls, and windows so narrow that they look more like loopholes. It seems as if it might originally have been one of the guard-houses or watch-towers erected on the heights from Nantes to Paris, like the tower of Montjoye whose ditch is recognisable in the Forest of Marly, or those of Montaigu and Hennemont, whose ruins were still visible in the last century. Some of these towers were converted into mills or pigeon-houses. Ours, whose upper story and pointed roof had been demolished and replaced by a platform at an uncertain date, was flanked by a wooden mill, burnt before the Revolution, for it is not to be found in Cassini's chart which shows all in the region. The tower and its approaches are still known as the "burnt mill."

There remains no trace of the excavation which was in front of the entrance in 1804, and which must have been the last vestige of an old moat. The threshold crossed, we are in the circular chamber; at the end facing the door is the window, the bars of which have been taken down; on the left a modern chimneypiece replaces the old one, and on the right is the staircase, in good condition. The trap-door has disappeared from under it, the cellar being abandoned as useless. On the first floor as on the second, where the partitions have been removed, there are still traces of them, with fragments of wall-paper. The very little daylight that filters through the windows justifies Mme. Moisson's exclamation, "It is a prison!" The platform, from which the view is very fine, has been renewed, like the staircase. But from top to bottom all corresponds with Moisson's description.

All that remained now was to find out how one could get into the cellar from outside. We had two excellent guides; our kind host, M. Constantin, and M. l'Abbé Drouin, the curé of Aubevoye, who knew all the local traditions. They mentioned the "Grotto of the Hermit!" O Ducray-Duminil!—Thou again!

The grotto is an old quarry in the side of the hill towards the Seine, below the tower and having no apparent communication with it, but so situated that an underground passage of a few yards would unite them. The grotto being now almost filled up, the entrance to this passage has disappeared. Looking at it, so innocent in appearance now under the brush and brambles, I seemed to see some Chouan by star-light, eye and ear alert, throw himself into it like a rabbit into its hole, and creep through to the tower, to sleep fully dressed on the pallet on the second floor. Evidently this tower, planned as were all Mme. de Combray's abodes, was one of the many refuges arranged by the Chouans from the coast of Normandy to Paris and known only to themselves.

But why was Mme. Moisson accommodated there without being taken into her hostess's confidence? If Mme. de Combray wished to avert suspicion by having two women and a child there, she might have told them so; and if she thought Mme. Moisson too excitable to hear such a confession, she should not have exposed her to nocturnal mysteries that could only tend to increase her excitement! When Phélippeaux was questioned, during the trial of Georges Cadoudal, about Moisson's father, who had disappeared, he replied that he lived in the street and island of Saint-Louis near the new bridge; that he was an engraver and manager of a button factory; that Mme. Moisson had a servant named R. Petit-Jean, married to a municipal guard. Was it through