out raids in the neighborhood, and the whole country was
in terror under their repeated incursions. There can be
no doubt that the robberies committed at la Sartini^re, at
Yonay, and at the chateau of Saint Seny were the work
of this band; their daring equalled their villany, and they
contrived to terrify their victims so effectually that no tales
were told, so that justice could obtain no evidence.
"While levying contributions on all who held possession
of the nationalized land, the brigands carefully reconnoitred
the woods of Le Chesnay, which they had chosen to be the
scene of their crime.
"Not far away is the village of Louvigny, where there
is an inn kept by the brothers Chaussard, formerly game-
keepers on the property of Troisville, and this was to be the
brigands' final rendezvous. The two brothers knew before-
hand the part they were to play; Courceuil and Boislaurier
had long before sounded them, and revived their hatred of
the government of our august Emperor; and had told them
that among the visitors who would drop in on them would
be some men of their acquaintance — the formidable Hiley
and the not less formidable Cibot,
"In fact, on the 6th the seven highwaymen, under the
leadership of Hiley, arrived at the brother Chaussards' inn
and spent two days there. On the 8th the chief led out his
men, saying they were going three leagues away, and he
desired the innkeepers to provide food, which was taken to
THE SEAMY SIDE OF HISTORY 375
a place where the roads met, a little way from the village.
Hiley came home alone at night.
"Two riders — who were probably the woman Bryond and
Rifoel, for it is said that she accompanied him in his expe-
ditions, on horseback, and dressed as a man — arrived that
evening and conversed with Hiley. On the following day
Hiley wrote to Leveille the notary, and one of the Chaus-
sard brothers carnied the letter and brought back the answer.
Two hours later Bryond and Bifoel came on horseback to
speak with Hiley.
"The upshot of all these interviews and coming and
going was that a hatchet was indispensable to break
open the cases. The notary went back with the woman
Bryond to Saint-Savin, where they sought in vain for a
hatchet.
"Thereupon he returned to the inn and met Hiley half-
way, to whom he was to explain that no hatchet was to be
found. Hiley made his way back and ordered supper at the
inn for ten persons; he then brought in the seven brigands
all armed. Hiley made them pile arms like soldiers. They
all sat down and supped in haste, Hiley ordering a quantity
of food to be packed for them to take away with them.
Then he led the elder Chaussard aside and asked him for
a hatchet. The innkeeper, much astonished, by his own ac-
count, refused to give him one. Courceuil and Boislaurier
presently came in, and the three men spent the whole
night pacing up and down the room and discussing their
plan. Courceuil, nicknamed the Confessor, the most cun-
ning of the baud, took possession of a hatchet, and at
about two in the morning they all went out by different
doors.
"Every minute was now precious; the execution of the
crime was fixed for that day. Hiley, Courceuil, and Bois-
laurier placed their men. Hiley, with Minard, Cabot, and
Bruce, formed an ambush to the right of the wood of Le
Chesnay. Boislaurier, Grenier, and Horeau occupied the
centre. Courceuil, Herbomez, and Lisieux stood by the
376 BALZAC'S WORKS
ravine under the fringe of the wood. All these positions
are indicated on the subjoined plan to scale, drawn by the
surveyor to the Government.
"The chaise, meanwhile, had started from Mortagne at
about one in the morning, driven by one Rousseau, who
was so far inculpated by circumstantial evidence as to make
it seem desirable to arrest him. The vehicle, driving slowly,
would reach the wood of Le Chesnay bjfc about three. It
was guarded by a single gendarme; the men were to break-
fast at Donnery. There were three travellers as it happened
besides the gendarme.
"The driver, who had been walking with them very
slowly, on reaching the bridge of Le Chesnay, whipped up
the horses to a speed and energy that the others remarked
upon, and turned into a crossroad known as the Senzey
road. The chaise was soon lost to sight; the way it had
gone was known to the gendarme and his companions only
by the sound of the horses' bells; the men had to run to
come up with it. Then they heard a shout: 'Stand, you
rascals!' — and four shots were fired.
"The gendarme, who was not hit, drew his sword and
ran on in the direction he supposed the driver to have
taken. He was stopped by four men, who all fired; his
eagerness saved him, for he rushed past to desire one of the
young travellers to run on and have the alarm bell tolled at
Le Chesnay, but two of the brigands took steady aim, ad-
vancing toward him; he was forced to draw back a few
steps; and just as he was about to turn the wood, he re-
ceived a ball in the left armpit, which broke his arm; he
fell, and found himself completely disabled.
"The shouting and shots had been heard at Donnery.
The officer in command at this station hurried up with one
of his gendarmes; a running fire led them away to the side
of the wood furthest from the scene of the robbery. The
single gendarme tried to intimidate the brigands by a hue
and cry, and to delude them into the belief that a force was
at hand.
THE SEAMY SIDE OF HISTORY 377
ti ( '
'Forward!' he cried, 'First platoon to the right! now
we have them! Second platoon to the left!'
'*The brigands on their side shouted: 'Draw! This way,
comrades! Send up the men as fast as you can!'
"The noise of firing hindered the officer from hearing
the cries of the wounded gendarme, and helping in the
manoeuvre by which the other was keeping the robbers in
check; but he could hear a clatter close at hand, arising
from splitting the cases open. He advanced toward that
side; four armed men took aim at him, and he called out,
'Surrender, villains!'
"They only replied, 'Stand, or you are a dead man I'
"He rushed forward; two muskets were fired, and he
was hit, one ball going through his left leg and into his
horses' flank. The brave man, bleeding profusely, was
forced to retire from the unequal struggle, shouting, but in
vain, 'Help — come on — the brigands are at Le Chesnay.'
"The robbers, left masters of the field by superiority of
numbers, pillaged the chaise which had been intentionally
driven into a ravine. They blindfolded the driver, but this
was only a feint. The chests were forced open, and bags of
money strewed the ground. The horses were unharnessed
and loaded with the coin. Three thousand francs' worth of
copper money was scornfully left behind; three hundred
thousand francs were carried off on four horses. They
made for the village of Menneville adjacent to the town
of Saint-Savin.
"The horde and their booty stopped at a solitary house
belonging to the Chaussard brothers, inhabited by their
uncle, one Bourgot, who had been in their confidence from
the first. This old man, helped by his wife, received the
brigands, warned them to be silent, unloaded the beasts,
and then fetched up some wine. The wife remained on
sentry by the chateau. The old man led the horses back
to the wood and returned them to the driver; then he re-
leased the two young men who had been gagged as well
as the accommodating driver. After refreshing themselves
378 BALZAC'S WORKS
in great haste, the brigands went on their way. Courceuil,
Hiley, and Boislaurier reviewed their party, and after be-
stowing on each a trifling recompense, sent off the men, each
in a different direction.
"On reaching a spot called le Champ-Landry, these
malefactors, obeying the prompting which so often leads
such wretches into blunders and miscalculations, threw
their muskets away into a field of standing corn. The fact
that all three did so at the same time is a crowning proof of
their collusion. Then, terrified by the boldness and success
of their crime, they separated.
"The robbery having been committed, with the addi-
tional features of violence and attempt to murder, the chain
of subsidiary events was already in preparation, and other
actors were implicated in receiving and disposing of the
stolen property. Rifoel, hidden in Paris, whence he pulled
all the wires of the plot, sent an order to Leveille to forward
to him immediately fifty thousand francs. Courceuil, apt
at the management of such felonies, had sent off Hiley to
inform Leveille of their success and of his arrival at Mor-
tagne, where the notary at once joined him.
"Vauthier, to whose fidelity they believed they might
trust, undertook to find the Chaussards' uncle; he went to
the house, but was told by the old man that he must apply
to the nephews, who had given over large sums to the
woman Bryond. However, he bid Vauthier wait for him
on the road, and he there gave him a bag containing twelve
hundred francs, which Vauthier took to the woman Le-
chantre for her daughter.
"By L^veill^'s advice Courceuil then went to Bourget,
who sent him direct to his nephews. The elder Chaussard
led Vauthier to the wood and showed him a tree beneath
which a bag of a thousand francs was found buried. In
short, Leveill^, Hiley, and Vauthier went to and fro several
times, and each time obtained a small sum, trifling in com-
parison with the whole amount stolen.
"These moneys were handed over to the woman Le
THE SEAMY SIDE OF HISTORY 379
chantre at Mortagne; and, in obedience to a letter from
her daughter, she carried them to Saint-Savin, whither the
said Bryond had returned.
"It is not immediately necessary to inquire whether this
woman Lechantre had any previous knowledge of the plot.
For the present it need only be noted that she had left Mor-
tagne to go to Saint-Savin the day before the crime was
committed, in order to fetch away her daughter; that the
two women met half-way, and returned to Mortagne; that,
on the following day, the notary, being informed of this by
Hiley, went from Alengon to Mortagne, and straight to
their house, where he persuaded them to transport the
money, obtained with so much difficulty from the Chaus-
sards and from Bourget, to a certain house in Alengon,
presently to be mentioned as belonging to one Pannier, a
merchant there. The woman Lechantre wrote to the man
in charge at Saint- Savin to come to Mortagne and escort
her and her daughter by crossroads to Alengon. The
money, amounting to twenty thousand francs in all, was
packed into a vehicle at night, the girl Godard helping to
dispose of it.
"The notary had planned the way they were to travel.
They reached an inn kept by one of their allies, a man
named Louis Chargegrain, in the hamlet of Littray. But
in spite of the notary's precautions — he riding ahead of the
chaise — some strangers were present and saw the portman-
teaus and bags taken out which contained the coin.
"But just as Courceuil and Hiley, disguised as women,
were consulting, in the market-place at Alen9on, with the
aforenamed Pannier — who since 1794 had been the rebels'
treasurer, and who was devoted to Rifoel — as to the best
means of transmitting the required sum to Rifoel, the terror
occasioned by the arrests and inquiries already made was so
great that the woman Lechantre, in her alarm, set off at
night from the inn where they were, and fled with her
daughter by country byways, leaving Leveille behind, and
took refuge in the hiding-places known to them in the
380 BALZAC'S WORKS
chateau of Saint-Savin, The same alarm came over the
other criminals. Courceuil, Boislaurier, and his relation
Dubut exchanged two thousand francs in silver for gold at
a dealer's, and fled across Brittany to England.
"On arriving at Saint-Savin, the mother and daughter
heard that Bourget was arrested with the driver and the
runaway conscripts.
"The magistrates, the police, and the authorities acted
with so much decision that it was deemed necessary to pro-
tect the woman Bryond from their investigations, for all
these felons were devotedly attached to her, and she had
won them all. So she was removed from Saint-Savin, and
hid at first at Alen9on, where her adherents held council
and succeeded in concealing her in Pannier's cellars.
"Hereupon fresh incidents occurred. After the arrest of
Bourget and his wife, the Chaussards refused to give up
any more money, saying they had been betrayed. This un-
expected defection fell out at the very moment when all the
conspirators were in the greatest need of supplies, if only as
a means of escape. Rifoel was thirsting for money. Hiley,
Cibot, and Leveille now began to doubt the honesty of the
two Chaussards. This led to a fresh complication which
seems to demand the intervention of the law.
"Two gendarmes, commissioned to discover the woman
Bryond, succeeded in getting into Pannier's house, where
they were present at a council held by the criminals; but
these men, false to the confidence placed in them, instead of
arresting Bryond, were enslaved by her charms. These
rascally soldiers — named Ratel and Mallet — showed the
woman every form of interest and devotion, and offered to
escort her to the Chaussards' inn and compel them to make
restitution. The woman went off on horseback, dressed as
a man, and accompanied by Ratel, Mallet, and the maid-
servant Godard. She set out at night, and on reaching the
inn she and one of the Chaussard brothers had a private but
animated interview. She had a pistol, and was resolved to
blow her accomplice's brains out in case of his refusal; in
THE SEAMY SIDE OF HISTORY 381
fact, he led her to the wood, and siie brought back a heavy
sack. In it she found copper coin and twelve-sou pieces to
the value of fifteen hundred francs.
"It was then suggested that as many of the conspirators
as could be got together should take the Chaussards by
surprise, seize them, and put them to torture. Pannier, on
hearing of this disappointment, flew into a rage and broke
out in threats; and though the woman Bryond threatened
him in return with Rifoel's vengeance, she was compelled
to fl3^ All these facts were confessed by Ratel.
"Mallet, touched by her position, offered the woman
Bryond a place of shelter; they all set off together and
spent the night in the wood of Troisville. Then Mallet
and Ratel, with Hiley and Cibot, went by night to the
Chaussards' inn, but they found that the brothers had left
the place, and that the remainder of the money had certainly
been removed. This was the last attempt on the part of the
conspirators to recover the stolen money.
"It is now important to define more accurately the part
played by each of the criminals implicated in this affair.
"Dubut, Boislaurier, Gentil, Herbomez, Courceuil, and
Hiley are all leaders, some in council, and some in action.
Boislaurier, Dubut, and Courceuil, all three contumacious
deserters, are habitual rebels, stirring up troubles, the im-
placable foes of Napoleon the Great, of his successes, his
dynasty, and his government, of our new code of laws and
of the Imperial constitution. Herbomez and Hiley, as their
right-hand men, boldly carried out what the three others
planned. The guilt <d the seven instruments of the crime is
beyond question — Cibot, Lisieux, Grenier, Bruce, Horeau,
Cabot and Minard. It is proved by the depositions of those
who are now in the hands of justice: Lisieux died during
the preliminary inquiry, and Bruce has evaded capture.
"The conduct of the chaise-driver Rousseau marks him
as an accomplice. The slow progress on the highroad, the
pace to which he flogged the horses on reaching the wood,
his persistent statement that his head was muffled, whereas.
382 BALZAO'S WORKS
by the evidence of the young fellow-travellers, the leader
of the brigands had the handkerchief removed and ordered
him to recognize the men — all contribute to afitord presump-
tive evidence of his collusion.
"As to the woman Bryond and L^veille the notary, their
complicity was constant and continuous from the first.
They supplied funds and means for the crime; they knew
of it and abetted it. Leveill^ was constantly travelling to
and fro. The woman Bryond invented plot upon plot; she
risked everything — even her life — to secure the money.
She lent her house, her carriage, and was concerned in
the plot from the beginning, nor did she attempt to per-
suade the chief leader to desist from it when she might
have exerted her evil influence to hinder it. She led the
maidservant Godard into its toils. Leveill^ was so entirely
mixed up in it that it was he who tried to procure the
hatchet needed by the robbers.
"The woman Bourget, Vauthier, the Chaussards, Pan-
nier, the woman Lechantre, Mallet, and Ratel were all in-
criminated in various degrees, as also the innkeepers Melin,
Binet, Laravini^re, and Chargegrain.
"Bourget died during the preliminary inquiry, after
making a confession which leaves no doubt as to the part
taken by Vauthier and the woman Bryond; and though he
tried to mitigate the charge against his wife and his nephews
the Chaussards, the reasons for his retience are self-evident.
"But the Chaussards certainly knew that they were sup-
plying provisions to highway robbers; they saw that the
men were armed and were informed^of all their scheme;
they allowed them to take the hatchet needed for breaking
open the chests, knowing the purpose for which it was
required. Finally, they received wittingly the money ob-
tained by the robbery, they hid it, and in fact made away
with the greater part of it.
"Pannier, formerly treasurer to the rebel party, con-
cealed the woman Bryond; he is one of the most dangerous
participators in the plot, of which he was informed from its
THE SEAMY SIDE OF HISTORY 883
origin. With regard to him we are in the dark as to some
circumstances as yet unknown, but of which justice will
take cognizance. He is Rifoel's immediate ally and in all
the secrets of the ante-revolutionary party in the West; he
greatly regretted the fact that Rifoel should have admitted
the women into the plot or have trusted them at all. He
forwarded money to Rifoel and received the stolen coin.
"As to the two gendarmes, Ratel and Mallet, their con-
duct deserves the utmost rigor of the law. They were
traitors to their duty. One of them, foreseeing his fate,
committed suicide after making some important revelations.
The other. Mallet, denied nothing, and his confession re-
moves all doubt.
"The woman Lechantre, in spite of her persistent de-
nials, was informed of everything. The hypocrisy of this
woman, who attempts to shelter her professed innocence
under the practice of assumed devotion, is known by her
antecedents to be prompt and intrepid in extremities. She
asserts that she w^s deceived by her daughter, and believed
that the money in question belonged to the man Bryond.
The trick is too transparent. If Bryond had had any money
he would not have fled from the neighborhood to avoid
witnessing his own ruin. Lechantre considered that there
was no harm in the robbery when it was approved of by her
ally Boislaurier. But how, then, does she account for
Eifoel's presence at Saint-Savin, her daughter's expeditions
and connection with the man, and the visit of the brigands
who were waited on by the woman Godard and Bryond ?
She says she sleeps heavily, and is in the habit of going
to bed at seven o'clock, and did not know what answer to
make when the examining judge observed that then she
must rise at daybreak, and could not have failed to discern
traces of the plot and of the presence of so many men, or to
be uneasy about her daughter's nocturnal expeditions. To
this she could only say that she was at her prayers.
"The woman is a model hypocrite. In fact, her absence
on the day when the crime was committed, the care she took
384 BALZAC'S WORKS
to remove her daughter to Mortagne, her journey with the
money, and her precipitate flight when everything was dis-
covered, the care with which she hid herself, and the cir-
cumstances of her arrest, all prove her complicity from an
early stage of the affair. Her conduct was not that of a
mother anxious to explain the danger to her daughter and
to save her from it, but that of a terrified accomplice; and
she. was an accessory, not out of foolish affection, but from
party spirit inspired by hatred, as is well known, for his
Imperial Majesty's government. Maternal weakness indeed
could not excuse her, and it must not be forgotten that con-
sent, long premeditated, is an evident sign of her complicity.
"Not the crime alone, but its moving spirits, are now
known. We see in it the monstrous combination of the de-
lirium of faction with a thirst for rapine; murder prompted
by party spirit, under which men take shelter, and justify
themselves for the most disgraceful excesses. The orders
of -the leaders gave the signal for the robbery of State
moneys to pay for subsequent violence; "base and ferocious
hirelings were found to do it for wretched pay, and fully
prepared to murder; while the agitators to rebellion, not
less guilty, helped in dividing and concealing the booty.
What society can allow such attempts to go unpunished ?
The law has no adequate punishment.
"The Bench of this Criminal and Special Court, then,
will be called upon to decide whether the aforenamed Her-
bomez, Hiley, Cibot, Grenier, Horeau, Cabot, Minard,
M^lin, Binet, Laravinidre, Eousseau, the woman Bryond,
Leveille, the woman Bourget, Yauthier, the elder Chaus-
sard, Pannier, the widow Lechantre, and Mallet — all here-
inbefore described and in presence of the Court, and the
aforenamed Boislaurier, Dubut, Courceuil, Bruce, Chaus-
sard the younger, Chargegrain, and the girl Godard, being
absent or having fled, are or are not guilty of the acts
described in this bill of indictment.
"Given in to the Court at Caen the 1st of December,
180— {/Signed) Baron Bourlac."
THE SEAMY SIDE OF HISTORY 385
This legal document, much shorter and more peremptory
than such bills of indictment are in these days, so full of
detail and so complete on every point, especially as to the
previous career of the accused, excited Godefroid to the
utmost. The bare, dry style of an official pen, setting forth,
in red ink as it were, the principal facts of the case, was
enough to set his imagination working. Concise, reserved
narrative is to some minds a problem in which they lose
themselves in exploring the mysterious depths.
In the dead of night, stimulated by the silence, by the
darkness, by the dreadful connection hinted at by Monsieur
Alain of this document with Madame de la Chanterie, Gode-
froid concentrated all his intelligence on the consideration
of this terrible affair.
The name of Lechantre was evidently the first name of
the la Chanterie family, whose aristocratic titular name had
of course been curtailed under the Republic and the Empire.
His fancy painted the scenery where the drama was
played out, and the figures of the accomplices rose before
him. Imagination showed him, not indeed "the aforenamed
Rifoel," but the Chevalier du Vissard, a youth resembling
Walter Scott's Fergus — in short, a French edition of the
Jacobite. He worked out a romance on the passion of a
young girl grossly betrayed by her husband's infamy — a
tragedy then very fashionable —and in love with a young
leader rebelling against the Emperor; rushing headlong,
like Diana Vernon, into the toils of a conspiracy, fired with
enthusiasm, and then, having started on the perilous descent,
unable to check her wild career. — Had she ended it on the
scaffold ?
A whole world seemed to rise before Godefroid. He was
wandering through the groves of Normandy; he could see
the Breton gentleman and Madame Bryond in the copse; he
dwelt in the old chateau of Saint-Savin; he pictured the
winning over of so many conspirators — the notary, the mer-
chant, and the bold Chouan leaders. He could understand
the almost unanimous adhesion of a district where the mem-
(Q)-Vol. 17
886 BALZAC'S WORKS
ory was still fresh of the famous Marche-^-Terre, of the
Comtes de Bauvan and de Lunguy, of the massacre at la
Yiveti^re, and of the death of the Marquis de Montauran,
of whose exploits he had heard from Madame de la Chanterie.
This vision, as it were, of men and things and places, was
but brief. As he realized the fact that this story was that
of the noble and pious old lady whose virtues affected him
to the point of a complete metamorphosis, Godefroid, with a
thrill of awe, took up the second document given to him by