What was the Chevalier de Frotté doing all this time? What steps was he taking towards the realization of what he had called so often the goal of his life, and towards the execution of the promises he had made with so much ardour and enthusiasm?

Transported with joy on hearing that the British Government at last contemplated listening to his projects and sending him to Normandy, Frotté, when leaving London, betook himself with four comrades-in-arms to Jersey—the great rendezvous at that time for the insurgents engaged in dangerous enterprises on the Continent, and seeking to find landing-places on the French coast.

It was the middle of winter—snow was falling heavily, and there were strong winds. Several weeks passed, during which the patience of our émigrés was severely taxed. Nothing was more difficult than to effect a landing in Normandy under such conditions. Apart from the difficulty of finding a vessel to make the crossing, it was necessary to choose some spot where they might succeed in escaping the vigilance of the troops stationed all along the cliffs, whose forts presented a formidable barrier. In short, Frotté and his friends found themselves confronted with serious obstacles.

On January 11, 1795, they were observed to leave Guernsey in a small sailing-vessel manned by English sailors, taking with them three émigrés who were to act as guides. What happened to them? No one knows exactly. Certain it is merely that the boat returned rudderless and disabled, with Frotté and his four companions. According to their own account, they took a wrong direction in the dark, and sailed along the coast in the midst of rocks. Their guides landed first, and disappeared from sight under a hail of bullets, and it was with great difficulty that they themselves had been able to get back to Guernsey.

At the beginning of February they made another effort, and succeeded in landing near Saint-Brieuc. Frotté at once made his way inland to join the insurgents, but ill fortune followed him. He had not been a fortnight in the country when he learned, to his surprise, that the Chouans under Cormatin had just concluded a truce to prepare the way for peace. His feelings may be imagined. To have waited so long for this! So much for his hopes and castles in the air! But there was no help for it. On February 17, 1795, the treaty of Tannaye was concluded, and a month later Frotté, who had kept moving about over La Vendée and Normandy unceasingly to survey the ground, established himself at Rennes, where he assisted at the conference of La Mabilais, which was to confirm the truce already agreed to.

If the turn taken by events had led him off temporarily in a different direction, his mind never abandoned the secret purpose which had brought him to France. Nevertheless, a change, at first imperceptible, but afterwards obvious enough, was coming over him.

The reader will not have forgotten the way in which a feeling of antagonism had grown up between Cormier and the Chevalier. The ill-will cherished by the latter for his quondam friend had not disappeared. On the contrary, the belief that Lady Atkyns was keeping him deliberately at arm’s length had intensified the jealousy. The result was inevitable. Chagrined at being thus left on one side, and at being supplanted, as he felt, in his fair lady’s affections, he soon began to devote himself entirely to his new rôle as a Chouan leader, and ceased to interest himself any longer in the drama of the Temple. In truth, he was not without pretexts for this semi-desertion of the cause.

On March 16, anxious to explain himself to Lady Atkyns, he writes to tell her just how he is feeling on the subject. He would have her realize that there is no longer any ground for hopes as to the Dauphin’s safety. When in touch with the representatives of the Convention who took part in the conference at La Mabilais, he had taken one of them aside, it seems, and questioned him frankly as to whether the Republican Government would consent to listen to any proposal regarding the young Prince, and whether he, Frotté, would be allowed to write to the Temple. The member of the Convention made reply, after taking a day to consider the matter and to consult his colleagues, that what Frotté suggested was out of the question.

These lines, reflecting the view then current among the official representatives of the Convention, stand out strikingly when we recall the situation at the Temple in this very month of March, 1795, and the absolute order given to Frotté not to allow the child to be seen. They tally at all points with what we know of the substitution that had been effected. To this substitution, indeed, Frotté himself proceeds to make an explicit allusion towards the end of the letter.

As for himself, he has made up his mind. He will make no further efforts for the deliverance of the Dauphin.

On April 25, 1795, the La Mabilais Treaty was signed, and Frotté, who refused to subscribe to it, went off again to Normandy, confident of seeing the struggle recommence, and impatient to set going a new insurrection. Had he received any reply from Lady Atkyns to his outspoken missive? Assuredly not. If she gave any credence to his statements at the time, they must soon have passed out of her memory, for, thanks to Cormier, June found her quite confident again of the success of their plans. Not knowing, therefore, what to say to her old admirer—Cormier having forbidden her to tell him the names of their agents—she determined to keep silent.

Shortly afterwards, on the day after June 8, the report of the Dauphin’s death reached Normandy. The proclamation of the Comte de Provence—for how many weeks must he not have been waiting impatiently for it to be made—as successor to the throne of France in his nephew’s place was read to the insurgents. Frotté, who for some time already had been responding to the advances made to him by the pretendant, now formally placed his sword at the service of the new King.

What would have prevented him from taking this step? Would a personal interview with Lady Atkyns have had this effect? Perhaps; but devoted now to his new mission, passing from fight to fight, Frotté was no longer his own master.

Nevertheless, at the end of 1795, some feeling of remorse, or else the desire to renew his old place in the goodwill of Lady Atkyns, who had twice asked him to write and tell her about himself, moved Frotté to take pen in hand once again. He had been engaged in fighting for several months, concerting surprises and ambuscades, always on the qui vive. He had twice narrowly escaped capture by the enemy. In spite of this he managed to keep up an interesting correspondence with his companions operating more to the south and to the west, in La Vendée and in Le Bocage, and with the chiefs of his party in London, who supplied the sinews of war, as well as with Louis XVIII. himself, in whose cause he had sworn to shed the last drop of his blood. There is no reason to be astonished at finding our “Général des Chouans” expressing himself thus, or at the changed attitude adopted by him, dictated by circumstances and the new situation in which he has now found himself. Here is how he seeks to disabuse Lady Atkyns of the hope to which she is still clinging:—

These lines but confirmed what Frotté had written in the preceding March, after his talk with the representative of the Convention. The news of the Dauphin’s death having been proclaimed shortly after that, there had been no longer any difficulty in persuading the Chevalier to take up arms in the service of the Comte de Provence. He discloses himself the change that has come over his sentiments.

And to enforce this advice, Frotté recalls to her the memory of the Queen, which should serve, he thinks, to remove all scruples.

Was this farewell, taken in so nonchalant a fashion, to denote a final sundering of two hearts united by so many memories in common? It would appear so. Lady Atkyns was so strong in her convictions that the only effect of such words would be to make her feel that all was over between her and the Chevalier. Later, when he made an effort to renew relations with her and asked her to return the letters he had written to her, she would seem to have refused point blank, from what she wrote to a confidant.

He must, however, have got hold of some portion of their correspondence, for on his return to his château of Couterne, this indefatigable penman, in the scant leisure left him by his military duties, filled several note-books with reminiscences and political reflections tending to justify his conduct. In one of these note-books, which have been carefully preserved, he transcribed fragments of his letters to his friend—fragments carefully selected in such a way as not to implicate him in the affair of the Temple, once the death of the Dauphin had been announced. Had he lived, he would doubtless have learned what had really happened, as set forth in the documents we have been studying; but his days were numbered.

His end is well known: how, having fallen into an ambush, he and six of his companions were shot by Napoleon’s orders, in despite of a safe-conduct with which he was furnished, on February 18, 1800, at Verneuil. If in the course of these five years he did learn the full truth about the Dauphin, he doubtless abstained from any reference to it out of regard for the King. He carried his private convictions in silence to the grave.

The news of his death was received with emotion in London. Peltier, who had had good opportunities for forming an opinion of him, gave out a cry of horror. “This act,” he wrote in his gazette, “covers Bonaparte for ever with shame and infamy.”

The small circle of Lady Atkyns’ London friends lost thus one of its members. Meanwhile, Lady Atkyns had been making the acquaintance of a French woman who had been living in England for some years, and whose feelings corresponded to a remarkable degree with her own. This lady had found a warm welcome at Richmond, near London, on her arrival as an émigré from France.

Pale, thin, anxious-looking, the victim of a sombre sorrow which almost disfigured her face, Louise de Chatillon, Princesse de Tarente, wife of the Duc de la Tremoïlle, had escaped death in a marvellous way. A follower of Marie-Antoinette, from whom she had been separated only by force, she had been arrested on the day after August 10 as having been the friend of the Princesse de Lamballe. Shut up in the sinister prison of l’Abbaye, she had felt that death was close at hand. From her dungeon she could see the men of September at their work and hear the cries of agony given forth by their victims. At last, after ten days of imprisonment, she was liberated, thanks to an unexpected intervention, and in the month of September, 1792, she succeeded in finding a ship to take her to England.

Hers was a strikingly original personality, and it is not without a feeling of surprise that one studies the portrait of her which accompanies the recent work, Souvenirs de la Princesse de Tarente. The drama in which she had taken part, and the bloody spectacle of which she had been a witness, seem to have left their mark on her countenance, with its aspect of embittered sadness. Her eyes give out a look of fierceness. Save for the thin hair partially covering her forehead, there is almost nothing feminine in her face. Seeing her for the first time, Lady Atkyns must have received an impression for which she was unprepared. They took to each other, however, very quickly, having a bond in common in their memories of the Queen. Both had come under the charm of Marie-Antoinette, their devotion to whom was ardent and sincere. The Queen was their one great topic of conversation. Few of their letters lack some allusion to her.

Knowledge of Lady Atkyns’ devotion to the Royal House of France, of the sacrifices she had made, was widespread in the world of English society, and the Princess, having heard of her, was anxious to meet the woman, who, more fortunate than herself, had been able to afford some balm to the sufferings, to prevent which she would so willingly have given her life. The Duke of Queensberry brought about a meeting between the two ladies. What passed between them on this occasion? What questions did they exchange in their eager anxiety to learn something new about the Queen? Doubtless the most eager inquiries came from the Princess, and bore upon the achievements of Lady Atkyns, her visit to the Conciergerie, her talks with the illustrious prisoner. For weeks afterwards there was an interchange of letters between the two, in which is clearly disclosed the state of affectionate anxiety of the Princess’s mind. They address each other already by their Christian names, Louise and Charlotte. Lady Atkyns shows Mme. de Tarente the few souvenirs of the Queen she still possessed, the last lines the Queen wrote to her. It is touching to note, in reading their correspondence, how every day is to them an anniversary of some event in the life of the Queen, full of sweet or anguishing memories.

For all the affection which surrounds her, Mme. de Tarente constantly bemoans her solitude.

In the summer of 1797 the Princess came to a momentous decision. The Emperor and Empress of Russia, whom she had known formerly at the French Court, having heard of her trials and of the not very enviable condition in which she was living, pressed her to come to Russia, where she would be cordially greeted. After long hesitation she decided to accept, but it was not without genuine heartburnings that she separated from her English friends, from her Charlotte most of all. She left London at the end of July, and arrived at St. Petersburg a fortnight later. Very soon afterwards she wrote Lady Atkyns an account of the journey and of her first impressions of her new surroundings.

The Emperor and Empress received her in their Peterhof palace with the utmost consideration. Appointed at once a lady-in-waiting on the Empress, she found herself in enjoyment of many privileges attached to this post. The house in which she was to live had been prepared for her specially by the Emperor’s command. Finally, she was decorated with the Order of St. Catherine, and the Empress on her fête day presented her with her portrait. Different indeed is her position from what it had been at Richmond.

But the very marked favour met with by the Princess could not but disquiet some of the courtiers at the Palace. Within a week of her arrival, one of the ladies in attendance upon the Empress, Mme. de Nelidoff, at the instigation of Prince Alexandre Kourakine, hastened to represent Mme. de Tarente’s conduct and the unusual honour that had been shown her under the most unfavourable light to her Majesty the Empress; and her jealousy thus aroused (so one of Mme. de Tarente’s friends tells the tale), she had no difficulty in settling matters with her husband, and when the Princess next entered the imperial presence, the Emperor neither spoke to her nor looked at her.

The snub was patent, but the Princess seems to have taken it nonchalantly enough. The friendly welcome accorded to her by St. Petersburg society, the kindness and affection she met with from the Golowine family, in whose house she soon installed herself, there to remain until her death, enabled her speedily to forget the intrigue of her enemies at the Court. The incident is barely alluded to in her letters to Lady Atkyns, which continue to be taken up chiefly with reminiscences of their beloved Queen.

Towards the end of 1798 the two friends are sundered by Lady Atkyns’ decision to return to France, impelled by the desire to be near those who had played so important a rôle in her life, and to meet again those friends who had co-operated in her work—perhaps also to meet and question those who might be in a position to enlighten her regarding the fate of the Dauphin. This decision she communicates to the Princess, who opposes it strongly, warning her against the imprudence she is about to commit. Lady Atkyns persists, and the Princess at last loses patience. “I have so often combated your mad idea,” she writes nobly, “that I don’t wish to say anything more on the subject.”

In the spring of 1814 the news came to St. Petersburg of the defeat of the armies of Napoleon and the accession of Louis XVIII. Immediately large numbers of exiles, who were but waiting for this, made haste back to France. Mme. de Tarente contemplated being of their number, but before she could even make arrangements for the journey, death came to her on January 22, 1814.

Hamburg, where our friends Mme. Cormier and the “little Baron” took refuge in 1795, was already a powerful city, rich by reason of its commerce, and its governing body, conscious of its strength, were not the less jealous of its independence. Its unique position, in the midst of the other German states, the neutrality to which it clung and which it was determined should be respected, sufficed to prevent it hitherto from looking askance at the ever-growing triumphs of the armies of the French Republic, and the Convention, too much taken up with its own frontiers, had done nothing to threaten the independence of the Hanseatic town.

This fact did not escape the émigrés, who were finding it more and more difficult to evade the rigorous look-out of the Revolutionary Government, and soon Hamburg was filled with nobles, ecclesiastics, Chouans, conspirators, Royalist agents, just as London had been some years earlier. Safe from surprises, and in constant communication with England, Germany, and Italy, this world of wanderers had discovered an ideal haven in which to hatch all their divers plots. Clubs were started by them, called after celebrated men. Rivarol was the centre of one set, noted for its intellectual stamp and its verve and wit. The publications also that saw the light in Hamburg enjoyed a wide liberty, and this it was that opened the eyes of the Republican Government to the state of things.

On September 28, 1795, there arrived at Hamburg, Citoyen Charles-Frédéric Reinhard, official representative of the Convention, formerly head of a department in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Paris. There could be no mistake about the nature of the instructions with which this personage was provided. If the condition of the commercial relations between the two states was the official pretext for his embassy, an investigation into the affairs of the émigrés was its real object. The Senate of the town were quick to realize this. However, Reinhard’s conciliatory bearing and his expressed dislike for the police duties imposed upon him by the Directoire prevented his mission from having too uncompromising an aspect. He could not shut his eyes, of course, to what was going on, and, in spite of his repugnance to such methods, he was forced to employ some of the tale-bearers and spies always numerous among the émigrés. In a short period a complete system of espionage was organized. It did not attain to the state of perfection secured by Bourienne later under the direction of Fouché, but its existence was enough to enhance the uneasiness of the Hamburg Senate. Their refusal to acquiesce in certain steps taken by the Directoire forced Reinhard to quit the town previously, in the month of February, and to take up his abode at Bremen, afterwards at Altona. This suburb of Hamburg, separated from it only by an arm of the river, was yet outside the limits of the little republic, and suited his purpose excellently as a place from which to conduct his observations. Everything that went on in Hamburg was known there within a few hours.

It was at this period that Reinhard received a visit from a somewhat sinister individual, named Colleville, who came to offer his services to the Directoire. He volunteered to keep Reinhard informed as to the doings of the émigrés, to whom he had easy access. On March 5, 1796, he turned up with a lengthy document containing a wealth of particulars regarding one of the principal agents of the princes—no other than our friend d’Auerweck, for the moment a long way from Hamburg, but soon expected back. “He is one of the best-informed men to be met anywhere,” Colleville reports. “He has travelled a great deal, and is au courant with the feeling of the various courts and ministers.”

It must be admitted that the spy was well informed as to the character and record of the “little Baron.” D’Auerweck would seem in intimate relations with a certain Pictet, “Windham’s man.” Through him he was in correspondence with Verona. He was known to be the “friend of the Baron de Wimpfen and of a M. de Saint-Croix, formerly Lieutenant-General in the Bayeux district. In his report upon d’Auerweck, Colleville had occasion inevitably to mention his friend Cormier. He stated, in fact, that at the moment d’Auerweck was located at Mme. Cormier’s house in Paris in the Rue Basse-du-Rempart.

Colleville could not have begun his work better. D’Auerweck was not unknown to Reinhard, who, five months before, in a letter to Delacroix, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, had mentioned the fact of his presence in London, “where he was in frequent touch with du Moustier and the former minister Montciel.”

By a curious coincidence, on the same day that Reinhard got his information, the Minister of Police in Paris, the Citoyen Cochon, had been made aware that a congress of émigrés was shortly to be held at Hamburg. The agent who sent him this announcement drew his attention at the same time to the presence at Hamburg of a person named Cormier.

Reference is made in the same communication to “the baron Varweck, a Hungarian, passing himself off as an American, living in Paris for the past five months.”

This was enough to arouse the attention of the Directoire. The persistence with which the two names reappeared proved that their efforts had not slackened. By force of what circumstances had they been drawn into the great intrigue against the Revolutionary Party? It is difficult to say. For some months past Cormier’s letters to Lady Atkyns had been gradually becoming fewer, at last to cease altogether. Having lost all hope in regard to the affair of the Temple, the ex-magistrate, placing trust in the general belief as to what had happened, came to the conclusion that it was vain to attempt to penetrate further into the mystery, and he decided to place his services at the disposal of the Princes.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs lost no time about sending instructions to Reinhard, charging him to keep a sharp watch on the meeting of the émigrés and to learn the outcome of their infamous manœuvres. He should get Colleville, moreover, to establish relations with Cormier, “that very adroit and clever individual.” In the course of a few days Reinhard felt in a position to pull the strings of his system of espionage.

Two very different parties were formed among the émigrés at Hamburg. That of the “Old Royalists,” or of the “ancien régime,” would hear of nothing but the restoration of the ancient monarchy; that of the “new régime” felt that it was necessary, in order to reinstate the monarchy, to make concessions to Republican ideas. Cormier would seem to have belonged to the former, of which he was the only enterprising member. His brother-in-law, Butler, kept on the move between Paris and Boulogne, and Calais and Dunkirk, with letters and supplies of money from England. D’Auerweck had left Paris now and was in England, eager to join Cormier at Hamburg, but prevented by illness.

Cormier was now in open correspondence with the King, to whom he had proposed the publication of a gazette in the Royalist interest. He was in frequent communication, too, with the Baron de Roll, the Marquis de Nesle, Rivarol, and the Abbé Louis, and all the “monarchical fanatics.” Despite his age, in short, he was becoming more active and enterprising than ever. Too clever not to perceive that he was being specially watched, he was not long in getting the spy into his own service by means of bribes, and making him collaborate in the hoodwinking of the Minister. The report that had got about concerning his actions, however, disquieted the Princes, and at the end of June Cormier is said to have received a letter from the Comte d’Artois forbidding him “to have anything more to say to his affairs,” and reproaching him in very sharp terms. At the same period, Butler, to whose ears the same report had found its way, wrote to rebuke him severely for his indiscretion, and broke off all communication with him. Meanwhile, he was in pecuniary difficulties, and borrowing money from any one who would lend, so altogether his position was becoming critical. Soon he would have to find a refuge elsewhere.

When, in the autumn, Baron d’Auerweck managed to get to Hamburg, he found his old friend in a state of great discouragement, and with but one idea in his head—that of getting back somehow to Paris and living the rest of his days there in obscurity.

The arrival of the “18th Brumaire” and the establishment of the Consulate facilitated, probably, the realization of this desire. There is no record of how he brought his sojourn at Hamburg to an end. D’Auerweck we find offering his services to Reinhard, who formed a high estimate of his talents. His offer, however, was not entertained. At this point the “little Baron” also disappears for a time from our sight.

It is about this period that Cormier and d’Auerweck fall definitively apart, never again to cross each other’s path.

Reassured by the calm that began to reign now in Paris, and by the fact that other émigrés who had returned to the capital were being left unmolested, Cormier made his way back furtively one day to the Rue Basse-du-Rempart, where the Citoyenne Butler still resided. The former president of the Massiac Club returned to his ancient haunts a broken-down old man. Like so many others, he found it difficult to recognize the Paris he now saw, transformed as it was, and turned inside out by the Revolution. Wherever he turned, his ears were met with the sound of one name—Bonaparte, the First Consul. What did it all matter to him? His return had but one object, that of re-establishing his health and letting his prolonged absence sink into oblivion. The continual travelling and his ups and downs in foreign countries had brought him new maladies in addition to his old enemy the gout. He had lost half his fortune, through the pillaging of his estates in San Domingo. Thus, such of his acquaintances as had known him in the old days, seeing him now on his return, sympathized with him in his misfortunes and infirmities.

He seemed warranted, therefore, in counting upon security in Paris. The one thing that threatened him was that unfortunate entry in the list of émigrés, in which his name figured with that of his son. In the hope of getting the names erased, he set out one day early in November, 1800, for the offices of the Prefecture of the Seine. There he took the oath of fidelity to the Constitution. It was a step towards getting the names definitely erased. His long stay in Hamburg was a serious obstacle in the way, but both he and his son looked forward confidently now to the success of their efforts.

Suddenly, on August 21, 1801, a number of police officials made their appearance at Cormier’s abode to arrest him by order of the Minister of Police. His first feeling was one of stupefaction. With what was he charged? Had they got wind of his doings in England? Had some indiscretion betrayed him? He recovered himself, however, and led his visitors into all the various apartments, they taking possession of all the papers discovered, and sealing up the glass door leading into Achille’s bedroom, he being absent at the time. This investigation over, Cormier and the officials proceeded to the Temple, and a few hours later he found himself imprisoned in the Tower.

What thoughts must have passed through his mind as he traversed successively those courts and alleys, and then mounted the steps of the narrow stairway leading to the upper storeys of the dungeon!

In the anguish of his position had he room in his mind for thoughts of those days in London when the name of the grim edifice was so often on his lips?

Three days passed before he could learn any clue as to the cause of his arrest. At last, on August 24, he was ordered to appear before a police magistrate to undergo his trial. An account of this trial, or interrogatoire, is in existence, and most curious it is to note the way in which it was conducted. The warrant for his arrest recorded that he was accused “of conspiracy, and of being in the pay of the foreigner.” These terms suggested that Cormier’s residence in England, or at least in Hamburg, was known to his accusers. Had not the Minister of Police in one of his portfolios a dossier of some importance, full of all kinds of particulars calculated to “do” for him? Strange to relate, there is to be found no allusion to this doubtful past of his in the examination.

After the usual inquiries as to name, age, and dwelling-place, the magistrate proceeds—

And that was all! Cormier’s replies, however, so innocent on the surface, seem to have evoked suspicion, for on August 30 (12 Fructidor) he was brought up again for a second examination.

Thus no effort was made in the second inquiry any more than in the first to search into his past. It should be mentioned that immediately on his return Cormier had made haste to destroy all documents that could compromise him in any way.

After a detention of three weeks he was set free, his age and infirmities doubtless having won him some sympathy. He and his son—for Achille had been arrested at the same time—were, however, not accorded complete liberty, being placed en surveillance, and obliged to live outside Paris. On September 20 they were provided with a passport taking them to Etampes, whence they were not to move away without permission from the police.

At this period Fouché had immense powers, and was organizing and regulating the enormous administrative machine which developed under his rule into the Ministry of Police. The prisons overflowed with men under arrest who had never appeared before the ordinary tribunal, “on account of the danger there was of their being acquitted in the absence of legal evidence against them.” He was reduced to keeping the rest under what was styled “une demi-surveillance.” His army of spies and secret agents enabled him to keep au courant with their every step.

The reports furnished as to Cormier’s behaviour seem to have satisfied the authorities, for at the end of a certain time he was enabled to return to Paris. Having learnt by experience how unsatisfactory it was to be continually at the mercy of informers, he now set himself energetically to trying to secure a regular and complete amnesty. His petition was addressed to the First Consul on June 18, 1803, and in it he described himself as “crippled with infirmities,” and it was covered with marginal notes strongly recommending him to the mercy of the chief of the state.

At last, on October 10, the Minister of Police acceded to his request, and Cormier received a certificate of amnesty, freeing him henceforth from all prosecution “on the score of emigration.” With what a sense of relief must not this document have been welcomed in the Rue Basse-du-Rempart! Bent under the weight of his sufferings, Cormier enjoyed the most devoted care at the hands of his family. His younger son, Patrice, had returned to Paris after an existence not less adventurous than his father’s. He had thrown himself into the insurrection in La Vendée, and for three years had served in the Royalist army of the Maine. Benefiting, like his father, by the general amnesty, he found his way back to the paternal roof in Paris, and went into business, so as to throw a veil over his past, until the day should come when he might appear in uniform again.

Achille, the elder, devoted himself entirely to his father, but the old man was not to enjoy much longer the peace he had at length secured for himself. The loss of almost all his income forced him, moreover, to quit his residence in the Rue Basse-du-Rempart, and to betake himself to a modest pension in the Faubourg Saint Antoine, in which he occupied a single room, in which he kept only a few items from the furniture of his old home—some rose-wood chairs, a writing-table, a desk with a marble top, a prie-dieu, and a small wooden desk, “dit à la Tronchin.” The rest of his furniture he sold. It was in this humble lodging that he died on April 16, 1805, aged sixty-five. Some months later Mme. Cormier died at the house in Rue Basse-du-Rempart.

It is strange to reflect that Lady Atkyns, in the course of her many visits to Paris, should not have ever sought to meet again her old friend. The Emperor’s rule was gaining in strength from day to day. Of those who had played notable parts in the Revolution, some, won over to the new Government, were doing their utmost to merit by their zeal the confidence reposed in them; the others, irreconcilable, but crushed by the remorseless watchfulness of a police force unparalleled in its powers, lived on forgotten, and afraid to take any step that might attract attention to them. This, perhaps, is the explanation of the silence of the various actors in the drama of the Temple, once the Empire had been established.