"The younger of the two men had been for some time employed in collecting the scattered fragments of Chouannerie, and was holding them ready to act at an opportune moment.There came a terrible crisis in the Emperor's career when, shut up in the island of Lobau, he seemed about to give way under the combined and simultaneous attack of England and Austria.This was the moment for the Chouan uprising; but just as it was about to take place, the victory of Wagram rendered the conspiracy in the provinces powerless.
"This expectation of exciting civil war in Brittany, La Vendee, and part of Normandy, coincided in time with the final wreck of the baron's fortune; and this wreck, coming at this time, led him to undertake an expedition to capture funds of the government which he might apply to the liquidation of the claims upon his property.But his wife and friend refused to take part in applying to private interests the money taken by armed force from the Receiver's offices and the couriers and post-carriages of the government,--money taken, as they thought, justifiably by the rules of war to pay the regiments of 'refractories' and Chouans, and purchase the arms and ammunition with which to equip them.At last, after an angry discussion in which the young leader, supported by the wife, positively refused to hand over to the husband a portion of the large sum of money which the young leader had seized for the benefit of the royal armies from the treasury of the West, the baron suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, to avoid arrest for debt, having no means left by which to ward it off.Poor Madame de la Chanterie was wholly ignorant of these facts;but even they are nothing to the plot still hidden behind these preliminary facts.