Source note

MICHU, during the progress of and after the French Revolution he played a part directly contrary to his regular political affiliations. His lowly birth, his harsh appearance, and his marriage with the daughter of a Troyes tanner of advanced opinion, all helped to make his pronounced Republicanism seem in keeping, although beneath it he hid his Royalist faith and an active devotion to the Simeuses, the Hauteserres and the Cinq-Cygnes. Michu controlled the Gondreville estate between 1789 and 1804, after it was snatched from its rightful owners, and under the Terror he presided over the Jacobin club at Arcis. As a result of the assassination of the Duc d'Enghien March 21, 1804, he lost his position at Gondreville. Michu then lived not far from there, near Laurence de Cinq-Cygne, to whom he made known his secret conduct, and, as a result, became overseer of all the estate attached to the castle. Having publicly shown his opposition to Malin, he was thought guilty of being leader in a plot to kidnap the new Seigneur de Gondreville, and was consequently condemned to death, a sentence which was executed, despite his innocence, October, 1806. [The Gondreville Mystery.]