On the evening of 2 September 1793 - close to the village of Saint-Nicolas-de-Pierrepont - a woman saw a man emerge from a thicket and invited him into her home and lit a fire for him; Toulorge revealed himself to the woman who then revealed herself to be the Benedictine nun Sister Saint-Paul and Toulorge accepted her invitation to spend the night at the house. The nun - the next morning - led Toulorge out in disguise as a woman to the home of her friend Marotte Fosse thinking he would be much safer there. But workers along the path - seeing an unfamiliar woman - noticed his men's stockings and shoes and so followed the two to Marotte's door and went to inform the authorities. Toulorge rested in the attic of the home when three guards knocked on the door so hard the door itself shook: "Open in the name of the law!" Toulorge froze as a guard bought Fosse from work to open the door. The house was ransacked as the priest hid under bundles of flax and he managed to elude bayonets that stabbed the piles. The soldiers were about to leave muttering to themselves when one went back and noticed the priest coming out of his hiding place. Toulorge was arrested on the spot and all he had with him - such as his vestments - were seized.
