‘You are aware of events in Paris, Colonel?’
‘I am, but, of course, I do not know precisely of what I’m not aware. I take it, if the governor has convened a council, that there’s a great deal more than is to be had in Le Figaro – though that’s bad enough.’
‘Of course. But it is a council concerned with precaution, Colonel. For your information – not, I think, for your action.’
That would be for him to judge, thought Hervey; but he liked Bentinck – how could he not like one of that name? He would keep his counsel.
‘Is the prince in Brussels?’
‘No, Colonel, he has gone to Antwerp this morning early, but he returns tonight or tomorrow morning.’
He wondered what was the significance of Antwerp, but if Bentinck knew the answer he would likely as not feel unable to give it, and so he decided not to ask. Depending on what he heard this morning, he could always seek an audience first thing tomorrow.
Bentinck showed them into a large, mirrored state room where a dozen officials – half of them in uniform (including General Bylandt, and General Wauthier, commandant of the city) – were standing drinking coffee. A conference table was spread with newspapers and maps. A tallish, spare, intense-looking man of about sixty detached himself from the assembly and advanced on them proprietorially.
‘Colonel Hervey I may presume?’ Again, the English was flawless. ‘Van der Fosse.’
They both bowed.
‘It is very good of you to come – and at such notice.’
Hervey nodded. ‘At your service, Baron.’
‘You know Generals Bylandt and Wauthier, I believe?’
The two nodded, their smiles ready enough – if perhaps less easy than he’d seen before.
‘And General Aberson, of the Gendarmerie.’
Aberson and Hervey bowed formally, for they’d not met.
‘And Mynheer Kuyff, the chief of police in the city.’
They bowed in turn.
He was brought coffee, while Malet introduced himself to the staff officers and junior officials.
The half-hour passed quickly, not least because Mynheer Kuyff, whose English was as good as his excellent French, wished to know what Hervey made of the incident at Waterloo – was it well planned, well executed &c?
Six or seven others arrived, and then the man for whom they’d evidently been waiting – the secretary to the minister of justice in The Hague.
Baron van der Fosse called the meeting to the table, placing Hervey close on his right.
There was none whose hand he’d shaken or with whom he’d exchanged bows that answered to a name other than Dutch, or, he supposed, Flemish (supposing indeed that he knew the difference – or even that there was a difference). Did every French-speaking noble or official of the old Spanish Netherlands eschew public life? There again, if public life required Dutch, it would be hardly surprising. He wondered how he himself would fare this morning.
Baron van der Fosse allayed his concern. ‘Colonel Hervey, si vous voulez, nous pouvons conduire cette réunion en français.’
Hervey said he would be glad of it.
‘Alors …’
He began with a résumé of the events leading to the ‘violent convulsions’ which had so taken the authorities in Paris by surprise. The deteriorating relations between the king and his parlement had, he said, led to the signing, this last Sunday, of a number of ordinances suspending the liberty of the press – which, he added, had been of late months particularly insolent – and dissolving the chamber of deputies and instituting a number of measures that would materially reduce the representation of the people. ‘These measures,’ he added, ‘we are all familiar with from many years’ battle with the ancien régime.’
Heads nodded and there were evidently stern words of Dutch.
He continued, and in a tone of even greater distaste. ‘It seems the Bourse at once suspended all loans, and in consequence the owners shuttered their factories and threw out the workers unceremoniously – so that there was on the street a sudden disaffected army of sans-culottes. Some of the newspapers at once complied with the ordinance, ceasing publication altogether, I understand, but others would not, and on Monday the police seized all the newspapers at one of the presses, at which the crowd began jeering “À bas les Bourbons!”’
There was more muttering: whatever the aversion to sans-culottes, the Bourbons were no heroes to Dutch Protestants.
‘A journalist of Le National wrote the following day’ (he picked up a cutting from the papers before him): ‘“France falls back into revolution by the act of the government itself. The legal regime is now interrupted, that of force has begun. In the situation in which we are now placed obedience has ceased to be a duty. It is for France to judge how far its own resistance ought to extend.”’
There was consternation.
The baron continued. ‘This morning I received a copy of a despatch from the minister in Paris, who writes that later in the afternoon of Monday troops of the garrison and of the Garde Royale were posted with artillery outside the Tuileries, the Place Vendôme and Place de la Bastille, and patrols were ordered throughout the city to secure the gun shops, though no special measures were taken to protect either the arms depots or powder factories. But in the evening a prodigious violence erupted, and before the night was out there were more than twenty killed, and some soldiers.’
He put down the despatch and reminded his audience that Paris lay two hundred miles (‘trente myriamètres’) from Brussels, and that their information, even post haste, would always be two days behind events. ‘And therefore, gentlemen, I wish this council to convene each morning at the same time until the tumult in Paris has died down. I have sent to The Hague for instructions, but in the meantime we shall proceed with plans for the visit of the king.’
There was a murmur of surprise at this, and speculation on the outcome of the Paris tumult, and then Mynheer Kuyff spoke of the investigation of the Waterloo outrage, believing it not impossible that agents of the French were in some way connected, operating among the colliers of the Borinage, though the others received this with some scepticism. The secretary from The Hague, whose ministry of justice had the primary responsibility for assimilation of the southern provinces, said nothing throughout but made copious notes.
As the meeting adjourned, Hervey asked the baron what he wished him to do. ‘Only to be in attendance at these councils, Colonel, as the representative of His Britannic Majesty’s government.’
Hervey blinked. He had no such authority. He might not even have the competence, though he knew perfectly well that Castlereagh’s had been a signature to the Articles of London, by which the United Kingdom of the Netherlands had been created, and that as one of the ‘Great Powers’ Britain might be appealed to in the event of anything disturbing the settled peace of the Congress of Vienna. It was no good his saying that he’d no authority de jure when he was de facto the senior of His Majesty’s servants in Brussels (the nearest consul, indeed, was in Antwerp). His first course must be to communicate with Sir Charles Bagot, the ambassador at The Hague.
This he went straight to the barracks of the Garde Civile and did.
He then assembled the captains and regimental staff and explained the situation in Paris and the concerns of the authorities in Brussels. The regiment was, he said, to carry on in all respects as before, except that safeguarding of firearms was to be given special attention.
Quietly, afterwards, he told Malet and Mr Rennie that he wanted ball-cartridge ready for general issue, and that the picket was to have ten rounds each under lock and key in the guardhouse.
The council at the Place Royale next morning, Saturday, had graver news. Fighting in Paris had continued a second day, and the authorities had used cannon; but this time the ‘whiff of grapeshot’ that had made Bonaparte’s name, putting down the royalist counterrevolution, had had no effect. Indeed, many of the troops in the line battalions had deserted, said Baron van der Fosse. B
ut Mynheer Kuyff reported that his informers had detected no signs of increased disaffection in the city, or the province in general, and so with the encouragement of the military officers, the baron said he was not minded to take any additional measures. Bylandt alone said that he was considering doubling all sentries. And the meeting adjourned until the morrow.
By Sunday, however, the news was truly alarming. Paris, by all accounts, was in the hands of the révoltés, Baron van der Fosse told them – barricades throughout the city, and the king ‘cowering at Saint-Cloud’. The tricolore flew everywhere. ‘The Tuileries have been sacked,’ he said despairingly, as if final affirmation of the overthrow of all that stood for order. And then, shaking his head as though he could scarce believe what he read, ‘A man wearing a ball dress belonging to the duchesse de Berry, with feathers and flowers in his hair, was observed at a palace window crying: “Je reçois! Je reçois!”’
Hervey suppressed a smile, for besides the absurdity of the image he couldn’t fathom why the baron thought that any words of a man dressed in the duchesse de Berry’s ball dress could be in the slightest degree edifying, least of all that he was ‘at home’.
But the baron’s report was not over: ‘And, gentlemen, the Hôtel de Ville is in the hands of the mob.’
Hervey swallowed. The silence at the table was profound.
And then General Bylandt said quietly, ‘C’est fini.’
It was. Next day the king – and the dauphin, in whose favour Charles had tried to abdicate – renounced their rights to the throne and fled for England. But instead of Charles’s grandson, the duc de Bordeaux, taking the throne, the provisional government invited the duc d’Orléans – Louis Philippe – to rule as a constitutional monarch, ‘King of the French’, just as Fairbrother had foretold.
Word reached Brussels on the fourth. That evening the newspapers were full of speculation, if little fact, and for several days it seemed a matter of mere curiosity in the coffee shops. One king had been replaced by another – et alors? Except that, as Hervey pointed out to General Bylandt at the council still meeting daily, a Dutch ‘king’ had replaced the crowned head of England a century and a half before, and the last rising in support of the deposed line had been over fifty years later. Would the supporters of ‘Henri Cinque’ a dozen years from now, when the infant was come of age, try to reclaim the throne by force? But Bylandt countered that a good constitution would not be overthrown: ‘For why would anyone shed blood merely to replace one king with another? The world has been enlightened since the days of the Stuarts.’
Hervey acknowledged that the ancien régime – Bourbon or Stuart – was gone, ‘But with all due respect, I believe your king should be on his guard, or at least his ministers, for I understand that Polignac as well as Charles has had to flee. And all in so short a time – “three glorious days”, as the papers have it.’
But the good general said something about trusting to the innate wisdom of the Dutch, and the need to thwart the opponents of enlightenment in the southern provinces – the ‘Catholic party of reaction’ – and, in any case, he declared, the characteristic peace-ableness of the people of the south stood in contrast with the propensity to violence of the French. ‘The cockpit of Europe, Colonel, as well you know we are called, was the place of combat only of foreign fighting birds.’
It was true; but, suggested Hervey: ‘Caesar said the Belgae were the bravest of the three tribes of Gaul.’
Bylandt had read Caesar too. ‘And do you recall to what he ascribed that quality?’
Hervey did – and very perfectly, for in the classical remove at Shrewsbury his attention had been fixed firmly on the Legions. ‘Minimeque ad eos mercatores saepe commeant atque ea quae ad effeminandos animos …’
‘Exactly so, Colonel Hervey – “being furthest from the civilized parts, the merchants least frequently resorted to them, and the Belgae did not therefore import those things which tended to effeminate the soul”. Two thousand years of history has not been without its effect, however. Look about you now: the Belgae are a veritable nation of merchants!’
‘Did not Bonaparte say something of the same of England?’
Bylandt shook his head. ‘My dear Colonel, I believe I may assure you: today’s Belgae will not trouble King William as once they troubled Caesar.’
XX
A NIGHT AT THE OPERA
19 August 1830
As his carriage drew up at Princess Augusta’s villa, Hervey was still pondering on the letter from The Hague. It was dated 15 August, and acknowledged his report of 30 July, but without reference to the delay in replying, saying simply that the ambassador had no greater knowledge of the state of affairs in Paris than would he in Brussels, but that the Dutch government – in particular the minister of justice – had no declared concerns. ‘I spoke with Mynheer van Maanen this morning – the minister of justice at The Hague – and he is of the opinion that if there be any implication at all it will be to the benefit of the unified Kingdom, for the Catholic party in the southern provinces will be suspicious of the new King of the French, and will therefore tend to moderation. His Majesty intends proceeding to Brussels next week, in accordance with the plans laid some months ago.’
Sir Charles Bagot was a diplomat of wide experience, not long returned from St Petersburg. Hervey had met him in Canada, a dozen years before, when as minister plenipotentiary he had been sent to settle a number of vexations that remained in the wake of the War of 1812. Lady Mary Bagot, the Duke of Wellington’s niece, had accompanied him. Indeed, she had stood proxy for Lady Camilla Cavendish at the baptism of Georgiana. He had had no connection with them since, but the ‘sad circumstances’ of Canada (as his family were wont to call the death of Henrietta) must, he presumed, have made his name known to the ambassador, and he supposed therefore that the absence of any instruction to stand aloof from affairs in Brussels was an implicit expression of confidence. Fairbrother had cautioned him against such an assumption, on account of an affair he recalled in Jamaica, when the judgment in the high court had gone ill against the magistrates in Ocho Rios: ‘Delegata potestas non potest delegari’ – even if the ambassador were minded to delegate his powers, he had no authority in law to do so. But Hervey had countered that he did not seek powers, merely the freedom to act. If His Britannic Majesty’s government sent him and his regiment to Brussels to be their representative, he must surely have the authority to represent them in the way they would wish to be represented? The regiment was to form part of the Dutch king’s procession, as a gesture of enduring friendship; they would therefore be unable to escape the consequences of any violent demonstration, and must take due precautions. And the situation in Brussels (and indeed the surrounding country, according to the troop captains) was still, to his mind, uneasy – even if the mood of Baron van der Fosse’s daily councils had grown steadily more sanguine. Until that morning’s.
Hervey had called on the princess regularly in the past month. He felt it his duty to apprise her, as colonel-in-chief, of all that he knew for as long as she remained in the city and her guidon therefore – both figuratively and in fact – uncased. Besides, her company was both easy and stimulating: she received him with little formality and he could speak with her in German (enjoying, indeed, her occasional corrections), although as a rule she spoke in English.
This morning he was admitted as usual by her butler, an elderly and rather stiff old family servant, but a faithful one who had once worn the green of a Saxon jaeger before being discharged, wounded, after Jena – and so had escaped the awkward shift of Saxony’s allegiance to Bonaparte. Though Hervey was always able to extract a few words from him, he could never manage more than a look of resigned approval. However, Serjeant Acton reported that he was always most hospitably attended to in the servants’ hall, and that he thought Herr Amsel (he was always punctilious about honouring him with ‘Herr’) had once made an appreciative remark about the Duke of Wellington – though he couldn’t of course be sure. This morning,
as he showed him to the drawing room, Herr Amsel simply muttered ‘Frankreich,’ and shook his head.
Hervey bowed as he entered, and took his usual seat. ‘Amsel seems discomposed today, ma’am.’
‘He has been reading the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung – the only German newspaper that seems readily to be had in Brussels.’
‘Forgive me, ma’am: does that newspaper have pronounced opinions?’
‘The Bavarians, Colonel, owe much to the French – or rather, to Bonaparte.’
Hervey thought he understood, but trying to fathom the mind of ‘Alte Amsel’, who had evidently formed a strong distaste for the French – or, strictly, France – in the last twenty-four hours, was perhaps too ambitious. ‘I suppose if the events in Paris may have consequences here, they may elsewhere too – in Germany maybe. That is his reasoning?’
‘It is. And it is also mine.’
Pleased though he was to have solved the riddle, it seemed the princess was not minded to discuss it. ‘What is the news from London?’ she asked abruptly.
Hervey had no news. But while what happened in Paris might have echoes beyond the Rhine, the Channel was another matter. ‘I know of no ill effects, ma’am. Nor would I expect any.’
The princess shook her head. ‘I do not make myself clear. I refer to the elections of parliament.’
‘Of course—’
A footman appeared with coffee, which interrupted his thoughts for the moment. On the death of the King, parliament had been dissolved – on 24 July – and a new parliament summoned to meet on 14 September. The first contest at the polls had been held on 29 July, and the last was due on 1 September. Such reports as he had – by way of The Times, the London Gazette and letters from Wiltshire – were not auspicious.
He measured his words carefully. ‘I think that the duke may not be making the gains he supposed. The reports of unrest in the country districts, too, are troubling. As here, the harvest has been poor. Yet I would have imagined such disturbances to favour the duke’s cause rather than that of the radicals. I cannot believe he will be unseated. The country has too high a regard for him.’
Words of Command (Hervey 12) (Matthew Hervey) Page 31