There remained the fact that he had given her his word that he would protect the letter with his life from falling into the hands of her enemies. But Mr. Pitt was excellently disposed towards her and would certainly not allow the contents of her letter to be known to anyone who wished her harm. As an additional safeguard he could write to Mr. Pitt, relating the circumstances in which the letter had come into his possession, and requesting that the copy of it should be for his eye alone. The Prime Minister was too honourable a man not to appreciate the delicacy of the matter and strictly observe such a request.
Getting out of bed Roger took his travelling knife from his breeches pocket, lit the bedside candle with his tinder box, and, having heated the blade of the knife in the flame, began gently to prise up one of the heavy seals on the letter. After twenty minutes' cautious work he had raised three of the seals without breaking any of them, so was able to lift the flap of the envelope and draw out the twenty or more sheets covered with writing that it contained. One glance at the document was enough to show him that it was in code.
He was not at all surprised at that, and had half expected it, as he knew that the members of all royal families habitually conducted their private correspondence with one another in cipher. But such ciphers could be broken with comparative ease, and although the circumstances deprived him of learning the Queen's outlook he knew that it would not long prevent Mr. Pitt from doing so.
Returning the papers to their envelope, he put the whole in a deep pocket in the lining of his coat, then he proceeded to dress, and go downstairs to the coffee-room. There he ordered an extremely hearty breakfast, which he ate with scarcely a thought as to its constituents but considerable relish. Having done he informed the landlord that he would be requiring his room for at least one, and perhaps two, nights, after which he went out and, knowing that he would have difficulty in finding a hackney-coach in that unfashionable district, took the first omnibus he saw that was going in the direction of central Paris.
At the Pont Neuf he got out, walked across the point of the Isle de la Citi and on reaching the north bank of the Seine turned left along it, all the while keeping a sharp look-out to avoid any chance encounter with some acquaintance who might recognize him. Having passed under the southern facade of the Louvre he entered the gardens of the Palais des Tuileries. There, he picked eleven leaves and a single twig from a low branch of one of the plane trees and inserted them in an envelope he had brought for the purpose.
Continuing his walk he traversed the gardens, came out in the Rue St. Honore and turned west along it. He had not proceeded far when he encountered a mob of some thirty rough-looking men who formed a ragged little procession, moving in the opposite direction. A foxy-faced fellow somewhat better dressed than the others led the group, carrying a placard on which had been scrawled: "Help us to choke him with his fifteen sous. Down with the oppressors of the poor." Beside him a woman with matted black hair was beating a tattoo on a small drum, and several of their comrades were calling on the passers-by to join them.
Throughout most of the country the elections had now been completed but Paris was far behind and the contests were still being fought with considerable high feeling; so Roger assumed that the little band of roughs were on their way to a political meeting. Soon after passing them he went into a barber's shop and asked for Monsieur Aubert.
The proprietor came out of a back room and greeted Roger civilly as an old acquaintance; upon which he produced the envelope containing the eleven leaves and the single twig from his pocket and said:
"I pray you, Monsieur Aubert, to give this to you-know-who, when he comes in tomorrow morning."
The barber gave him an understanding smile, pocketed the envelope and bowed him out of the shop.
Having no desire to linger in a quarter where he might run into other people whom he knew, Roger hailed a passing hackney-coach, and told the driver to take him out to Passy, but to stop on the way at the first stationer's they passed.
At the stationer's he purchased some sheets of fine parchment, some tracing paper, and several quill pens, all of which had been sharpened to very fine points; then he continued on his way.
The coach took him along the north bank of the Seine and round its great bend to the south-west, where the narrow streets gave way to houses standing in their own gardens and then the open country. After proceeding some way through fields it entered the pleasant village of Passy, where Roger directed the coachman to a charming little house. Getting out he told the man that he might be there only a few minutes or for a couple of hours but in the latter case he would pay him well for waiting; then he walked up the neat garden path and pulled the bell.
The door was opened by a man-servant in dark livery, of whom Roger enquired if his master had yet returned from the country. To his great satisfaction the answer was in the affirmative and the owner of the house at home; so he gave his name to the servant, and was shown into a handsomely furnished parlour on the ground floor, that he had come to know well when he had been living in Paris two years earlier.
While he waited there for a few moments he congratulated himself on having run his old friend to earth. He had been bitterly disappointed at his failure to do so a fortnight before, owing to his belief that the man he had come to see could, if he would, give him a shrewder forecast of what was likely to happen when the States General met than anyone else in the whole of France. Had it not been for that he would never have come out to Passy today; but he had felt that he must make a final effort to secure this interview, even at the price of the news getting about that he was again a free man; as before leaving for Italy he had to make out a final report for Mr. Pitt.
The door opened to disclose a slim, youngish man of middle height, richly dressed in violet silk and leaning on a malacca cane. His face was thin and aristocratic, its haughty expression being redeemed by a dryly humorous mouth, lively blue eyes and a slightly retrouss6 nose. He had, until quite recently, been known as Monsieur l'Abbé de Pejrigord, he was now Bishop of Autun, and in time to come was to bear the titles of Due de Benevent, Prince de Talleyrand, Arch-Chancellor of Europe.
Roger's engaging smile lit up his bronzed face, as he bowed. "I trust that you have not forgotten me, Monseigneur L’Eveque?’
"Mon ami; how could I ever do that?" replied the Bishop with his accustomed charm. Then limping into the room he waved Roger to a chair, sat down himself, and added in his unusually deep and sonorous voice: "But tell me, where have you sprung from? Have you but just crossed from England, or have you been for some time in France?"
"I have only this morning been let out of the Bastille," lied Roger glibly.
"Ho! Ho!" exclaimed the prelate. "And in what way did you incur His Majesty's displeasure to the point of his affording you such unwelcome hospitality?"
" 'Twas that old affair of de Caylus. I thought the charges against me long-since withdrawn and the whole matter forgotten; but I proved mistaken. On going for a change of air to Fontainebleau I was recognized by some members of the Court and found myself clapped into prison."
"Were you there long?"
"Nay; though I experienced all the distress of mind occasioned by believing that I might be. Evidently it was felt that after such a lapse of time a single night's imprisonment would be sufficient to impress upon me how unpleasant a much longer stay would be should I err again. When I had breakfasted the Governor came to tell me that simultaneously with receiving the order for my incarceration he had had instructions to let me out in the morning."
"You were lucky to get off so lightly; and most ill-advised to return to France without first making certain that the order for your arrest had been cancelled. Monsieur de Crosne's people have a long memory for cases such as yours."
Roger made a wry grimace. "I did not find it in the least light to spend a night in a cell imagining that I was to be kept there, perhaps for years. And 'twas not the Lieutenant of Police sent me there. The people I saw at Fontainebleau, wit
h one exception, proved most sympathetic; so I would, I think, have escaped this extremely unpleasant experience had it not been for the malice of the Queen."
"Ah!" murmured de Perigord with a sudden frown. "So you fell foul of that interfering woman, eh?"
Roger was well aware of the strong animosity that his host, not altogether without cause, bore the Queen, and he had deliberately played upon it. Only three days before, too, he had had ample confirmation that the dislike was mutual from the Queen stigmatizing his friend as "that unworthy priest". With a cynical little smile he remarked:
"I well remember you telling me how Her Majesty intervened to prevent your receiving the Cardinal's Hat that His Holiness had promised you on the recommendation of King Gustavus of Sweden; but I had thought your animus against her might have softened somewhat since they have given you a Bishopric."
"Given!" echoed de Perigord, with a sneer. "Save the mark! And what a miserable Bishopric at that! I wot not if Their Majesties resented most having to appoint me to it or myself receiving such a mess of pottage. They did so only because my father when on his death-bed eighteen months ago made it a last request, so it was one which they could scarce refuse. As for myself, I am now thirty-four, and have had better claims than most to a mitre for these ten years past. On the King belatedly agreeing to my preferment he might at least have given me the Archbishopric of Bourges, which was vacant at the time. But no, he fobs me off with Autun, a see that brings me in only a beggarly twenty-two thousand livres a year."
At that moment the man-servant entered carrying a tray with a bottle in an ice-bucket and two tall glasses.
"You will join me in a glass of wine, will you not?" said the Bishop. "At this hour one's palate is still fresh enough to appreciate une tete de cuvee, and I believe you will find this quite passable."
It was in fact a Grand Montrachet of the year '72, and in its golden depths lay all the garnered sunshine of a long-past summer. Having sipped it, Roger thanked his host for the joy of sharing such a bottle. Then, when the servant had withdrawn, he reverted to their previous conversation by remarking with a smile:
" 'Tis indeed sad that Their Majesties' narrow-mindedness should have deprived Your Grace of enjoying the best of both worlds." It was as tactful a reference as could be made to the fact that de Perigord had only himself to blame for being passed over, since, even in this age of profligacy, his immoralities had scandalized all Paris, whereas the King and Queen were notoriously devout. But the Bishop took him seriously, and protested.
"Mon ami, to mix up one world with the other is to ignore reality. Like hundreds of other ordained priests—yes, and many of them high dignatories like myself—I was not consulted when put into the Church, and felt no calling whatever for it. Women, scripture tells us, were created for the joy of man, and to deny us our right to the enjoyment of them is, therefore, clearly against the will of God, let alone Nature. Since we are forbidden to marry we resort to other measures, and where is the harm in that? From time immemorial the Kings of France have known and condoned it. And I count it most unfair that the fact that I have been more fortunate than many in securing those enjoyments should be held against me.
"On the other hand, in my role of Agent General to the Clergy of the Province of Tours I was zealous in my duties and proved myself a capable administrator. So much so that when the subject of my nomination to a see came before the King I had the full support of the leading Churchmen in France, who made strong representations to His Majesty in my favour, and urged that my love affairs should be overlooked as no more than youthful peccadilloes."
"Am I to take it, then, that you have now become a model of rectitude?" Roger grinned.
De Perigord grinned back. "Far from it, I fear. And I have no more liking for playing the Churchman than I had of old. But you may have noticed the suit I am wearing. I found the violet robes of a Bishop most becoming to me, so as a graceful concession to the Church I had some lay garments made of the same colour."
"How did your flock take that?" asked Roger. "For I sought you out when I first arrived in Paris, some three weeks back, only to learn that you were absent on a visit to your see."
"Ah," sighed the Bishop. "That was a serious business, and I could afford to take no chances of giving offence by my preference for lay attire. Believe it or not, for a whole month I played the dignified Churchman. But unfortunately I was so out of practice that at one High Mass I forgot the ritual." He laughed, and went on: "I had never visited my see before, feeling that it was quite sufficient to send them from time to time a pastoral letter that positively stank of piety; and I pray God that I may never have to go there again. But this visit was essential, as I wished to get myself elected to represent the clergy of the diocese at the forthcoming meeting of the States General."
"From the news-sheets I gather that you succeeded, and I offer Your Grace my felicitations."
"A thousand thanks." De Perigord gracefully inclined his head. "The result, though, was a foregone conclusion. I gave the poor wretches of clergy dinners the like of which they had never seen, and flattered every woman of influence into the belief that I wanted to sleep with her. But once elected I cared not a fig for what any of them thought of me. In fact, so little did I care that, being near desperate to get back to the civilized air of Paris, I shook the dust of Autun off my feet and drove off in my coach at nine o'clock on the morning of Easter Sunday."
The conversation having got round to the States General, Roger had no intention of letting it wander away again, so he said:
"There have been so many postponements of the meeting of the States, that one begins to doubt if it will ever assemble."
"You need have no fear on that score," De P6rigord assured him quickly, "and the postponements were quite unavoidable. As an Englishman you can have little idea of what this meeting means to France, and the innumerable questions which have had to be decided before it could be brought about at all. Not only have the States not been convened for seven generations, but when last called together they were by no means representative of the nation; and in the present crisis to summon any assembly that was not would have been completely futile. In consequence nearly all ancient precedent was found to be worse than useless. It is in fact die first general election that France has ever had, so we had to work out the principles upon which it was to be held from the very beginning. I spent several months last year assisting Monsieur Necker to do so, and the problem positively bristled with difficulties."
"What is your opinion of Monsieur Necker ?" interjected Roger.
"He is an extremely capable financier but a most incapable statesman," replied de P6rigord succinctly. "No one short of a financial genius could have kept the Treasury solvent during these many months it has taken to arrange the elections; but in all other respects he is a mediocre man. His mind is not big enough to grasp the magnitude of the issues at stake, and his Liberal leanings are inspired by sentiment rather than any true understanding of the needs of the nation. A year ago I placed considerable hopes in him; but I have come to know him better since, and soon perceived that vanity governs nine-tenths of his actions. Were it not that when faced with a crisis he often takes the shrewd advice of his daughter I am convinced that long before this the public would have recognized him for what he is—a man of straw."
"By 'his daughter' I take it you refer to Madame de Stael?"
"Yes. He has but one; and I count her far his superior in intelligence. She is a brilliant woman and should have done better for herself than to marry the Swedish Minister here. 'Tis a thousand pities that matters between her and your Mr. Pitt came to naught."
"Mr. Pitt!" exclaimed Roger. "I had never thought of him as a marrying man."
"No doubt he has found himself too fully occupied in recent years to concern himself with matrimony. But when he paid his only visit to this country, in '83, I can assure you that the project of his espousing Madamoiselle Necker was broached, for he told me so himself. Monsieur Necke
r, although very rich, was no more than Sub-Controller of the Finances at the time, and an alliance with Lord Chatham's brilliant younger son would have been a strong card for his advancement; so both he and his wife were eager for the match. Mr. Pitt, too, was by no means disinclined to it. But I believe the young lady had other views, and it was on that account that matters got no further."
"You amaze me. But please continue with what you were telling me of Monsieur Necker's character. It seems from what you say that there is little likelihood of his being able to dominate the States General."
De Perigord shook his head. "Far from it. And his task will be rendered no more easy from the fact that both the King and the Queen distrust him. In that, for once, they are right. His popularity with the masses has gone to his head, and to retain the favour of the mob himself he is capable of advising them to commit any folly."
"Then unless the King makes a change of Ministers it looks as if the deputies will be given free rein. Which among them do you consider are likely to prove the leading spirits ?"
"It is impossible to say. 'Tis clear too that you do not yet appreciate the complete novelty of the situation. As I was remarking a while back, no election even remotely similar to this has ever been held in France before. Only the very poorest persons, who pay no taxes at all, have been excluded from the franchise, so the total number of voters is near six million. But they do not vote directly for the deputies who will represent them in the States. The electoral machinery is of an incredible complexity, and final agreement on it was reached only after months of bitter wrangling. Many cities stood out for making their own arrangements and the system in some provinces differs from that in others. But, in the main, groups of people, varying widely in numbers, vote for somebody to represent them in a local assembly, and it is these assemblies which in turn elect the deputies.
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