The Man who Killed the King

by Dennis Wheatley

  It was to La Force that most of the Queen’s ladies had been taken after her removal from the Feuillants, and a few days later, when she was deprived of the Princesse de Lamballe and the de Tourzels, they too had been confined there. The Princess’s father-in-law, the Duc de Penthièvre, had—at the suggestion of Gouverneur Morris, as Roger learned from him afterwards—paid Manuel 50,000 écus to save her and her companions. Manuel now did his utmost to honour his bond. He succeeded in saving Madame de Tourzel, her daughter, the Princesse de Tarente and the four other ladies, but his attempt to save Madame de Lamballe was foiled. Her brother-in-law, the unscrupulous Duc d’Orléans, had both a personal spite against her and wished to get her huge dowry back into the family coffers to restore his waning fortune; so had determined to make certain of her death. He caused a message to be got to her that her life depended on her remaining in her cell, and when Manuel came for her she refused to go with him.

  At eight o’clock in the morning, after a night spent listening to the dying screams of earlier victims, she was dragged before a tribunal of which the sadist, Hébert, had made himself President. They demanded that she should take the “oath of liberty, of equality, of hatred for the King, the Queen, and Royalty”.

  She replied, “I will willingly swear to the first two, but not the last; it is not in my heart.”

  A man near her whispered, “Swear; if you do not you are as good as dead.”

  Normally she was of such a nervous disposition that her fears over trifles were often commented on with kindly amusement by her friends; but now she heroically refused to swear. A door was thrown open and she was pushed out, to stumble over the bodies of the dead and dying.

  The band of assassins hired by d’Orléans to commit so many crimes during the Revolution were waiting for her there. Like demons they fell upon her. A mulatto got in the first blow. Their leader, the Italian Rotondo, grasped her bodice and tore it open, but her head fell forward and, for a moment, the cascade of her wonderful golden hair hid her breasts. Dragging her forward, they thrust their daggers into her sides, then stripped her naked. At the sight of her beautiful white body they became possessed with a fury of lust, satiated it upon her still warm corpse, then mutilated it most horribly and cut off its head.

  Throughout this terrible night and day Roger remained in the precincts of the Temple. He felt that this opportunity was certain to be seized upon to attack the prison of the Royal Family and murder its inmates; so both duty and inclination impelled him to a post where he might at least make an attempt to save the Dauphin.

  In the dawn Santerre arrived with an additional company of National Guards, and told him privately that now the Comité had the Sovereigns in its clutches it considered them more valuable as hostages than as corpses, so they were to be defended; but, having given an order that they were not to be allowed out in the garden for exercise that day, he quickly made himself scarce.

  Knowing, as Santerre obviously feared, that one of the mobs might get out of hand and beyond the control of the Comité, Roger stayed and dozed through the morning in one of the downstairs rooms of the old Palace. Then, at three o’clock in the afternoon, distant shouting announced the approach of a great crowd.

  Soon it came in sight, and its leaders proved to be the cannibals who had murdered the Princesse de Lamballe. They had taken her head to a barber, had the blood washed from the face and the hair dressed, curled and powdered. Now they had it stuck on the end of a long pole, and had brought it to show to her dearest friend, the Queen.

  After bobbing the head up and down in front of the windows of the tower, they demanded admittance to the prisoners. The Commissioners on duty refused and ordered them to retire, but they would not go. They began a raucous shouting, “Bring out Veto and his wife!” “We want the head of the Austrian!” and things began to look ugly.

  To make the prison more secure the Commune had given orders for a number of old houses near by to be pulled down and for an eighteen-feet high wall to be built right round the Temple. This work was still incomplete; so the mob were able to approach right up to the door of the tower, and now looked like forcing their way in. But a Commissioner named Daujon climbed up on a heap of rubble and called out to them, “The head of Antoinette does not belong to you. It is the property of all France and has been entrusted to Paris until national justice decides what is to be done with it.”

  Roger supported Daujon with his utmost vigour, and for nearly two hours they argued with the mob before the greater part of it got bored and melted away in search of easier game. But the ringleaders were men of d’Orléans’s gang and proved persistent in their murderous intent. About five o’clock some of them went off and, having raised another mob, returned with it an hour later.

  Many of the newcomers were drunk, and threatened to storm the tower unless the Sovereigns were given up to them. Again Daujon and Roger argued and pleaded, through what seemed a never-ending evening. They were far from confident that the National Guard would fire on the mob if ordered to do so, and knew that if the order was given and not obeyed the mob would then murder them for having given it.

  The crisis came soon after eight. The rabble tried to drag Roger and his companion away from the door; a hand-to-hand struggle ensued and the door was partially forced open. Fortunately no shot was fired, and several other Commissars, who had been lurking in the background, now plucked up the courage to come to their assistance. After rescuing Daujon and Roger they tied three of their tricolore sashes together across the entrance. Even d’Orléans’s cut-throats did not dare to risk the mob turning on them as a result of laying impious hands on the nation’s colours. For a while they remained there, cursing and sullen; then, at about nine o’clock, they at last withdrew.

  During that night, and the following two days and nights, the massacres continued. When the executioners tired, the Comité supplied them with wine to give them new strength. No longer caring who they killed or why, gangs of drink-maddened canaille broke into the prisons of the poor—the Tour Saint Bernard, where they killed seventy-five convicted criminals awaiting transfer to the galleys; Bicêtre, where they slit the throats of pickpocket street urchins scarcely in their teens; and the Salpetrière, the women’s prison, where they raped the inmates before disembowelling them.

  At last, on Thursday the 6th, the exhausted slayers were permitted by the Comité to relax. Four days and nights of ghastly carnage had had the desired result; Paris lay silent, stricken numb with terror; and few moderates would now risk death to attend the polls. To clinch matters, the Sections demanded that they should be allowed to manage the elections in their own way. Robespierre set an example in his own Section of des Piques, by abolishing the secret ballot and making each elector give his vote by word of mouth to a committee; the other Sections followed suit. In consequence all twenty-four deputies returned to the new Convention by the City of Paris were extremists. Among them were Danton, Marat, Collot d’Herbois, Billaud-Varennes, Camille Desmoulins and, not least infamous, Philippe, Due d’Orléans, who, by decree, was permitted to change his name to Philippe Égalité.

  While the elections were in progress Paris was given over to pillage. Between the 2nd and the 16th of September many hundreds of houses were broken into and many thousands of pounds’ worth of valuables stolen. But the depredations of the Municipality made those of the mobs, by comparison, only petty pilfering. The Commune asserted its right to the property of all the murdered prisoners, and arbitrarily confiscated, taxed and fined, when, where and how it would. Gold and jewels to the value of millions poured into the Hôtel de Ville, and every Commissar helped himself to a share of the loot. Roger, with a logical cynicism that de Talleyrand would have applauded, took the opportunity of financing himself in no half-hearted manner for his private war against the Revolution. In Dan’s care he lodged diamonds worth several thousand pounds, and took for immediate needs as much gold as he could conveniently carry after paying Danton 300 louis for the passports.

  How
ever, on the night of the 16th the Garde-Meuble was broken into and property estimated at 24,000,000 livres, including the Crown jewels, was stolen. At last the robber barons of the Commune were roused to the necessity of putting an end to private pillage, and on the 17th a number of decrees were passed for the suppression of further rioting and looting. In addition, strong measures were taken to remove the fédérés—who had now served the dreadful purpose for which they had been brought to Paris—out of the capital and to the front.

  On the 4th Verdun had fallen to the Prussians, and it was now apparent that the Duke of Brunswick had at last launched his long-delayed offensive against Paris. A fever of genuine patriotism seized on all classes. Danton’s formerly insincere oratory now lit a torch from the spirit of the people; they flung themselves heart and soul into preparations to resist the invader.

  Up to the end of the massacre Roger had remained with the dozen or so Commissars who had congregated at the Temple. Other attempts were made upon it, but none so serious as the one that had lasted for six hours on the first day. Then, when things quietened down a little, he had once more had to occupy himself with his many duties at his Section, and to show himself frequently at the sittings of the Commune. Now that order had been restored he again began to consider the possibility of rescuing the Royal prisoners.

  For such an attempt he believed that two entirely opposite sets of circumstances provided the best opportunities. Firstly, during the excitement and disorganisation brought about by a time of crisis; secondly, when the jailers had been lulled into a sense of false security by a reasonable period of uneventful routine. It was now over five weeks since the Royal Family had been lodged in the Temple; so it seemed to him that the time was approaching when the second set of circumstances might be fulfilled.

  Already some weeks had elapsed since the Commune had reduced to three the number of Commissioners responsible for the prisoners, and had instituted a regular procedure for them. They went on duty for twenty-four hours, took their meals on the ground floor of the little tower and, between them, kept the prisoners under constant surveillance. This duty was carried out by volunteers, and any Commissioner who wished could put his name down for it. At first there had been a great scramble for the chance to sit staring at the prisoners, but the curiosity of the most morbid having been satisfied, there was now less competition to spend twenty-four hours without sleep. For Roger, it offered the perfect opportunity for a preliminary investigation, during which he could assess the lie of the land at his leisure, but he had been content to bide his time. Now, he put his name down to go on duty at the Temple on the night of Friday the 21st of September.

  But it was not to be. While he was having dinner at the Cushion and Keys on the evening of the 18th a note was brought to him. It was written in a thin, neat, legal hand, and read:

  In the present emergency the Comité are much concerned as to the purity of the revolutionary sentiments and patriotism of the Army. All reactionary elements must be eradicated and any manifestation of treachery ruthlessly suppressed. You have been selected as Citoyen Représentant en mission to the army of General Dumouriez, with full powers of life and death. You will proceed to his headquarters with the least possible delay.

  It was signed Maximilien Robespierre, and from that order to leave Paris Roger knew there was no appeal.

  CHAPTER XIV

  CITOYEN REPRÉSENTANT EN MISSION

  The war which France had declared against Austria on the 20th of April, 1792, was destined to continue, apart from two brief intervals, for twenty-three years. All the great Powers of Europe and many smaller ones were to be involved. Most of them were to be vanquished—some more than once—and for a time forced to fight for their conquerors against their late allies. Armies, on a scale hitherto unknown, waged their campaigns in the mud of Flanders, the snows of Russia and the torrid heats of Spain. Naval blockades were maintained day in, day out, for years at a stretch, and naval actions fought in every sea from the Baltic to the Nile and from the Caribbean to Trafalgar. Millions of men were killed; the drain upon France’s manpower was so terrible that it crippled her for a hundred years and reduced the average height of her population by two inches. Sea power alone saved Britain and enabled her to persevere in her determination to destroy the aggressor, but sea power was not enough to overthrow the military might of the French Empire and liberate the enslaved peoples of Europe; so she too had to become a land power, and with dogged persistence through the long years sent army after army overseas, until at last final victory was achieved in 1815 on the field of Waterloo.

  But when Roger Brook rode out of Paris on the morning of the 20th of September, the names of Nelson, Wellington and Napoleon were known only to a few hundred people, and the dreadful slaughters of the future mercifully veiled. Moreover, although the war had been on for five months, active hostilities had only just begun.

  The Austrians and their Prussian allies had been slow to mobilise, as both were looking uneasily over their shoulders towards Poland. The first partition of that country had taken place in 1775 and it now looked as if there might soon be another; so the Germanic Powers were most loath to commit armies against France. In May, 1791, King Stanislaus had granted to his people a democratic Constitution—the first of its kind on the continent of Europe—and this had been viewed with grave disapproval by Poland’s autocratic neighbours. Catherine of Russia, ever greedy to extend her Empire, had put it to her fellow monarchs that the Poles were going the same way as the French and might soon prove a similar menace to the old order in other kingdoms, so their radical tendencies should be curbed in good time. It was clear that she contemplated marching in, and, if the unfortunate Poles were to be deprived of more territory, Austria and Prussia wanted to retain adequate forces in the north to ensure her not having it all her own way. Only so could they make certain of obtaining a share of the loot, and they were much more interested in adding to their own territories at the expense of Poland than in waging a profitless war to put Louis XVI back firmly on his throne.

  The French were even less ready to attack, as three years of revolutionary agitation had played havoc with the fine army built up by the old Monarchy. The mutinies of the Garde Française in Paris in ’89 had started the rot, and it had soon spread to many regiments in the provinces. Jacobin clubs had been formed among the troops, and these “Soldiers’ Councils” had put an end to the maintenance of discipline. Many of the most unpopular officers had been murdered, a still greater number had fled abroad, and as time went on most of the regiments had deteriorated to little better than an armed rabble entirely unfitted for active service, as at once became apparent on the first engagements of the war.

  In May, General Count Dillon, who was commanding in the north, had been surprised by the enemy near Lille. His army had fled after an exchange of only a few shots, and his troops, accusing him of treachery, had promptly liquidated him and his staff in a most barbarous manner. The Duc de Biron’s troops had also decamped at the first sight of the enemy at Mons, crying out that they were betrayed; and he had narrowly escaped a similar fate to that which had overtaken Dillon.

  The Austrians could then have marched to Paris almost unopposed, but they preferred to wait until their Prussian allies were also actively committed, and both still hoped that the French might yet be overawed by threats. King Frederick William had chosen the Duke of Brunswick as his field commander; by mid-July Brunswick had marched his army up to the French frontier, and on the 24th Prussia declared war on France. The declaration was followed by Brunswick’s manifesto. Actually the Duke had strongly disapproved of its contents, as he was a mild and elderly prince who ruled his own dominions in a most enlightened manner, and had openly shown his sympathy for the French reformers of ’89; but it expressed the views of his King and had to be issued as it stood. As Brunswick had foreseen, its only effect was to arouse the patriotism of the French nation and stiffen the morale of the better elements in the French army, for what little that migh
t be worth.

  In the meantime, three new Commanders—Rochambeau, Lafayette and the elderly General Luckner—had attempted to instil some sort of order into the armies of the north, centre and east; but the downfall of King Louis had been followed by a further weakening of their commands through most of the remaining trained officers going over to the Austrians. Lafayette had surrendered himself to them, and the three armies had been merged into two under Dumouriez and Kellermann.

  Dumouriez had been in the saddle hardly a week when at long last Brunswick opened his campaign in earnest. On the 19th of August he had crossed the French frontier and captured Longwy, and on the 3rd of September Verdun had fallen an easy prey to him owing to the cowardice of its garrison. He had then begun his march on Paris by a slow but methodical advance through the defiles of the Argonne; so it was hardly to be wondered at that Robespierre and his colleagues were intensely worried. Against the well-disciplined regular forces of Austria and Prussia they could oppose only untried Generals with ill-fed, poorly equipped and semi-mutinous troops. The enemy were only a little over eighty miles from Paris, so might be at its gates in a fortnight, and if the city fell that would be the end of the Revolution and of themselves.

  Roger naturally hoped that would prove the case, and that within a month he might see the gang of murderers who were terrorising France lined up and shot; but in the meantime he had an extremely difficult and unwelcome rôle to play. He was one of several Special Commissioners who had been hurriedly despatched to various parts of France, some to strengthen the resistance of the armies of the north and east, others to those opposing the Piedmontese—who had now joined the Allies and were invading the south of France—and others again to the larger centres of population where fresh levies were being raised. All were charged with weeding out the men with whom Roger was secretly in sympathy and having them shot, and he was most uncomfortably aware that unless he had a considerable number of people killed in the near future he would stand a very good chance of being executed as a reactionary himself.