As a lead, Roger told his old story of having been educated in England by his stepmother, and Maret at once began to talk about his recent stay in London. He was convinced that England could be kept out of the war if only their mutual friend Dumouriez could be deterred from reaping a cheap triumph by the invasion of Holland, and since his return he had done his utmost to impress upon the Ministry the necessity for restraining the General. Apparently he had got on so well with Mr. Pitt that the Prime Minister had suggested he should ask his Government to replace the obnoxious Chauvelin by himself, and that possibility was at present under consideration.
To work for peace being one of Roger’s instructions, he went to considerable pains to encourage Maret in his ideas by giving him what passed as the views of a French journalist who had mixed with all classes in England. He spoke of the colourful orations of Charles James Fox in praise of the French Revolution, and said, as he knew to be the fact, that they were simply the outcome of political venom, and must not be regarded as having any serious weight of opinion behind them which might hamper Britain if she once engaged in a war with France; then he went on to speak of the immense wealth, solidarity and determination of the English in comparison with any Continental people, which made them such formidable antagonists once they had made up their mind to fight.
Maret was much impressed; and they parted on the best of terms, having agreed to keep in touch with each other.
On the 26th of December the King was again brought before the Convention. This time Roger was able to be present, and he happened to pass through the ante-chamber of the great hall as the King and his counsel were walking up and down there waiting to be summoned. One of them, in speaking, addressed the King as “Sire”. A scruffy little deputy named Treilhard was standing near by, and shouted angrily:
“What makes you so bold as to use a term here that has been forbidden by the Convention?”
Old Malesherbes turned and withered him with the reply, “Contempt for you and contempt for life!”
Afterwards, to Roger, that swift exchange seemed to have typified the whole of the proceedings. The King’s counsel showed a splendid fearlessness and spoke with irresistible logic, but the great majority of the deputies entirely ignored their arguments and the fact that they were supposed to be trying a human being for his life. Their mean minds were concerned only with humiliating the simple-hearted man who had had the misfortune to be born heir to all the trappings of supreme power.
When his counsel had concluded, the King spoke very briefly, merely giving his personal testimony to the truth of all they had said. Only one thing seemed to distress him, and that greatly—the accusation that he had been responsible for the shedding of the blood of his people. Roger had never before felt any sympathy for Louis XVI, but, as he sat a silent spectator in the tribune reserved for the Municipality of Paris, his ire rose at the monstrous iniustice of the charge.
The King was not allowed to hear the debate that followed, and immediately after his removal pandemonium broke loose. One deputy demanded that his defence should be ignored and that he should be sentenced there and then; another, Lanjuinais, a Breton deputy, courageously invoked Article One of the Constitution as incontestable proof that the Convention had no legal right to try the King at all. Shouts and curses rent the air; the mob in the galleries yelled and hissed. Several of the deputies began to exchange blows, and at one time over sixty of them were engaged in a scrimmage on the floor.
At length order was partially restored, and on the motion of Couthon, Robespierre’s lame, embittered shadow, the Convention rendered the trial a farce by ruling that the arguments of the King’s counsel should be given no consideration.
For days on end the acrimonious arguments continued with unabated fury. The Mountain was much the smallest party in the House, but it had the backing of the sans-culottes; its violence and the manner in which its deputies showed themselves prepared to ride roughshod over every law to gain their ends began to terrify the Girondins. They were the men who had brought their King and country to this sorry pass, and, too late, they saw that by allowing the Monarch to be brought to trial they had fallen into Robespierre’s trap. They dared not defend the King openly, yet realised that if he were condemned they themselves might soon become victims of the illegal methods that were being used to secure a verdict against him. In a weak attempt to save him, yet evade the odium of appearing in the guise of Royalists, they advocated referring the whole question to the nation; but they were overruled.
On the 6th of January Dumouriez appeared in Paris, to protest about many grave difficulties with which he was now meeting. The fédérés had been mobilised under the old conception that war was not waged seriously during the worst months of the winter, and had signed on with a proviso that from the 1st of December they could go home if they wished until the end of January; the measure had in a few weeks reduced his army to half its former size. At the War Office, Pache, an incompetent nominee of Robespierre, had succeeded the competent Girondin Servan. Pache added to his incompetence a personal hate for the General, and was deliberately reducing his army to a state of helplessness by denying him all but a trickle of supplies. The Belgian cities had welcomed the troops of Republican France with open arms, but had soon become disillusioned about the invaders; wherever Dumouriez’s men went they looted and raped, and commandeered every form of property to make good the breakdown of their own commissariat. Then the decree of the 15th of December, by which Belgium was ordered to accept all the new French institutions, had driven the Belgians into open revolt; and Dumouriez was now only able to hold down his conquests by a reign of terror, which Danton himself as Citizen Representative en mission had left Paris to institute.
On Dumouriez’s arrival, his old colleagues of the Girondin Ministry urged him to use his great influence as the victor of Jemappes in an effort to save the King. He agreed; but once more the majority of the liberals continued blind to the future they were preparing for themselves, and supported the Mountain when a cry was raised that the General meant to threaten the chosen representatives of the People, and that to allow him to intervene in the debate might prove to be the thin end of the wedge to a military dictatorship. So, in spite of repeated endeavours to address the House, Dumouriez was refused a hearing.
At length, on the 14th of January, the Convention decided that three questions should be put to the vote: (1) Is Louis guilty? (2) If guilty, what should be his punishment? (3) Should your decision be ratified by an appeal to the People?
Again desperate efforts were made by the more clear-sighted to have the last question taken first; but Barère, an extraordinarily astute politician and persuasive talker, although a deputy of the Plain, sensing that the Mountain would triumph in the end, decided to curry favour with it, and played into its hands by arguing his associates into voting that the question of guilt should be given priority.
Voting began the following day and was carried out under the grossest intimidation. The men of the Plain, who formed the vast majority, were, almost without exception, opposed to the King’s condemnation; but they were harassed, bewildered, leaderless, and utterly incapable of standing up to Marat, Robespierre, Couthon, St. Just and a dozen others who declared that anyone maintaining the King’s innocence was a traitor, and deserved to die with him. All Paris was in an uproar, with mobs parading the streets and threatening another massacre like that of September if the King was declared innocent. As the deputies entered the hall, sans-culottes waved daggers and pikes before their faces, yelling that unless they voted for death they should themselves die; and within the hall itself the canaille in the galleries screamed further threats at them as each rose, trembling, to his feet to give his vote.
A final mockery of justice was resorted to by each deputy being required, contrary to the law, to declare the King “guilty” or “not guilty” en bloc of all the thirty-four charges which had been brought against him. Some of the lesser ones were items such as having continued to pay his
old bodyguard after their dismissal, of which he was certainly guilty; in consequence not a single deputy could, or did, declare him innocent. Then, under the menace of the mob, the appeal to the People was quashed by 424 votes to 284.
On the evening of the 16th the brave Lanjuinais rose, before the final voting began, to demand reassurance that in accordance with the penal code a majority of two-thirds should be necessary to carry the death penalty. Howls of execration greeted this plea that the King should at least receive the same justice as that meted out to the meanest criminals; and Danton, just returned from Belgium, used his brutal bellow to secure a decision that a majority of a single vote should suffice.
The voting on the supreme question occupied thirty-seven consecutive hours. It took place amidst scenes of unparalleled disorder and disgusting licence. The extremists had filled a private gallery with their women friends, many of whom were the new poules de luxe of the Revolution. Wearing the immodest garments made fashionable by “liberty” and decked out in jewels looted by the men who kept them, these women behaved as if they were at a cabaret—drinking champagne, eating ices, sucking oranges and throwing the half-consumed fruit at the deputies who voted only for imprisonment. Innumerable fights took place in the body of the hall, and uproar constantly interrupted the proceedings. With magnificent courage the Spanish Ambassador fought his way in and endeavoured to appeal to those better instincts that had made the French a great nation; but he was thrown out. Manuel, who had attempted to save the Princesse de Lamballe, now tried to save the King by making off with some of the slips on the President’s desk on which votes for death were recorded; he was caught, savagely manhandled, and escaped death himself only by swearing that he had taken the slips in mistake for some other papers.
The culminating moment of these frightful two nights and a day was reached when Philippe Égalité, ci-devant Duc d’Orléans, was called on to record his vote. Through unscrupulous use of his millions to hoard grain, pay agitators and supply free liquor to the mobs, he had done more than any other single individual to bring about the Revolution; yet many people still believed that he had been more misguided than wicked, and that the worst crimes connected with his name had been committed by his associates without his knowledge. Now was the moment when his true character was to be revealed. Pale as a ghost, with every eye in the vast, dimly-lit hall upon him, he mounted the tribune and said clearly, “I vote for death.”
A terrible hush fell on the assembly. Men rose slowly from their seats; women recoiled with nausea. Even to the regicides who had already cast their votes for the extreme penalty, and the sans-culottes of the galleries, it seemed too horrible that a man should voluntarily aid the sending of his own cousin to the scaffold. A low murmur ran round the hall. A voice cried, “Oh, the monster!” Then suddenly a great wave of booing surged over Egalité’s bent head.
As though to stress more fully the ghastliness of his crime, when all was done it transpired that Louis of France was condemned to death by a clear majority of that one vote only.
Among the minority were a number who had also voted for death, but demanded a debate on the postponement of the sentence, and it was agreed that this should take place next day; so when Roger left the chamber in the cold light of dawn, amongst a crowd of exhausted deputies and spectators, there still remained a hope that the King’s life might be spared. But Roger was in no position to attend that final debate, as a most unexpected turn in his affairs had carried him post-haste out of Paris.
CHAPTER XVI
MADAME LA GUILLOTINE
During the latter part of December and early January Roger had had several meetings with Maret and, also, with Dumouriez, since the latter’s return to Paris. Before midday on the 19th of January, after only a few hours’ sleep, he was woken with an urgent summons to come at once to the Foreign Office. There he found them both closeted with the Foreign Minister, Lebrun; all three were intensely worried, and the garrulous little General explained the reason for their anxiety.
“My army is falling to pieces,” he declared angrily, “and it’s now all I can do to hold down Belgium. Two months ago I wouldn’t have given a damn for the English; but if they come in now it will prove our ruin. Now that the vote has gone against the King he may be dead within the week. If he is executed that may prove the last straw with the Monarchies. England, Holland and Spain may all declare against us; but England is the key to the situation. You speak English and were educated among those stiff-necked islanders, so must understand them; moreover you have a far better grasp of international affairs than most men of your standing in the Republic. We want you to leave for London immediately, and do your utmost to prevent the war spreading.”
Roger suppressed a gasp of amazement and dismay; to be sent as a diplomatic representative of revolutionary France to his own country was the very last thing he had ever expected or desired. Scores of people in London knew him as the son of a British Admiral and he would have to pose there as a Frenchman; it needed only one person to greet him as an old friend in front of some other member of the French Embassy and his return to France to continue the valuable work he was doing would be rendered impossible. Yet this was clearly a great emergency. Peace or war apparently hung upon it; and, above all things, his master desired that peace should be maintained. For that, he must risk everything. After a second, he said:
“Of course I will go if you wish me to, Citizen General; but if Capet should be sent to the scaffold, what can you enable me to offer the English that may serve to counter the intense feeling his execution is certain to arouse among them?”
It was Maret who replied. “That is our great difficulty; the Citizen Minister, the Citizen General and I all feel that every possible concession must be made. We are agreed that as the price of peace we should renounce the Scheldt and, if need be, withdraw our troops from Belgium.”
“Then I think you have little to worry about,” said Roger in some surprise; “such a gesture should certainly satisfy them.”
“Ah!” cut in Lebrun, “but the trouble is that as yet I have no power to make it. All my colleagues are so occupied with the trial that I cannot get them to spare me even a moment, and without the consent of the Council no such proposals can be put forward. I am even far from certain that they will agree with my ideas, as several of them have no conception of the gravity of our situation. They might even insist on our issuing a wanton challenge to England, should they feel that she has given us grounds for provocation. Such grounds would be given did England presume to threaten us in the matter of Louis’s life or death, as the Council consider that entirely a question for the French people. Should he be executed, tempers in London will run high, and the object of your mission will be to pacify them as far as possible by a promise of conciliation.”
“How can I, if I have nothing to offer?” asked Roger.
“Our idea is that your arrival on the scene, as an earnest that we intend to open fresh negotiations, may gain us a little time. I have decided to recall Citizen Chauvelin and replace him by Citizen Maret, who has already succeeded in making a favourable impression on Mr. Pitt; but it would be futile for Maret to leave until we have won the Council round to consenting to these concessions. You can tell the English that we mean to remove Chauvelin because he has proved so obnoxious to them, and that we now hope to send proposals to them very shortly. You can also calm their fears regarding the decrees of November 19th and December 15th, to which they have taken such strong exception. Tell them that those decrees were intended to apply only to territories adjacent to France in which a majority of the population invited us to intervene, not as a promise that we would give armed support to any group of malcontents who wish to set themselves up in the place of an established government.”
“Tell them too,” added Dumouriez, “that should Maret’s negotiations proceed favourably, I will come to London myself later and discuss the possibility of a general peace.”
Maret looked grave and raised his eyebrow
s. “Dare we contemplate that? Do you realise that it would mean those forty thousand desperate ruffians of yours returning to our cities?”
The General shrugged. “I consider that a lesser danger than allowing them to be cut to pieces as an army and seeing France invaded. Believe me, we should still be striking a good bargain did we give up Mayence, Nice and Savoy as well as Belgium, if by so doing we could secure a lasting peace. No one can accuse me of being a defeatist, but no General can wage even a defensive campaign without some reliable troops; and looting the fleshpots of Belgium has turned all mine into a drunken, dissolute, mutinous mob.”
“Then Maret’s fears are all the better founded,” remarked Lebrun glumly. “Better to rely on a renewal of patriotic fervour to hold back the invader again, than have peace at the risk of the Revolution perishing in a reign of anarchy. That would cost us our own necks. ’Tis clear that we must do everything possible to prevent any addition to our present enemies, whilst keeping the war going; and the best service you can render the nation, Citizen General, is to shoot a few hundred of your ruffians, then march the rest as far away as their legs will carry them.”
An hour later Roger was on his way to England. It was bitterly cold and in the January frosts the neglected roads were more than ever appalling; but he travelled with all the speed that fear and the ingenuity of man could provide. When from the muddled Councils of the Revolution a clear order did emanate, it was now executed with ruthless swiftness; Roger carried in his pocket a warrant of arrest for anyone who failed to expedite his passage to the utmost of their ability. Four hussars acted as his outriders, and he had only to show his order to make the lazy, and normally arrogant, Municipals of little townships run to do his bidding. His horses were changed every few miles with amazing celerity, and he reached Calais the following afternoon. There, he did not wait for the packet, but ordered out a naval sloop to carry him across the Channel. The wind was contrary and the sea running high; so, being an indifferent sailor, he was horribly sick, and the delayed crossing caused him to miss the morning coach out of Dover; but he hired a post-chaise and reached London on the evening of the 21st.
The Man who Killed the King Page 30