At her trial she had displayed no trace of fear, remorse or hysterical self-glorification; serene, dignified and completely mistress of her emotions, she had calmly admitted to killing Marat, and gone on in unruffled tones to state why she had done so. After deep thought she had formed the conviction that the Revolution had brought the most hideous ills on her country, and that those who had encouraged its worse excesses were criminals deserving of death. She indignantly repudiated the suggestion that any other person had instigated her act, and claimed that she had long been resolved upon it as the only means by which she could help to restore sane, responsible government to France. On being asked if she thought she had killed all the Marats, she had sorrowfully replied “No”; but it transpired that she had at first thought of killing Robespierre, and only later decided on Marat as the more evil of the two. Clearly she would have killed both, and doubtless a number of their associates as well, had she had the power to do so; and she was going to her death with the hope that her example would be followed by others with the same convictions as her Self.
After she had been condemned, she wrote letters to her father and friends full of grace of mind and lofty sentiments, describing what she had done and asking forgiveness only for any trouble that her act might bring upon them. Next day, calm and smiling to the end, she was taken to the guillotine; and so powerful had been the effect of the purity of her motives on the mob that, despite all the efforts of the terrorists to blacken those motives, hundreds of people acclaimed her as a heroine while on the way to the scaffold.
Her deed, and the attitude of the people towards her as she was taken to her death, gave Roger food for deep thought, and he came to the conclusion that, as a weapon against a minority that sought to force its will upon a nation, assassination was fully justified. The pity of it was that in all France there did not appear to be even one other person with the singleness of purpose, clear vision, and high courage to ignore the man-made law, and face death in a bid to save countless thousands of human beings from the suffering they had brought upon themselves by their own muddled thinking, weakness and folly.
During the next few days Roger was a constant prey to anxiety about Amanda. Dan had had the message passed to her; so they could only hope that she would act on it. But time had to be allowed for Manuel to arrange matters, and there was always the awful possibility that before Michonis could have her transferred to the Hôtel Dieu her name might be put on the list for an early trial.
As there was nothing more that Roger could do for the moment to aid her, he endeavoured to occupy his mind by collecting all the information he could for another despatch to Mr. Pitt. His wide acquaintance among members of the Convention, the Commune, the Jacobins and the Cordeliers stood him in good stead. They spoke freely to him of their fears, and through these sources it soon became clear that the extremists were faced with a much more desperate situation than most people in Paris were aware of, or than he himself had supposed.
The best troops of the Revolutionary army were locked up in Mayence, which was being besieged by the King of Prussia, and in Valenciennes, which was being besieged by the Austrians and English. The whole of Brittàny, Maine and Normandy had gone over to the Federalists, and General Wimpffen was advancing on Paris from the latter province; the Piedmontese were thrusting into south-eastern France and the Spaniards were at the gates of Roussillon. English fleets were blockading the Channel and Mediterranean, and it was feared that at any moment they might land an army in the west to support the Vendéens. On the day that Charlotte Corday had been guillotined, the reactionaries of Lyons had executed Chalier and Picard, the two leaders of the extremists there; and the city was in open rebellion. Grenoble and the upper valley of the Rhône were in the hands of the Federalists. In both Marseilles and Bordeaux armies had been mobilised and were marching on the capital. In short, apart from isolated areas, the Convention’s writ ran only in Paris and northern France; and the latter might soon be overrun by the invading armies of the Allies.
Knowing that they had their backs to the wall, the extremists were making the most desperate efforts to counter the many dangers that threatened to overwhelm them. Special Commissioners were being sent north, south, east and west to rally the “patriots”. Not only, as in the past, were deputies and members of the Commune being despatched, but also scores of Jacobins who had no official position. All were being given the status of Citizen Representatives en mission, with instructions to stamp out reaction at any cost. Terror was to be spread from end to end of the country, and wherever opposition to the will of the Comité was encountered, townships were to be handed over to pillaging by the mobs.
On the 19th of July Roger learned to his immense relief that Amanda had been transferred to the Hôtel Dieu; and Manuel gave him the name of one Doctor Despard, who ran a private asylum upon the heights of Clichy, to which she could be moved in the course of the next few days. The Doctor was well known at the public madhouse, and was making a nice thing out of occasionally lending himself to such transactions as that upon which they were engaged. For 5,000 francs he would see his friends in the Hôtel Dieu and have Amanda handed over to his care; so Roger sent Dan off to make arrangements with the Doctor, while he set about preparing for Amanda’s reception when she was freed.
To have her at the Cushion and Keys was out of the question, and he was very loath to bring his friends the Blanchards into possible danger by hiding an escaped prisoner at La Belle Étoile. In fact, as she would be liable to re-arrest if recognised, he felt that it would be a considerable risk to find her even temporary accommodation anywhere in central Paris; so his thoughts had already turned to Talleyrand’s house at Passy. Athénaïs was not due to arrive for another two and a half weeks, and long before that he expected to have Amanda safely back in England; so that evening he rode out to the sleepy suburb.
On his arrival he found to his satisfaction that nothing was changed. Antoine Velot welcomed him in, said how grateful he was for the money which had enabled him and his wife to carry on without selling any of their master’s things, and expressed himself ready to help in any way. Roger told him that he wished to hide an English lady there for a few nights, until arrangements could be made to get her safely to the coast; but so accustomed had he become to pursuing all his ends with the greatest possible secrecy that, instinctively, he refrained from disclosing the fact that the lady was his wife. Instead, he gave her the name of Godfrey, which she had borne before her marriage, when telling the old butler that Dan would bring her out to Passy in two, or it might be three, days’ time. Antoine assured him that everything possible would be done to make her comfortable; then, on his master’s behalf, he offered his visitor wine. Roger accepted, but when a cobweb-festooned bottle had been decanted, he insisted on the white-haired retainer sharing it with him while they talked of the terrible times in which they were living.
It was on the evening of the 22nd that Amanda was removed from Doctor Despard’s home by Dan, and taken to Passy under the name of Madame Godfrey. Intentionally, Roger was not there to welcome her. Now that his harrowing anxiety about her was at an end a reaction of feeling had set in. For over a year he had been walking a tight-rope with the knowledge that any day some unforeseen incident might pitch him from it into the abyss. He had, by skill and good fortune, managed Amanda’s rescue without compromising himself. Had he not known about Manuel’s past transactions he might, in order to free her, have had to risk both his unrivalled position for supplying Mr. Pitt with accurate information and his life. Amanda had, in fact, come very near to giving his rope just the sort of jerk that would have overbalanced him, and might easily have pitched him head first on to the plank of the guillotine. Even as it was, the bribes he had had to pay out to Manuel and Despard in order to free her had cost him the nominal amount of £1,400 in English money—the bulk of what he had been able to make as a Revolutionary since the previous September; and all because the foolish, romantic-minded girl had got the fantastic idea into h
er head that she and some old woman could rescue Marie Antoinette from the most jealously guarded prison in Europe. He felt entitled to be angry, and intended to have a first-class row with her. But he decided that, after what she must have been through, he ought in decency to allow her a good night’s sleep in security and comfort first; so it was not until the morning of the 23rd that he went out to see her.
He found her up, dressed, and looking little the worse for her harrowing experience. At the sight of him her face lit up, but its expression swiftly changed to amazement when he did not rush forward and kiss her. Instead, having said that he was pleased to see her in such good health, he told her he had always known that her mind was not a very practical one but that, all the same, he had not supposed her to be an outright fool, let alone a dangerous one who, for a whimsy, would place both her own life and his in jeopardy.
Apparently quite astonished at the attack, she protested that she might have risked her own life, but certainly not his.
“For what,” he asked, “do you suppose Mr. Pitt pays me to live in France, if not to keep myself informed of what goes on here? You believed me to be in Paris. Had I been I should have learnt within a few hours of the peril in which your absurd antics had landed you. Do you suggest that I should have looked calmly on while you were guillotined?”
“Oh no, m’dear.” She waved a hand in airy protest. “I knew that the second you heard of my plight you would come to my rescue. It was mainly that which emboldened me to play the part I did, and kept me cheerful while in prison.”
He almost choked with rage. “You—you actually mean to tell me that you went into this crazy plot relying on me, should it fail, to pull you out?”
“Why, yes! Since you must pose as one of these horrible Commissars to earn a living, and thus have acquired the power to decree life or death for anyone in Paris, it would have been stupid of me not to have counted on you as a sheet anchor did things go awry.”
“Strap me!” he exclaimed, and sitting down began to mop his face.
“Of course,” she went on in rather a hurt tone, “I realised that you might be a little annoyed at being diverted from your work; but I had no reason to suppose that, in an emergency, you would grudge me this slight service.”
“Diverted from my work! Slight service! God in Heaven, Madame! Let me tell you the facts. Neither I nor any other Revolutionary official, apart from the members of the Committee of Public Safety, has the power to order a prisoner’s release without trial. To get you out of prison has cost us in bribes well over a thousand pounds.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, Roger, I am sorry! I had no idea.”
“And that,” he stormed on, “although representing nearly a year’s earnings of mine here, could have been but a bagatelle compared with what it might have cost in other ways. For thirteen months I have submitted to much physical discomfort and a degree of mental agony that few people are called on to bear, in order to create an unassailable position for myself in which I can render valuable services to our country. Then, without warning, you prance upon my stage, and confront me with a fait accompli which calls for the risking of all that I have been through so much to attain. Still worse, this irresponsible caprice of yours might easily have placed Dan and myself with you on the death list. Such utter lack of comprehension of realities as you have shown leads me to wonder if the Hôtel Dieu would not have proved a suitable permanent residence for you.”
Amanda drew herself up to her full, considerable height. “Lud, sir! I see no occasion why you should forget your manners.”
“Manners be damned!” he cried. “We are talking of life and death. Do you not think I run risk enough of losing my head without your coming here and causing me to become suspect?”
“I gather that, in spite of all the excitement you display, I have not done so?”
“No; yet had you deliberately planned to bring me into danger, you could hardly have devised a trap better calculated to induce me to stick my head into a noose.”
“Roger, you are unfair! I knew that I was taking a certain risk myself, but I had no intention of involving you in my undertaking. It was for that reason I made no attempt to seek you out when I arrived in Paris. It lay only in the back of my mind that, should I prove unfortunate, you would be sure to learn of it and come to my rescue. Honestly I had no idea that it would need more than a stroke of the pen from anyone in your position to have me out of prison. Had I had the least suspicion that it would cost so much, and possibly bring calamity upon you, I would have endeavoured to send a message out to Dan, asking you to refrain from further efforts on my behalf.”
“What! And remained there until they took you to the guillotine?”
“Nay. Had you not got me out, I am confident that the friends with whom I have been working would have done so.”
He gave a short sarcastic laugh. “Really, Amanda! Your simplicity has to be witnessed to be believed. To find the money for the bribes was but a small part of the business. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of these blackguards will take cash in return for empty promises. It was knowing who to trust that counted. How can you possibly suppose that these amateur adventurers with whom you are mixed up would have known how to handle such a matter successfully?”
“You do not know my friends, and your scorn of them is quite unjustified.”
“Indeed! How else can one regard two women who come to Revolutionary Paris as though it were Cloud Cuckoo Land, and this precious Baron who proposes to introduce a whole company of loyal National Guards into the Temple at one time, as if that were as simple as producing the Devil out of a trap-door in a pantomime? The utter fantasy of such a proposal shows that none of you can have the faintest idea what you are about.”
“In that you are entirely wrong; and I much resent your contemptuous reference to women. It is Lady Atkyns who has inspired us all, and at least we can claim that to date we have done far better than yourself.”
Roger gaped at her for a second, then he shrugged. “I meant no rudeness, only to infer that by nature women excel in qualities very different from men, and that this is clearly a man’s affair. But inform me, pray, in what way you consider you have succeeded where I have failed?”
“After making two unsuccessful attempts to rescue the Royal Family last summer, you abandoned the project altogether; at least, so you told me when I saw you in November. You said that, having been inside the Temple, you decided that they were too closely guarded for there to be any hope at all of getting them out, and that it would not even be possible to devise a means of regular communication with them. This nut that the great professional considered too hard for him we amateurs have all but cracked. My own capture was a misfortune, but I was only one string of a bow that has many. At least half a dozen inmates of the Temple are in our pay. Several of your fellow Commissioners are working with us. General Jarjayes and Lady Atkyns have both visited the Queen, and the Baron de Batz has actually once already introduced a whole company of loyal National Guards into the precincts of the prison. That my friends could have rescued me and will soon succeed in rescuing the Queen I have not the slightest doubt.”
“Amanda! Are you really serious in this?”
“I am indeed, m’dear.” Amanda’s partly-opened lips widened into a smile. “But I think you in no suitable state of mind to discuss such matters with me at present. You had best leave me now in order to give your choler time to cool. Come back this evening to sup with me, and I will prove to you that women can do as well as men in these dangerous affairs.”
Twelve hours later Roger found himself in bed with his wife, and committed in a new attempt to rescue Marie Antoinette.
CHAPTER XX
THE OATH
When Roger rode out to Passy that evening he had not had the least intention of making love to Amanda or embroiling himself in Lady Atkyns’ attempts to rescue the Queen; but in the first matter circumstances proved too much for him, and in the second he, for once, allowed himself to be cajoled
into an undertaking against his better judgment.
Few men of that day felt any qualms of conscience about exchanging their wife’s bed for that of a mistress, then exchanging back again; and had Roger rejoined Amanda in the familiar surroundings of their home at Richmond he would have taken their reunion as a matter of course. But the reawakening of his old tempestuous passion for Athénaïs, and their blissful three weeks together, was too fresh in his mind for him to contemplate an immediate volte-face with equanimity. His feeling for her was very much deeper than anything that could have arisen out of a casual love affair; so he realised that he had been mentally as well as physically unfaithful to Amanda, and while in that state felt that there would be something rather shameful about taking advantage of her love for him.
In consequence, he had, that morning, intended to give Amanda a good wigging for running herself into such danger, then soften his strictures by confessing how desperately anxious he had been about her while she was in prison, but add that he was making arrangements for Dan to take her back to England in a few days’ time, and that, greatly as he regretted it, most urgent work would prevent his seeing her again before she left. This programme had been completely upset by Amanda’s staggering assertion about her friends’ activities in the Temple, and her offer to prove how far he had been left behind in his own highly specialised business.
That she was inclined to be hopelessly vague about some matters and to make the most sweeping assertions about others he knew well enough; but he also knew that she would never tell him a string of deliberate lies. Not only curiosity prompted him to hear what she had to say—it was his clear duty to learn every possible detail from her; and as she had refused to give any further information then, he had felt compelled to accept her suggestion that he should return to sup with her.
The Man who Killed the King Page 40