The Man who Killed the King

by Dennis Wheatley

  On the following day Chaumette, Daujon, the painter David, and others had held another obscene Tribunal at the Temple. This time the little Capet had been confronted in turn with his sister and his aunt, neither of whom he had seen for three months; both had been compelled to listen to these shameful accusations, and, although both denied them with horror, he had stuck firmly to what he had said. Still worse, he had taken the part of the Commissars against them and, when questioned on other matters, had disclosed all he knew of the prisoners’ secret dealings with Turgy, Toulan and Michonis.

  Daujon said frankly that he had found these scenes, and particularly the questioning of the young Madame Royale on such a subject, degrading to a degree, and would not have believed them possible had he not witnessed them with his own eyes; but when questioned by Roger he insisted that little Capet had been neither browbeaten nor drunk. He had sat in an armchair cheerfully swinging his legs and appeared to have all his wits about him, as he had several times intervened to contradict his sister.

  It seemed quite probable that Simon had put these ideas into the child’s head, and he had spouted them out simply from the habit he had formed of saying anything he thought would please or amuse his brutish tutor. Yet it was only three months since he had been removed from his mother, towards whom he had always shown the greatest affection; and to anyone who knew the way in which she adored him the whole thing was utterly preposterous. There could be no question of the boy having been exchanged for another primed to play that revolting part, as his aunt and sister would have instantly declared the child with whom they were confronted to be an impostor. Roger decided that the only possible explanation lay in the little King’s mind having become diseased, and that he must now be regarded as a pathological case; but he knew that that would not prevent Hébert from bringing these dreadful accusations against the poor Queen, and that they would hurt her in a way that no other outrage inflicted upon her could have done.

  On the evening of the 12th of October, Marie Antoinette was taken upstairs at the Conciergerie to go before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Although greatly debilitated by the rigours of her last five weeks’ confinement in a cold, damp, semi-dark cell, she rallied her faculties magnificently. Shrewdly and with dignity she answered every question put to her, showing remarkable quickness in evading the traps set to catch her, and great subtlety in avoiding the incrimination of her friends. After this preliminary hearing, the Tribunal adjourned until 9 a.m. on the 14th; it then continued to sit for most of that and the following day, the final session lasting from 5 p.m. on the 15th to 4 a.m. on the 16th.

  Forty-one witnesses were called; but to the consternation of the judges many of them refused to testify against the Queen and some, with great courage, spoke in her favour. One of the latter was that Father of the Revolution, Bailly. Stranger still, Manuel, the one-time Procureur of the Commune and noted terrorist, refused to incriminate her.

  At length Hébert’s infamous charge of incest was hurled at her by Fouquier-Tinville. She was then accused of having deliberately sought to weaken her son’s health so that in the event of a Restoration she might rule through him;

  For a moment she made no answer; then when Hermann, the President, ordered her to do so, she rose from the chair she had been given, turned away from the Tribunal towards the spectators, and cried:

  “If I did not reply, it was because nature refuses such an inculpation made to a mother. I appeal to all those mothers who may be present.”

  The public galleries were packed with fishwives and market women. For years they had been told that Marie Antoinette was a squandermaniac and a nymphomaniac. The fact that her husband had proved incapable of consummating their marriage during its first eight years had given ample grounds for malicious tongues at Versailles to circulate stories that she had both consoled herself with unnatural vice and taken lovers. Her enemies had spread those stories broadcast, printed them on secret presses in pamphlet form by the hundred thousand, and even issued beautiful editions of them with illustrations portraying her in every imaginable erotic scene. So, through the years, the whole nation, except for the comparative few who knew her personally, had gradually come to believe that she was a Messalina. It was with that background in mind that Hébert and his friends had counted on the people believing this last infamy of her.

  But they did not believe it. A swift murmur of pity and indignation ran round the court. Hissing broke out, and it was not directed at Marie Antoinette, but at Fouquier-Tinville.

  Hastily he shuffled away under his other papers the signed statement of the little King that he had been about to read aloud, and began to rant on another absurd charge—that she had sent 200 millions in French gold to her brother, the Emperor of Austria.

  Roger did not attend the trial. He knew that he would be terribly harrowed by it, and that it could have only one ending; moreover, from its second day on he was engaged upon another matter. It had suddenly occurred to him that, although he could not save the Queen, he might be able to render her a great service. She had never pretended special piety, but she was God-fearing, devout, and all her life had gone regularly to confession; now, in her extremity, her greatest need must be a true priest, and it was certain that the fiends who were martyring her would deny her that last consolation. With the cynicism that they displayed in such matters, they might send her one of the renegade priests who had broken his own oath to the Roman Church and accepted the doctrines of the Revolution; but she would never make a last confession to such a man, as for her he would have forfeited the power to give absolution.

  The more Roger thought about the matter, the more decided he became that, somehow or other, he must find a non-juring priest and smuggle him in to her. That was no easy matter. Great numbers of priests had been killed in the September massacres, many thousands had fled abroad and, apart from those who had become renegades, only a handful now remained, all of whom were in hiding. To search for one in Paris was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and to enquire for one was to court suspicion; but he was prepared to risk that, as it seemed the only means by which he might succeed. Yet on setting about it he found himself up against a brick wall; his Revolutionary colleagues gave him queer looks and wanted to know what had got into him, while such respectable citizens as he accosted in the Granvilliers Section shook their heads and hurried away from him as soon as they could. Most reluctantly, he reached the infuriating conclusion that he might go on asking different people for days and get no further, as those who did know where a priest was hidden would not tell him.

  Late in the afternoon he had the sudden inspiration that the Blanchards might be able to help; so he hurried to La Belle Étoile, but Mère Blanchard told him that their curé had fled months before, and she knew of no other. Much depressed, he went out to Passy, and, after dining with Amanda, told her about his fruitless search.

  “But, Roger,” she exclaimed at once, “M. de Batz’s private chaplain has remained in hiding all this time at Neuilly. He is a deeply religious man and would, I am sure, consider it his Christian duty to take any risk himself in order to perform the last rites for the Queen.”

  Roger looked up quickly. “In that case I pray you go to Neuilly first thing tomorrow, and arrange for him to come into Paris and meet me. You may tell him that I anticipate little difficulty in smuggling him into the prison and getting him out again; but as the hour at which the Queen will be taken back from the Tribunal to her cell is uncertain, we must arrange a place where he can wait for me and I can collect him at any time that circumstances may dictate.”

  As they talked the matter over, Roger decided that in a case such as this he must give away his other hideout; so it was agreed that the priest should ask for Dan at La Belle Étoile, and wait there with Dan until Roger came to take him to the Conciergerie.

  Next morning Roger waited at Passy while Amanda went on her mission. She returned at midday to say that Father Jerome had expressed himself proud and honoured to be called on to
serve this office. He had often gone into Paris on similar missions at the request of the Baron; so he should have no difficulty in passing the barrier, and would be at La Belle Étoile at eight o’clock the following evening.

  With a considerably lighter heart, Roger went into the city, saw Dan and arranged with him to receive the priest, also to have a one-horse coach ready in the yard of the inn from ten o’clock, which he was later to drive himself. Next, he went to Thellusson’s and drew out a further supply of de Batz’s gold, having it first made up in several packets for easy distribution about his person. Then he began to look for Goret. After drawing a few blanks, he ran the Commissioner to earth at one of the cafés he frequented, passed him one of the packets of gold and told him what he intended to do that night. To his consternation Goret handed the packet back; but after a moment he smiled, and said, “In this I require no payment to aid you.”

  It was one more instance of the way in which the feelings of all decent people had changed from hate to sympathy for the Queen, owing to the manner in which she was being persecuted. With a closer bond between them than they had ever had before, they drank a bottle of wine together; then, to kill time, went to the Hôtel de Ville, and attended a session of the Commune.

  Shortly before ten they left the Chamber and crossed the river to the Conciergerie. There they learned that the trial was still in progress, and did not look like finishing for some hours. At midnight prospects were no better; so, thinking the Court would soon decide to rise and meet again for a final session on the following day, Roger left Goret and went to La Belle Étoile to fetch the priest.

  When he arrived there, Dan was patiently waiting for him in the shadow of the side doorway. After a word with Roger that all was well, he slipped upstairs to his room and a few minutes later emerged with Father Jerome. The priest, a short, very fat man, was sensibly taking every precaution against being recognised, as he was muffled in a heavy cloak, had the lower part of his face buried in a high white stock, and wore a broad-brimmed beaver hat pulled well down over his eyes. Roger greeted him politely, and the three of them walked quickly round to the stables.

  The horse Dan had chosen was standing in its stall already harnessed, so they had only to put it between the shafts of the coach. Father Jerome and Roger got in, Dan mounted the box, and they were off.

  The drive was a short one, so there was little time for conversation, even had Roger wished to make it; but his thoughts were too fully occupied with the tricky business in hand for him to do more than reassure the priest that there was no great danger of his being caught.

  Father Jerome’s few words in reply came in rather a thin voice, partially muffled by his stock. For a few minutes the only sound was the clicking of the horse’s hooves on the cobbles; then the coach turned off the Pont Neuf and, as Roger had instructed Dan, pulled up in the shadow of some buildings about three hundred yards short of the entrance to the Conciergerie. As Roger got out, he said in a low voice:

  “I want you to wait here, Father, until I return. I may be a considerable time, as if they decide to finish tonight the Court may sit for another couple of hours or more. Should anyone want to know what you are waiting here for, say that it is to take me home when the Court rises. If they don’t believe you, drive on to the Palais de Justice entrance, and tell them to go in and look for me; I shall be somewhere about. But in no circumstances go away, for if sentence is passed tonight the execution will take place tomorrow; so this is our last chance.”

  When he rejoined Goret in a passage leading to the Court he was thankful that he had taken the precaution to tell Father Jerome that his wait might be a long one, as the Tribunal was still sitting, and word was going round that it did not mean to rise until the case was over.

  After a while one o’clock chimed from the steeple of the Saint Chapelle, then, hour by hour, two, three, four. Cold, stiff, weary and anxious, Roger and Goret waited with a little crowd of other people in the broad passageway. At last the doors were thrown open and the journalists came running out. The Widow Capet had been found guilty on all charges; she was to take a peep through the “little window” and be given “a shave with the national razor”.

  Ten minutes later the Court was clear, but Roger allowed three-quarters of an hour for things to settle down. At about ten to five, he and Goret walked to the coach and told Father Jerome that the death sentence had been pronounced; then they drove in it up to the entrance of the Conciergerie.

  No difficulty was made about the two Commissioners going in and taking a third man with them. A turnkey unlocked gate after gate for them: at each the guards drew back and saluted with the sort of cringing fear that all simple folk now displayed towards these terrible Commissars. But the two gendarmes in the Queen’s cell were under orders not to leave her. While Goret and Father Jerome waited outside, Roger went in and said to them calmly:

  “Citizens, I have a man here who has paid me a good whack to have a few words with the Widow. Here’s your share, and it’s enough to buy you a comfortable cottage apiece. Now come outside and let him get on with it.”

  As he spoke he handed each of them one of his packets of gold. On feeling their weight, they swiftly realised their value, glanced at each other, nodded and left the cell. He beckoned Father Jerome in, then followed the gendarmes out.

  Roger, Goret and the two men stood in the passage and began to talk about the trial, but in less than two minutes Father Jerome came out again. Roger looked at him in surprise, and said:

  “Surely you have not yet done what you came for?”

  The priest nodded, bowed his head, made a gesture like the sign of the cross, then with short quick steps started off down the corridor. With a hasty good night to the guards, Roger and Goret caught him up, summoned the waiting turnkey from a room near by, and repassed the many wickets. As soon as they were safely out in the street, and the prison gates had shut behind them, Roger said:

  “What happened, Father? Surely you could not have confessed her in so short a time? What happened? Did she refuse your ministrations? I can hardly believe that possible.”

  Suddenly the priest burst into tears, and in his thin, rather high voice sobbed, “She wouldn’t. . . she wouldn’t. She refused to change clothes with me.”

  An awful suspicion leapt into Roger’s mind. Seizing Father Jerome by the arm, he gave him a violent shake and exclaimed:

  “What are you? I don’t believe you’re a priest at all! I—By God, I believe you’re Lady Atkyns!”

  “Yes,” sobbed the pseudo priest, “I. . . I am. I wanted her to change clothes with me, but she wouldn’t.”

  “Let’s chuck the bitch in the Seine,” snarled Goret. “If her crazy idea had come off it would have cost us both our heads. The difference in their figures would have given the game away at the first gate we had to go through. And if we had got the other woman out, what the hell did this lump of folly think we could do then, with no preparations made to hide her or get her out of the city, and every street kid knowing her features as well as his own backside?”

  Roger was equally furious. He could not help admiring the courage that had inspired Lady Atkyns to make this eleventh-hour attempt to change places with the Queen; but he knew that Goret was right, and that by her foolhardiness she would certainly have brought disaster on them and herself, and not even have saved the Queen, had her plan succeeded. For a second he wondered if Amanda had been a party to this criminally dangerous deception, but could not believe that even her sense of the romantic would have led her to allow him to run such an awful risk unknowingly. After a moment he asked:

  “What of the real Father Jerome? Is he a party to this wicked fraud, or did he know nothing of your intentions?”

  “He . . . he was coming himself,” came the half-stifled reply, “but . . . but I locked him in his . . . his bedroom.”

  That cleared Amanda, but it made even worse the frightful thing that this stupid woman had done to the Queen. Roger felt that she needed a lesso
n, and proceeded to give it her.

  “Madame,” he said harshly, “at this awful hour Her Majesty must be in more need of a priest than anything she has wished for in all her life; yet you have taken it upon yourself to deprive her of that last consolation. My coach will take you back to the inn and you may pass the night there. Tomorrow you will set about leaving France. My colleague and I are too well-placed for anything you may say about us to be taken seriously; so if I learn that you are not gone from Neuilly within forty-eight hours I shall denounce you.”

  Still weeping, but without a word, Lady Atkyns climbed into the coach and Dan drove her away.

  Roger and Goret remained staring glumly at one another about twenty yards from the silent prison gates, through which Marie Antoinette was to pass in a few hours on her way to execution. At last Roger spoke:

  “Oh, the wickedness of that woman! To think that out of vanity and a desire for self-glorification at any price she has deprived the Queen of what must mean so much to her. I would give my right hand could I but find a priest, and now it is too late.”

  Yet an inscrutable Providence decreed that it should not be too late. Dawn had not yet come. At that moment a tall, lean figure detached itself from the shadows of the wall some distance away, and walked up to them.

  “Citizens,” said the stranger in a low voice, “from your hats I judge you to be high officers of the Republic. I am the Abbé Maguin and I am willing to surrender myself to you as a nonjuring priest. I came here tonight voluntarily for this purpose, believing upon Jesus Christ our Saviour that He would soften the hearts of those to whom I surrendered myself, so that they would grant me the favour of taking me into the prison to perform the last rites of the Church for our unhappy Queen before I, too, am taken to execution.”

  Goret instinctively crossed himself. Roger removed his hat, and said, “Father, God has sent you to us; be pleased to follow me.”

  Inside the prison, more gold greased ready palms. Half an hour later the three of them came out into the grey dawn. The brave Abbé Maguin gave his two companions his blessing, then walked quietly away. Roger and Goret silently shook hands, then made separately for their lodgings.