The Man who Killed the King

by Dennis Wheatley

  He did not eat again till early evening, and it was over a meal at the inn that a new idea occurred to him. He had been morosely cogitating the infuriating fact that he possessed the power to turn out the local National Guard and have domiciliary visits paid that night to every house in the area, but positively dared not use it from fear of the ultimate consequences, when a thought came to him of a way in which he could use his authority. In view of his threat to Lady Atkyns, it seemed probable that she would leave for the coast with Amanda either that night or the next. If they headed direct for any Channel port they would have to pass the cross-roads between Puteaux and Courbevoie, and by posting himself there in his sash and feathers he could stop every vehicle that approached merely by lifting his hand; so he rode back to Paris, changed into uniform, packed a small valise, returned to Le Cheval Pie, took a room there, borrowed a lantern, and at halfpast nine began his vigil.

  In these days few conveyances left Paris after nightfall, as it meant getting a special permit to pass any of the gates; so Roger’s task was more wearisome than arduous, and he had no luck. Half an hour after dawn he reluctantly abandoned his post, repaired to the inn and slept till midday. That afternoon restless anxiety drove him out to continue his bogus enquiries at properties further afield, and that night he again haunted the cross-roads with his lantern. By the morning of the third day, although he felt that little hope remained, he could not bring himself to abandon his endeavours to catch Amanda before she left for England; yet a further twenty-four hours of his dreary routine, with its long series of disappointments, brought him no better fortune.

  When he woke early in the afternoon of the fourth day he decided that it was useless to persevere further. Amanda might have left by day or taken another road by night; or, if Lady Atkyns realised that he did not know where she was living, she might have made up her mind to defy him and stay on as long as it suited her. Mentally exhausted, and in a most evil temper, he returned to Paris.

  While at Neuilly he had neither looked at a news-sheet nor talked with anyone, except to give abrupt orders for his requirements at the inn, and his morose manner had been so forbidding that no member of the staff had volunteered the news that had come in the previous day; but on entering the city he found it bedecked with flags and its open spaces crowded with patriots who were celebrating. The reason, as he soon learned, was that on the day of the Queen’s execution the Republican Armies had gained two great victories.

  In the north, Maubeuge was the last major fortress remaining to the French. The Allies, following their text-book policy of reducing all such strongholds before advancing on Paris, had laid siege to the town. Prince Coburg had surrounded the place with 25,000 men and disposed a further 45,000 in strong positions about the village of Wattignies to cover it. The able and energetic Carnot, now firmly in the saddle, had appointed General Jourdan as the new Commander of the French and sent him with 50,000 men to endeavour to raise the siege of the fortress. On the 16th of October Jourdan had given battle and inflicted a severe defeat upon the Allies. Maubeuge was relieved, and for the first time for many months the threat of invasion from the north had been dissipated.

  The scene of the other victory was La Vendée. On the 1st of August the Comité had issued a savage decree that the districts in revolt should be depopulated and devastated. Westermann, Rossignol and other terrorist commanders had carried it out with such ruthlessness wherever their columns penetrated that the whole population joined in offering the most desperate resistance. All through September battle had succeeded battle in which no quarter was given on either side and the carnage had been appalling. In an action at Luçon the Royalists had left 6,000 dead upon the field, but on the 18th and the 22nd they had revenged themselves by inflicting equally severe defeats upon the Revolutionaries. Early in October the Royal and Catholic army had been weakened by the withdrawal of Charette to his own territory of the Marais; then on the 16th, a pitched battle had been fought at Cholet. It had raged all day with varying success, until towards evening, in a last magnificent charge, the Royalist Generals, Bonchamps and d’Eblé, had both been mortally wounded. Panic had ensued among their followers, who had then been utterly defeated and dispersed; so that it was now believed in Paris that the Vendéen war was over.

  This quelling of the revolt in the west was largely due to General Kléber and the seasoned troops he had brought from Mayence. On the surrender of that fortress, and also of Valenciennes, towards the end of July, the Allies had granted the garrisons of both the honours of war, and they had been allowed to march out with their arms on condition that they were not to be employed again for a year. But this prohibition applied only to service against the external enemies of the Republic; so the Convention had at once directed these veterans against its internal foes, and while the army from Mayence had formed a backbone for the sans-culotte forces in La Vendée, that from Valenciennes had made a big contribution to the reduction of Lyons.

  That great city was now suffering a martyrdom comparable with the levelling of Carthage by the Romans. On entering it Couthon had written to the Comité, “Lyons has three classes of inhabitants—(1) the guilty rich, (2) the selfish rich, (3) the ignorant who are of no party. The first should be guillotined, the second forced to contribute their whole fortune, and the third be dispersed so that a Republican colony can be planted here in their place.”

  The Comité, inspired by fear that some other great revolt might yet overwhelm them and result in their being called to account for their crimes, decided to make of Lyons a terrible example. They accepted Couthon’s recommendations and further decreed that the city was to be destroyed. “No part of it shall be preserved,” ran the order, “other than the manufactories and the public buildings. The city shall cease to be called Lyons. It shall be renamed ‘Commune Affranchie’, and on its ruins shall be erected a monument inscribed with the words ‘LYONS MADE WAR UPON LIBERTY—LYONS IS NO MORE’.”

  So now, after a summer and autumn during which the life of the Convention had not appeared worth a month’s purchase, it could at last breathe more freely. Toulon, now besieged by General Carteaux, alone remained to be reduced; and it needed only two more victories, on the Rhine and in the Pyrenees, for the Revolution to be triumphant everywhere.

  When Roger reached the Cushion and Keys he found among the papers waiting for him a note from Dan, asking him to let him know as soon as he was back; but as there seemed nothing particularly urgent about it, he put it aside for the moment. In his absence his work had accumulated shockingly; so during the next two days he tried to put thoughts of Amanda out of his head by plunging into it and straightening out a score of matters that needed attention. It was not until the evening of the 22nd that he came across Dan’s note again, and as six clear days had elapsed since Athénaïs’s arrival at Passy, he felt that it would now be worth sending his henchman out there to see if she had left; so he sent a runner to fetch him.

  As soon as they were alone, Dan’s first remark was, “She do be a foine recruit what ’e sent we; but ’er’s proper angry with I fer sayin’ I dunno ’e’s whereabouts. Bin naggin’ at I summat awful she ’as these foive days gone for I to fetch ’e to ’er.”

  “What in thunder do you mean?” Roger asked with a frown.

  Grinning broadly, Dan made the situation clear. It had slipped Roger’s memory that he had told Athénaïs before leaving the Red Lobster that should she find the house at Passy in wrong hands she was to enquire for him at La Belle Étoile. The afternoon after he had left her she had gone there and, on asking for him, been referred to Dan. He had at once recognised her as the long lost “little wycountess wot ’e got out o’ Rennes” and Athénaïs had told him a very plausible story. Roger, she said, had told her about the Rescue League and she had come to Paris to work for it. Her secret activities in Brittany had already given her excellent training for such work; so, after a talk with her, and believing it to be Roger’s wish, Dan had taken her on without hesitation. He had installed
her in Roger’s room and procured for her a variety of disguises. She had soon proved herself to be a remarkably clever actress and as quickwitted as a monkey, and even in these few days had already executed several very tricky commissions successfully. The only trouble from Dan’s point of view was that she refused to believe that he did not know where Roger was, and was perpetually badgering him to arrange a meeting between them.

  Roger was much disturbed by this new situation; but, after a moment’s thought, he decided that he must see her, otherwise she might become a danger to herself and everyone else concerned. So he told Dan that he would call at La Belle Étoile at three o’clock the following afternoon.

  When he arrived upstairs in his old room he found Athénaïs dressed as a Normandy apple-seller, and very seductive she looked in her peasant costume. She made him no reproaches about not having been to see her before, but said at once:

  “Your man tells me, Monsieur, that for some days you have been out of Paris. I assume that you went in pursuit of your wife. I trust that you caught her and made it up?”

  “No,” replied Roger drily; “I failed to discover whither she had gone.”

  “I regret to hear it,” said Athénaïs quietly. “Believe me, I am not without sympathy towards her, as I can imagine how I would feel did a similar misfortune overtake myself.”

  “You succeeded most admirably in concealing such feelings at the time,” Roger remarked acidly.

  “Rojé, you are unfair!” she protested. “When I arrived at Passy I was newly escaped from a month in prison. I expected to find comfort and safety there, with you overjoyed to know that I was still alive; but what did I find? At a moment’s notice I was called on to deal with a totally unexpected situation, and one which, had I not shown my mettle, would have resulted in my being thrown out into the gutter like a trollop. That the other woman happened to be your wife was most unfortunate; but that was no fault of mine. Either she or I had to vacate the field, and in France I regard the field as mine; so how can you blame me for driving her from it?”

  Roger’s face remained hard, as he said, “She too had recently been in prison. It was for that reason I could not rid myself of her before you arrived, although, in all conscience, I tried hard enough. There was nowhere safe to which I could make her go. Even so, the blame is entirely mine that the two of you should have come face to face without warning, as you did. For that I most humbly apologise, and I am far from insensible with regard to your feelings. That you should have felt yourself justified in endeavouring to dispossess her I understand, but it is the means you used to achieve your object that I cannot stomach. Your coming inflicted a distress upon her that you could hardly avoid, but to increase it tenfold by inferring that her marriage to myself had been naught but an empty sham I account abominable.”

  “It was a harsh measure, I admit; but what other line could I take? Had I simply announced that I was your mistress and desired her to give you up to me, do you think she would have agreed?”

  “She might well have done so.”

  “Then she cannot love you very much. Had I allowed the cards to be dealt that way she would have held all the trumps, and would have been both weak and stupid had she allowed me to get the better of her.”

  “Perhaps; God knows!” Roger shrugged miserably. “The harm is done now. I can only hope that I may soon find an opportunity to repair it. I take it, Madame, that you wished to see me with regard to your future plans? Well, I am here, and at your service.”

  Athénaïs cast her eyes down and, clasping her hands, began to twist her fingers together. After a moment, she said, “I had hoped that after a week you might feel differently. I am truly sorry for the hurt that I inflicted on your wife. Will you not forgive me?”

  He shook his head. “It is I who should ask your forgiveness for being the prime cause of our love having come to such a sorry pass. But I am so stricken in my conscience that I could no longer be happy in its continuance.”

  She sighed and stood up. “So be it then. As for myself, that splendid desperado of yours has already found a use for my small talents in fighting the fiends who now rule Paris. With your permission I will continue to occupy this room, and aid him in his work to the best of my ability.”

  Roger bowed. “Madame, you are welcome to remain here as long as you wish, and I shall pray that in the course of your endeavours no harm will befall you.”

  Turning away, he walked to the door, and his hand was already on the latch when she suddenly stepped forward with arms outstretched, and cried:

  “Oh, Rojé, think again, I beg! That which I did was done only out of love for you. Do not be so harsh upon us both. You look so tired, so ill, that it breaks my heart to see you thus. Please, please let me comfort you, and nurse you back to happiness. In my arms you will forget all this. We are already agreed that neither of us is free from blame; yet we live now in a world where the unhappiness that we have brought upon your wife cannot compare with the awful sufferings that are inflicted upon thousands here in France every day. Since it is our portion to live in the centre of this earthly hell created by the Revolution, can we not face it together? Sooner or later one or both of us will be caught, and caught for good. If we must die so young, let us at least first draw strength and joy from our love.”

  Sadly, he shook his head again. “Nay, Athénaïs. Forgive me, but I could not do it. I would be haunted all the time by the thought of her misery.”

  Athénaïs flushed to the roots of her black-dyed hair, and when she spoke again her voice held cold, hard anger. “Am I to understand, then, that you love her better than myself?”

  “I did not say that,” he muttered unhappily. “You have played a far greater part in my life than she has, and I shall always love you.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I think you will; and when your mind is less disturbed you will realise that my love for you is greater than your wife’s. In England you have a saying that ‘possession is nine points of the law’. Had our positions been reversed, do you think that I would have left that house? No! I would have defied her, and rather than have given you up without a struggle I would have risked any humiliation. She did not love you enough to gamble on your standing by her, but left without a word. Mayhap a time will come when you will regret that you should have sacrificed me for what you feel about her today. Should that prove so, I’ll not risk suffering again what I am suffering now, but should require your whole allegiance. Go now, Rojé, please. May God have you in His keeping.”

  Still resentful on Amanda’s account, but made miserable and much shaken by Athénaïs’s arguments, Roger closed the door behind him. Then, just as he was about to go downstairs, it occurred to him that before leaving La Belle Étoile he ought to have a word with Mère Blanchard. Dan had told him that Athénaïs, evidently hoping that he would come to live with her, was using his name; and, while the Blanchards never showed curiosity about his doings, he felt that he could hardly let such a situation continue without making any mention of her. In circumstances such as the present it would never have crossed his mind to repudiate her claim to be his wife; but to acknowledge it, yet never come to see her, set him a pretty little problem in explanation.

  However, after a pause on the landing for a few minutes’ thought, he decided on a suitable story. It was to the effect that he and his wife had long been estranged owing to differences in their political opinions. She had now come to Paris in the hope of saving a relative of hers who was one of the Girondin deputies recently impeached, and had appealed to him to use his influence in the arrested man’s favour. He had refused her request for what he considered to be very good reasons, but his refusal had still further increased the breach between them. Therefore, to avoid unpleasant scenes, he did not intend to visit La Belle Étoile as long as his wife remained there.

  The good landlady listened to this with an expressionless face, but when he had done she snorted and said, “I never did hold with women mixing in politics; but she’s a lovely yo
ung thing and ’tis a great pity you’ve quarrelled with her. You’re looking as thin as if you’d been in the poorhouse for a month. Can you not persuade her to kiss and be friends, so that you can come back here to live and I can feed you up?”

  “Bless you, I would that I could,” he smiled, “but ’tis out of the question. Now that she has come to Paris, though, she talks of remaining for some time, and I would be grateful if you would do all you can to make her comfortable during her stay.”

  Having received Mère Blanchard’s ready assent, he left the hostelry slightly less dissatisfied with himself from having, at least, dealt efficiently with this comparatively minor matter; for his invention about the Girondin deputy had been extremely plausible. Paris was on the eve of savouring a new excitement. Having witnessed the sacking of the Tuileries, the butchering of the Swiss, the massacres of September, the murder of the King, the Queen, and a great number of so-called “enemies of liberty”, it was now to see the legalised slaughter of a group of men who were jointly more responsible than any others for these excesses; not from the criminal sadism of terrorists like Hébert, but from vanity, folly, self-seeking and lack of courage to stop them when they had had ample powers to do so.

  Two days after Roger’s interview with Athénaïs, twenty-one of the leading Girondins were brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal, Brissot, Vergniaud, Gensonné, Carra and Valazé among them. At their trial they ran true to form: instead of presenting a solid front, each made desperate efforts to save himself at the expense of his associates. The accusations that Fouquier-Tinville formulated against them were Machiavellian; they included such charges as that of having plotted the September massacres in the hope that the Provinces would be so alarmed by the course the Revolution was taking that they would rise and march on Paris, with the object of substituting a bourgeois tyranny for the Rule of the People.