Once Dan was on his way, Roger felt that honour was satisfied as far as Amanda was concerned. More and more he leaned to the view that, greatly as he was to blame, she had brought her worst troubles on herself, and more and more his thoughts gravitated towards Athénaïs. There he knew her to be, day after day, night after night, living less than a mile away from himself, alone and eminently desirable. He began to wonder if he had not been the most colossal prude and fool to reject her explanation and the advances she had made when he had been to see her at La Belle Étoile.
Again and again he caught himself thinking of what she had said of their living in a nightmare world of blood and death in which one or both of them must sooner or later be caught and sent to the scaffold; so why should they not take such joy of each other as they could while they still had the opportunity?
It was nine days after Dan had left Paris that an event occurred which placed Roger under the necessity of visiting Athénaïs again. His contribution to the work of the Rescue League was to supply the passports, permits, cartes de civisme and other papers necessary to get suspects away, and usually Dan let him know what was required; but sometimes he had advance information about people who were to be arrested, and took measures to save them himself. As it was of the utmost importance that the secret of where these papers came from should be kept, he never personally warned suspects of their peril, but always sent Dan with the papers required for them to leave Paris. Such a case now arose in his own Section. The young Doctor Guilhermy, whom he had reluctantly been compelled to browbeat on the famous night of the 10th of August, fifteen months before, had come under suspicion. If this brave and honest man’s life was to be saved, Athénaïs must be used, since Dan was absent, to provide him with the means to flee while there was still time.
Next day, the 24th, Roger went to see her. In the quiet hours of the previous night he had already made up his mind to ask her to forget the harsh things he had said, and when they had finished arranging the Guilhermy business he opened the subject by saying:
“Athénaïs, I fear that during the past six weeks I have behaved like a great fool and treated you very badly. When we last met you were generous enough to say that you were sorry that you had seen no alternative to causing my wife such distress. I should have accepted that and begged your pardon there and then for having myself been the prime cause of the whole trouble. I can only say now that had your positions been reversed I should have felt just as strongly on your account as I did on hers; and that despite the anger I displayed, I have never ceased to love you. Will you forgive me?”
She smiled at him. “Dear Rojé, I am only too anxious to do so; but as I warned you when we last discussed this matter, I must ask you for some guarantee that a similar situation will not arise again.”
“I will agree to anything that will ease your mind,” he replied eagerly, “but what guarantee can I give you?”
“Would it be possible for you to take a few weeks’ holiday?” she asked.
“For officials of the Revolution there are no such things as holidays,” he said a little dubiously. Then, thinking she had in mind a renewal of their joyous honeymoon at the Red Lobster, he added, “Still, I suppose I could get away if I said that overwork has made me ill. After all, Danton has but just returned from a month’s stay at a fine estate he bought with his ill-gotten gains at Arcis-sur-Aube; and with no better excuse than that he had just married a chit of seventeen.”
“Very well, then; make your arrangements and take me for a week or two to your father’s house at Lymington.”
“What say you?” Roger exclaimed.
She laughed. “Do you not think the idea an excellent one? Such a change would do you an infinity of good, and would at the same time fulfil my own requirements. I am not, of course, suggesting that you should take me there as your wife, but as a refugee. There need be no scandal, but a notice would appear in the Hampshire papers that ‘Mr. Roger Brook is recently arrived from France with Madame la Vicomtesse de la Tour d’Auvergne, whom he had saved from the guillotine.’ Outwardly, at least, we would behave with all propriety, but your wife would read between the lines and understand that I hold first place in your affections.”
“No!” said Roger. “No; you ask too much. I could not inflict such a further hurt on her.”
“Why? By this time you must have written to her to let her know that my claim to be your wife has no foundation.”
“Yes, naturally I did so, but——”
“Then honour is satisfied as far as she is concerned. She knows that she has a right to your name and is secure in her position. I count her exceedingly fortunate in that.”
“Athénaïs, I beg you not to ask this of me.”
“I would not, had you not given me cause to doubt your love. After what you have made me suffer you owe it to me to prove that you count me something more than a convenient plaything.”
In vain Roger implored her to alter her mind. She would not, and nothing would have induced him to hurt Amanda further by doing what Athénaïs asked. So, twenty minutes later, angry and disappointed, he left her.
As it so happened, he would have found great difficulty in getting leave to absent himself from the activities of the Revolution, even had he been cowardly enough to agree, for, two days later, Carnot sent for him.
Roger knew well by sight the long face, high forehead and great, ugly, crooked Roman nose of the man who was now called France’s “Organiser of Victories”, but he had never had any dealings with him. Somewhat puzzled, he went to the offices of the Committee of Public Safety and sent in his name. He was not kept waiting long. When they were face to face, Lazare Carnot gave him a long, shrewd stare, asked him to sit down, then said briskly:
“Citizen Commissioner, from what I have heard of you, I have formed the impression that you have little taste for missions which entail enforcing the will of the Convention upon the civil population.”
Fearing a trap, Roger replied with caution, “I have ever been averse to unnecessary slaughters which deprive France of men to produce food from her fields or serve in her armies, Citizen General; but where the safety of the Revolution is concerned, I should never hesitate to employ the guillotine or any other measure at my disposal.”
Carnot nodded noncommittally, and went on, “On the other hand, I recall General Dumouriez telling me that you served him exceptionally well in restoring discipline among his troops, and for a civilian showed an excellent grasp of military matters. I require such a man to strengthen the army investing Toulon. General Dugommier is now in command there, and has with him several Citizen Representatives; but none of them have had any military experience, except Barras, and Fréron is one of those ‘patriots’ who can prove a serious menace with an army. The others are more of a hindrance than help; so I wish you to go there as a counterweight to these meddlers, and do your utmost to assist the General in wresting Toulon from the accursed English.”
To fight against his own countrymen was one of the last things Roger wished, but he dared not refuse this new mission; so, half an hour later, he left Carnot’s office with a packet of despatches under his arm and a new warrant giving him powers of life and death in his pocket.
As he was about to leave the building, a clerk called him back, and Robespierre emerged from a nearby room. In his hand he carried another packet. With his cat-like smile, he held it out to Roger, and said:
“I am told that my colleague is sending you to Toulon, Citizen. I have here an important despatch for Lyons, and you will be passing through that city. I wish you to deliver it personally—personally, you understand—to Citizen Representative Fouché.”
CHAPTER XXIV
TWICE HOIST WITH HIS OWN PETARD
As Roger rode south next day he was by no means sorry to be leaving Paris. In the past three weeks, the craving for Athénaïs that he had felt in August when he had first feared her lost to him for good had begun to obsess him again. Only stubbornness and lack of an excuse to save
his face had prevented his seeking a rapprochement with her even earlier than he had; but he had left it too late. Punishing her had brought punishment on himself, for her resentment had crystallised into a demand to which he could not possibly accede. Yet, knowing her to be recoverable at a price, he would have been constantly subjected to a base temptation had he remained near her; at least he had been spared that by Carnot’s sending him away.
On consideration he thought himself lucky, too, in having been selected for this mission, when it might so easily have been another requiring him to take a portable guillotine as part of his baggage. Anything was preferable to a renewal of those two months of horror that he had lived through in the spring; and, although at first sight it had seemed a most repugnant task to have to help fight his own countrymen, he felt that if he kept his wits about him he might be able to find ways to aid them more than he injured them. That would be much more difficult without the resourceful Dan to assist him, and the absence of his jovial henchman was one of his worries; the other, a very much greater one, was that he dared not ignore the order he had received from Robespierre to deliver his despatch to Joseph Fouché personally.
The precept “know thy enemy” being to Roger’s mind a sound one, he had been to considerable trouble to find out all he could about the Deputy for Nantes. He was the son of a moderately wealthy merchant captain, had inherited some plantations in the West Indies, and it was as a representative of bourgeois trading interests that he had been sent to Paris. Yet, for a long time past, he had had associations with the extremists. At one period the Oratorians had sent him to teach physics at their school in Arras, and it was there that he had met Robespierre, who was the local legal adviser to the Order. As Fouché was only a lay brother he had taken no vows to prevent his marrying, and he had paid his attentions to Robespierre’s elderly sister Charlotte. Nothing had come of the matter, but he had remained a close friend of the family and had lent Robespierre money to enable him to support himself in Versailles when he had been elected to the States-General. Then, on his return to Nantes, Fouché had become one of the earliest members of the Jacobin Club there, and, as soon as he could, had dissociated himself from his religious connections. Nevertheless, he had taken his seat in the Convention pledged to protect property and all established institutions, and for his first few months as a deputy had acted the part of a cautious moderate.
The King’s trial had proved the turning point in his political career, as every deputy, in giving his verdict, had been forced to show his colours. Most men in his position did so only halfheartedly, but, shrewdly assessing future trends, Fouché had nailed his to the mast. Not only did he vote for death, but at once joined the Mountain, and with supreme effrontery issued a circular to his electorate, seeking to justify his conduct by using the very arguments that he had himself publicly contested only a few days before. It was his first, but by no means last, great betrayal.
Since then he had risen rapidly in the esteem of the Comité. In March they had sent him to La Vendée, then in June transferred him to Troyes and Nevers. In the latter town he made a name for himself, emerging there as an arch-enemy of the Church which, during his early life, had provided him with his living. He had not long been married to a very plain but handsomely-dowried girl, and at this juncture she presented him with a daughter. Instead of having the child baptised, as was still usual, by a priest who had taken the oath to the Revolution, he set a new fashion; parading the Municipal and National Guards round an Altar to the Nation in the market square, he christened the child himself, giving her the name of Nièvre after her birthplace. He went further, by commandeering a church in order to hold a Republican banquet in it; then, with Chaumette of the Commune, who had been sent to him as a colleague, he set about plundering churches and châteaux. During September and October they had sent over 50,000 pounds weight in gold and seventeen packing-cases full of chalices and chasubles to the Convention. Many people wondered how much loot had stuck to the fingers of the pair; at all events it was known that the frugal Robespierre had made some very caustic remarks about the enormous bills they had put in for entertaining. And now Fouché had been given a job in Lyons after his own heart, with another even more ferocious partner, Collot d’Herbois; Roger could only pray that when he came face to face with his old enemy he would continue to escape recognition.
When in Nevers during the summer, Fouché had issued a decree that no religious emblem, cross or image of any kind was to be allowed in any public place, and now the Convention had adopted this policy officially as a part of the Revolution. On the 24th of November, five days before Roger had left Paris, the Commune had followed up the desecration of Notre Dame by closing every place of worship in the capital; and, within twenty days from that date, 2,436 French churches were converted into “Temples of Reason”.
On that date, too, the new Revolutionary calendar had been introduced. Owing to the mania of the new masters for changing everything, this fresh means of creating an upheaval in the nation’s way of life had long been under discussion; so long that when it was at last put into operation people found themselves in the Year II of the Republic. The new Era, it was finally decided, should date from the 22nd of September, 1792, the day on which Louis XVI had formally been deposed. In the Republican year there were 12 months, each of 30 days, and named appropriately to the seasons, as the months of Rain, Germination, Flowering, Harvest, etc. The week was abolished, and each month instead contained three periods of 10 days called décades; at the end of each year, 5 days called sans-culottides were added, and for Leap Year a sixth, to be called le jour de la Révolution.
Roger, however, preferred to continue to think in terms of the Gregorian calendar; so for him it was the 2nd of December, 1793, when, with the plumes waving from his hat and his escort of cavalry clanking behind him, but extremely uneasy in his mind, he entered the tragic city of Lyons.
From several miles away he had heard the sound of detonations, and now he saw that both explosives and fire were being used to speed up the demolition. Bellecourt Square, designed by Mansard and the finest piece of architecture in the city, had already been reduced to rubble, as had many of the rich people’s houses that stood in their own gardens. Under the supervision of National Guards, the thousands of silk-workers who had been thrown out of employment by the Revolution were now being driven to execute its stupidest command; in nearly every street gangs of them were mining under houses and shops or burning down isolated buildings.
At the Hôtel de Ville, Roger expected to find the two Proconsuls charged with the enforcement of all this destruction; but he was directed to a house some way from the centre of the town which, when he reached it, had the appearance of a military command post. A full company of troops were on duty as sentries all round it, the garden walls had been reinforced with sandbags, and there were cannon in the courtyard with their gun-teams lounging round them. These precautions against an already cowed population struck Roger as somewhat redundant, but he was far too concerned about what might happen to himself during the next hour to think of much else. After he had shown his papers to four people and waited for some minutes in an ante-room, he was shown in to Citizen Fouché.
The Representative was seated at a desk covered with papers. It was there, filling the inexhaustible crevices of his mind with facts about people which he might later use to his advantage, that he was in his element. It was that extraordinary capacity for absorbing information and applying it unscrupulously which was, later, to make him invaluable to Napoleon as Chief of Police, earn him a dukedom, and enable him to pile up a fortune running into tens of millions; but to look at, no one would ever have suspected his unrivalled powers for work, or his age—which was only thirty-three. His bony face was so lean and pallid that it might have belonged to a week-old corpse; his hair was sparse, his eyebrows reddish, his heavily-lidded eyes green and fish-like. He suffered from a perpetual cold; so was always sniffling; and the hand that he extended to Roger was as limp as
that of a drowned man who had just been fished out of a pond.
The acquiring of secret information being Roger’s special business, he had been greatly tempted to learn the contents of Robespierre’s despatch before delivering it; but now he thanked his stars that he had heeded the instinct which had warned him to refrain, as Fouché, apparently quite unconcerned by the rudeness of the act, took up a powerful magnifying glass from his desk and examined the seals of the despatch very carefully, to make certain they had not been tampered with.
He had not once looked Roger directly in the face; but having glanced through the despatch he laid it down, and said, “Have we not met before, Citizen Colleague?”
Roger’s blood seemed to freeze in his veins, but he replied quite casually, “Not to converse, Citizen Colleague; but we often passed within a few feet of one another in the halls of the Convention before you left Paris to perform your splendid cleansing of Nevers.”
Fouché ignored the compliment, and persisted, “It is not your face alone that is familiar to me, but also your voice. What part of France do you come from?”
“From Strasbourg,” lied Roger promptly.
“Ah! That, then, accounts for the suggestion of heaviness in your accent.”
Outwardly, Roger remained impassive; inwardly, he breathed a sigh of relief, as Fouché, apparently satisfied, made no further enquiry, but said, “It is too late for you to continue your journey tonight; so I will order accommodation to be provided for you and your escort here.”
“I thank you, Citizen Colleague,” Roger replied, quickly rising to his feet, “but pray do not put yourself to that trouble; I can easily find quarters at a hostelry.”
The Man who Killed the King Page 52