The Man who Killed the King

by Dennis Wheatley

  As long as Roger remained in Paris he was now liable for duty at the Temple approximately once a month; so, although he felt it to be a waste of time, he had no option but to report there in mid-April, and again in mid-May. On both occasions, knowing how even small luxuries were now denied to the prisoners, he took with him a big packet of sweets which he surreptitiously gave to Madame Royale.

  She was now a well-grown girl of fifteen and a half, with the typical Bourbon nose, and the rather parrot-like good looks, that often favoured the family before their features grew too heavy to be pleasing. Her manner was naturally subdued, although, considering her age and the awful experiences through which she had passed, she showed remarkable fortitude and self-possession. On his visit in May, Roger found her, as he expected, greatly depressed, as only a few days previously her aunt had been taken from her and, although she did not know it, executed on the 10th. She was, therefore, now entirely alone, her brother and herself being the only prisoners remaining in the Temple, each upon a separate floor and prohibited from communicating in any way.

  No sound other than a faint shuffling was ever heard from the room in which the little King remained walled-up, and the possibility of his rescue now seemed more remote than ever. To break a way in to him would have necessitated the use of a saw or axe, and the resulting noise would inevitably have brought a score of National Guards running up from the floor below; moreover, now that an alphabetical duty roster had been instituted, Roger could no longer arrange for Goret, or some other well-disposed colleague, to take duty with him. Back in March he had realised that as long as the new system was maintained there was not the faintest hope of carrying the child off, and at the first opportunity he had informed Mr. Pitt accordingly.

  Having made a martyr of Princess Elizabeth on the 10th of May, Robespierre set about preparing to make himself a High Priest. In the Comité he could count permanently only on his alter ego, the semi-paralysed Couthon, and his fiery young disciple, Saint-Just. Carnot and the four other members who devoted themselves to waging the foreign war maintained their unwritten pact of not interfering with him as long as he did not interfere with them, but he knew that none of them would lift a finger to save him if he were attacked. There remained Collot, Billaud and Barère. All three had allied themselves with him only as a measure of expediency, had only contempt for his fanatical incorruptibility, and were still Hébertists at heart. In seeking a way to destroy them he formed the conclusion that this could best be done through their atheism. The bulk of the French nation clearly felt the loss of the Church and craved for some form of religious expression, which the doctrine of Reason had failed to provide. Egged on by his own streak of mysticism and with the object of gaining popular support for an attack on his three secret enemies, he propounded and advocated, early in May, the general adoption of a new faith; the belief in immortality was to be restored, coupled with the worship of a “Supreme Being”, and an inaugural fête in honour of the new deity was fixed for the 8th of June.

  This announcement met with a most mixed reception. In the Convention the men of the Plain, now utterly cowed by Robespierre, slavishly applauded his proposals, but many of his old colleagues of the Mountain showed a stony disapproval. The very idea of religion was anathema to most of the terrorists, and it was equally lacking in appeal to the unscrupulous voluptuaries who had escaped being purged with the Dantonists. Nevertheless, so great had Robespierre’s ascendancy become that the measure was adopted, and the whole Convention turned out “by order” to attend this new Church Parade.

  The day was one of glorious sunshine, and the first part of the Fête de l’Étre Suprême was held in the Tuileries gardens. A group of huge wooden statues had been erected, representing Atheism surrounded by Vices and Folly and threatened by Wisdom. In gala attire the deputies, commissars, generals and officials all arrived with their ladies and took their places before a high rostrum. After a prolonged and much criticised delay Robespierre appeared, immaculate in a coat of violet silk with snowy ruffles, and carrying a bouquet; from the rostrum he made a long Rousseauesque oration, then set fire to the statue of Atheism, after which the whole assembly removed to the Champs de Mars, where hymns were sung and a salvo of artillery was fired to complete the celebration.

  The Great Terror had had the effect of destroying almost all social life in Paris, as the old rich who had so far escaped arrest no longer dared draw attention to themselves by entertaining, while the new masters mostly lived in lodgings and spent their evenings at the political clubs. The fête, therefore, proved something of an occasion, as the principal participants had all been bidden to bring their womenfolk to it.

  Roger and Athénaïs naturally lived as quietly as possible, but since his return to Paris they had been unable to prevent their “marriage” becoming known to a number of people; so they agreed that it would be dangerous for him not to take her to the fête with him. During it and after it he introduced her to a number of his acquaintances, and the ladies, most of whom had not met before, showed the liveliest interest in one another.

  Few such gatherings can ever have included so great a variety of the female species as the companions of the most important males. Robespierre lodged with the family of a carpenter named Duplaix, and brought the carpenter’s wife and three daughters; the mother was one of the infamous tricoteuses who daily screamed insults at the dying as they mounted the steps of the guillotine. At the other end of the scale was the beautiful Madame Tallien, the daughter of a millionaire and widow of a nobleman, who had become known as the “Angel of Bordeaux”. Tallien, Roger’s old colleague of the 10th of August, had been sent as Représentant en mission to purge Bordeaux after its Federalist rising. He had begun his task with the same ruthless energy as had been displayed by the Proconsuls sent to Lyons, Toulon and Nantes, but, on this statuesque and quite exceptionally lovely lady being brought before him as a prisoner, he had fallen in love with her, and they had married. At her supplication he had changed his policy for one of mercy, and she had been responsible for saving thousands of lives. Between these two extremes, there were many like the pimply little Madame Fouché, the daughter of well-to-do bourgeois parents, and pretty prostitutes who had been lifted to outward respectability by marrying deputies.

  Roger was careful to keep his opinions of the new worship to himself; but he listened with much interest to those of others, and many were scathing. Great resentment was felt at the way Robespierre had put himself above his colleagues, kept everyone waiting, and then taken the lead of the procession fifty paces ahead of the rest. The livery Billaud was openly quoting sinister tags of Latin about Caesar and Brutus; Collot condemned the proceedings with his usual foul oaths; Barras, who had returned from Toulon early in the year, laughed derisively at their “new Pope” and poked fun at the embarrassed Fouché, who, snivelling as ever from his perpetual cold, would now have given anything short of his corpse-like head for everyone to forget that only a few months ago he had been the leading exponent of Atheism. However, the multitude, ever optimistic but easily misled, rejoiced in the summer sunshine, taking this public acknowledgment of the Deity as a new sign that the Terror was to be brought to an end.

  How utterly mistaken they were was soon made apparent. Only two days later Robespierre produced the most infamous of all his decrees, which, by its date in the Revolutionary calendar, became known as the Law of 22nd Prairial. Its object was to eliminate the necessity of hearing witnesses who might speak in favour of the accused before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and to increase its scope so that a far greater number of victims could be brought before it. The Tribunal was split into four sections, with twelve judges and fifty permanent jurors all personally selected by Robespierre; secret denunciations were to be encouraged, and henceforth anyone accused could be condemned on written evidence, thus relieving his accuser from having to appear in court, and there was to be one penalty only—death.

  Day by day the Terror grew. The Law of 22nd Prairial brought denunciatio
ns pouring into Fouquier-Tinville’s letter-box. Officials denounced their seniors to usurp their places; creditors denounced their debtors; women whose lovers had been unfaithful denounced their rivals; heirs to property denounced their relatives; husbands denounced wives who had become a burden to them; school-children denounced their teachers. Apart from the most prominent Revolutionaries, no one any longer dare be seen in decent clothes; men went about unshaven, and women with their hair uncombed, rather than risk drawing attention to themselves; but no one went out now at all unless compelled to do so. People distrusted even their dearest friends and avoided talking to them. Business was at a standstill and Paris was near starvation. Scores of children were born prematurely owing to the shock caused to mothers whose husbands were torn from their arms. Sometimes, driven to distraction by often baseless fears, weak-minded individuals ran amok crying, “Vive le Roi!” in order to bring a swift end to their nightmares. Hundreds, worn out from weeks of apprehension, committed suicide. By night the streets were empty, yet people hardly dare sleep; the sound of a marching squad outside, or a knock on the door, aroused everyone within to agonising suspense. No one was safe, and once arrested there could be no hope of mercy. A woman in the Conciergerie whose name was called from the list for execution pleaded the last stages of pregnancy; her plea was ignored; she gave birth to a child in the gateway of the prison, was thrown into the tumbrel, and guillotined half an hour afterwards. Seven thousand people were crammed into the prisons of Paris and more buildings were being converted into prisons. In France over 200,000 people were held in prison awaiting death. In the Place St. Antoine, to which the guillotine had now been removed, a great conduit had to be dug to carry away the blood, and four men were needed to clean the channel daily so that this river of gore should not clot, but flow freely to the sewer.

  On the 28th of June Carnot again sent for Roger, and charged him with a new mission. The General had received information that the English contemplated a descent on Cherbourg, and he said:

  “Although your fears of an attack on Boulogne last March proved groundless, the measures you took there were most efficient; I wish you now to take similar steps at Cherbourg. News has just reached me that General Jourdan secured a great victory over Prince Coburg at Fleurus on the 25th, and the situation on our other battle-fronts is well in hand, but naturally I do not wish to withdraw troops from any of them to reinforce the Cherbourg area unless you consider it necessary. Make the best arrangements you can and remain there for some days to see that your orders are properly carried out, then return and report tome.”

  Reluctant as Roger was to leave Athénaïs, this new mission at least offered a means of easing his mind on one matter that had been worrying him. It was now over six weeks since a member of the League had been in Paris; so the transmission of a despatch to Mr. Pitt was considerably overdue. At no great distance off the direct road to Cherbourg lay the little fishing village of Grandcamp, and an inn near by used as a depot by the League. It would be easy for him to arrange matters so that he halted for the last night of his journey at Bayeux, gave his escort the slip, rode over to Grandcamp, and put his despatch into safe hands for early forwarding to England.

  Next morning, having assured Athénaïs that he would be back within a fortnight, he took a fond farewell of her, and set out for Normandy. The weather was perfect, and the one thing the Revolution had not been able to destroy was the beauty of the countryside; so before he had been long on his way he felt as though ten years of his age had dropped from him. His only regret was that he had not been able to take his beautiful mistress with him, so that she too might enjoy for a while release from the awful fear that hung like an invisible pall over the sultry capital.

  From Bayeaux he had no difficulty in making his midnight trip to Grandcamp and back unknown to any member of his escort; and the following evening, the 2nd of July, he arrived in Cherbourg. Having carried out a similar series of inspections to those he had conducted in Boulogne, and also visited the ships of the French squadron which was held there by the British blockade. The land defences proved fairly satisfactory, but the condition of the Fleet was deplorable. Nine-tenths of the officers who had served under the Monarchy in both the Army and Navy had been swept away by the Revolution, and while it had been possible to make new Army officers out of brave, intelligent men with reasonable rapidity, the Navy had presented a very different problem, as a lifetime of experience was needed for a man to be capable of sailing and fighting the bulging wooden fortresses carrying acres of canvas. In consequence, the officers jumped up by the Revolution, realising their inefficiency, lacked firmness and confidence, and their crews, knowing that, were semi-mutinous.

  Naturally, believing that the port might be attacked by the British Navy, Roger made a great deal of noise, but actually took no measures, other than those he could scarcely avoid, to strengthen its defences, and even managed to replace a few of the best officers by bad ones. On the 8th of July he set out on his return to Paris, arriving there on the evening of the 13th.

  His change had made him feel wonderfully well, and he was looking forward immensely to seeing Athénaïs again. In the hallway of La Belle Étoile he ran into Mère Blanchard, and, after greeting her gaily, he asked if his wife was in.

  The good dame stared at him, her eyes going round with surprise, then she clapped a hand over her mouth.

  “What ails you?” he cried in quick alarm; “there is naught wrong, I trust?”

  “Monsieur,” she stammered, “oh, Monsieur, did you not know? Your poor Madame was guillotined three days ago.”

  CHAPTER XXVII

  DEATH TO THE TYRANT

  Roger lay face down on the bed which for most of the past four months he had shared with Athénaïs. He was dry-eyed but mentally stunned, and as yet not fully capable of realizing his loss. Here, while fear stalked the streets outside, they had lain secure and happy; sometimes laughing and teasing, sometimes talking of that now dead world of beauty, grace and culture that they had known when young, sometimes exciting each other to new heights of voluptuous bliss, then snuggling close and lying utterly still in the supreme contentment of mutually satisfied passion.

  His face was buried in her pillow, on which there still lingered the scent that she dared to use only here, and then sparingly, in case it provoked comment by contrast with the simple, shabby clothes she always wore when going out. In his mental ear he could hear her soft, rich laugh while relating how she had fooled some stupid official, as she had so often done during her many months of courageous work with the League; in his mind’s eye he could see the graceful curve of her lithe body as she stooped to draw on a stocking. It seemed impossible, intolerable, unbearable, that her laugh should have been for ever silenced, her body for ever stilled, and her decapitated trunk carried away in a blood-spattered cart, with her lovely head thrust between her legs.

  For months past, arrests, tragedies, deaths had been taking place daily in every quarter of Paris, and she had often said that sooner or later their turn must come. Roger had never really believed that it would—yet now it had. How, he was not yet clear, except on the bare facts which placed her death beyond all doubt. Mère Blanchard knew only that Athénaïs had killed the Citizen Deputy Candalous, then given herself up for his murder. Even in Paris, satiated as it was with crime and violence, the assassination of a deputy had caused quite a sensation. That explained why Athénaïs had been brought before the Tribunal and sentenced without delay, instead of being left to wait her turn for a few weeks in prison; and the publicity given to the case left no vestige of hope that Mère Blanchard had been misled by some muddled rumour.

  Refusing all consolation, Roger had begged her in no circumstances to disturb him, and had fled upstairs to writhe alone under the lightning blow that the evil powers had dealt him. Dusty, dishevelled and still in his riding-clothes, he had flung himself down on the bed. For over four hours he had lain there almost without moving, telling himself over and over again that he wa
s not suffering from a nightmare but was wide awake, and that he must face the awful, shocking, agonising truth—his beautiful Athénaïs was dead and he would never hold her in his arms again.

  The summer night had fallen by the time he roused himself sufficiently to wonder how this frightful thing had come about. It occurred to him then that, through no fault of hers, something might have come out at her trial which made him suspect, and that possibly there was a warrant out for him. Since she had been passing as his wife that was highly likely. Now that the first shock was over his instincts urged him to get to the bottom of the matter, and he thought it probable that she had left some message for him.

  Sitting up, he lit a candle, then knelt down, reached under the bed and prised up a loose piece of floorboard. They used the hollow under it as a cache, in which to keep a reserve of money and leave notes for one another if some business was likely to prevent them from returning until later than usual. As that thought crossed his mind, with its heartrending sequel—that from the last business on which she had gone she would never return—tears started to his eyes and ran down his cheeks.

  He could feel some papers in the cache. Drawing them out, he wiped his eyes and peered at them through the wet mist that now bedewed his long lashes. They were several loose sheets covered with Athénaïs’s fine angular hand. She had written:

  Roger, my heart, we are undone. This morning, on going out, not far down the street, Pierre Candalous waylaid me. He addressed me ironically as Madame la Vicomtesse and asked me to accompany him to a café. Seeing that he had discovered the secret of my identity it was pointless to refuse to hear what he had to say. He told me that yesterday he had been walking with a friend recently arrived from Rennes, and that they had chanced to see me cross the Place du Louvre. The friend recognised me at once. He was in the old days our apothecary, and when I was Mademoiselle de Rochambeau I often bought from him scents, soaps and essences. He knew, too, of my trial last summer, and how, having condemned me to death, you stayed my execution because, so it was said, I had promised you some information about the risings in La Vendée. He had supposed that you had carried me off to Nantes and that I was still a prisoner there, or more probably one of Carrier’s victims; but he and Candalous soon put two and two together. They are, fortunately, unaware that we had ever met before, but assume that, having taken a fancy to me, you brought me to Paris as your mistress. You can guess what followed; Candalous requires me to come to live with him as the price of his silence, otherwise he threatens to denounce us both—myself as an aristocrat already condemned to death, and you for having given me your protection while knowing full well that I was a condemned enemy of the Revolution. I temporized with him; reluctantly he consented to give me until tomorrow, but he holds me on a chain. He told me that should I seek to escape him by flight he will denounce you on your return, and reminded me that Hérault de Sechelles was sent to the guillotine for the same crime as that of which you will stand accused. Roger, I am in despair. I know not what to do.