On arriving at the Embassy, he learned that no British Ambassador was at present accredited to the Court of Vienna, but that for the past ten months, a Mr. Robert Adair had been en poste there as Minister Plenipotentiary. Giving his name as John Hickson, Roger said that he was a British subject, and would be grateful if the Minister would grant him a very brief interview on a very urgent matter.
After a wait of some ten minutes, Roger was piloted by a portly major-domo up a flight of broad, marble stairs and into a lofty, square room with much gilt decoration. Behind a large desk a middle-aged man with bushy side-whiskers was sitting. As Roger entered, he stood up. They exchanged bows, then he asked:
‘What can I do for you, Mr. Hickson?’
Roger produced his letter and replied, ‘I have only a simple request to make, Sir; that you will despatch this missive by safe hand at the earliest possible opportunity to Mr. Canning.’
Mr. Adair raised a pair of thick, arched eyebrows and said, ‘It is not usual practice for us to transmit private correspondence; but as your letter is to the Minister of Foreign Affairs … May I enquire if you are aquainted with him?’
‘No, Sir,’ Roger lied glibly. ‘But its contents will, I am sure, be of considerable interest to him.’
The Minister waved Roger to a chair. ‘Perhaps you would be good enough to tell me why you think so.’
As Roger sat down, he smiled and said, ‘I did not wish to take your valuable time and bore you, Sir, with particulars about myself. But, since you wish, this is my situation. I am the head of one of the concerns that have their quarters in a large compound termed “The English Factory” in St. Petersburg. Our principal trade is in furs, and one of our best markets is Budapest. Recently I had occasion to go thither. I am fluent in several languages, so while travelling through the area occupied by the French Army, I passed myself off as a German. One evening, while dining at an inn in East Prussia, there were three French officers, obviously of high rank, dining at an adjacent table. As I had been talking to the waiter in German, they must have assumed that I was unacquainted with their language, so they talked quite freely. They were discussing a plan of the Emperor Napoleon’s which could cause considerable harm to the Allied cause. So I thought it my duty to send word of it to our Foreign Secretary.’
‘Indeed!’ Mr. Adair’s interest had visibly increased. ‘But is there any reason why you should not disclose it to me?’
‘None, Sir. But as it concerns the Near East, there is naught that you can do to thwart this project here in Vienna, so I thought it more practical to send the information direct to Mr. Canning.’
The Minister remained thoughtful for a moment, then he said:
‘Since you take that view, I will not press you. But it is evident, Mr. Hickson, that you are a superior person, capable of forming judgments on international affairs—and very conscious of your duty to your country. I should like to talk further with you, so I should be happy if you would remain to luncheon.’
Roger stood up, laid his letter on the desk, smiled and bowed. ‘I am honoured by your invitation, Sir, and would be delighted to accept it. Yet I must reluctantly decline, because I have come a hundred and forty miles out of my way in order to get this letter sent to London; and, for business reasons, I must return as speedily as possible to Budapest. I plan to set out this afternoon.’
They parted cordially, and Roger felt there was a good possibility of his having achieved his object. No one would ever know that Mr. Roger Brook, or Colonel le Chevalier de Breuc, had visited Vienna. He had been averse to disclosing the contents of his letter to Mr. Adair, in case, through him or his staff, it got out prematurely that the English were aware of Napoleon’s schemes regarding Turkey and Persia. Even should Adair have the letter steamed open, or it fall into wrong hands on its way to London, at least he had protected himself from becoming known as its author.
On leaving the Embassy he spent an hour and a half wandering round the older part of the city, paid an all-too-brief visit to the magnificent Stefans Kirk, then went into the shop of a goldsmith in the Kohlmarkt.
While on his way from Warsaw he had spent a considerable amount of time debating with himself how he should proceed when he reached Constantinople. Having sent his letter to Canning, he had small hopes of doing anything further to thwart Napoleon’s plans; but he was anxious to have a source of information about how negotiations were proceeding, independent of what Gardane might tell him and, if possible, learn what view the Turks really took of the General’s proposals. This could differ considerably from that Gardane might optimistically assume, owing to the traditional duplicity of Orientals.
Given luck, Roger thought he might achieve direct communication with the Sultan’s advisers; but, as an opening move, he would have to produce a handsome present. So, at the goldsmith’s, he bought a pair of not very tall, but charmingly-designed gold candlesticks.
Soon after midday he lunched at the Double Eagle and, reluctant as he was to leave Vienna without seeing more of that fine city, immediately afterwards paid his reckoning and started on his return journey. By evening he reached Pressburg, where he had had a meal and dozed for a while the previous afternoon; dined and slept there. That left him only a hundred miles to cover the next day. On the evening of the 22nd, he was back in Budapest.
After a good night’s sleep, he retrieved the uniform he had left with the landlord of the Turk’s Head; then, with the financial circumspection he had inherited from his Scottish mother, he settled his bill by making over to the man the civilian clothes that had been procured for him.
His next move was to transfer himself to another hostelry, the Brave Magyar, in order to decrease the chance that any member of Gardane’s mission should learn that he had procured civilian clothes and been absent for three days from Budapest.
The first time he had arrived, he had gone straight to bed, and had not even left the hotel until four o’clock the following morning, so he had seen little of the city. With the best part of a day at his disposal, he now took the opportunity to be driven round it. As he was already aware, it was in fact two cities: on the right bank of the three-hundred-yard-wide Danube, Buda; and the left bank, Pest.
In the latter he found little to interest him, as it was a flat, mainly commercial area, with a population containing a high percentage of German Jews, by whose industries the Hungarian State was largely supported; since well-born Magyars considered it beneath their dignity to engage in trade. But the right bank sloped steeply upward, and was crowned by scores of palatial mansions: the town houses of the Hungarian Magnates. Low, rounded arches on the street side gave entrance to their courtyards, and it was evident that the windows in the main frontages all had lovely views over the swiftly-flowing river.
The rounded arches recalled to Roger that, in ancient times, the Danube had been the frontier of the Roman Empire, and Ofen, as the Buda hill had then been called, an important bastion garrisoned by a Roman legion against the barbarous Scythians. Thus, as in the case of France and England, unlike the German lands, Hungary had benefited from the legacy left by that great ancient civilisation.
Rising high above the maze of narrow, cobbled streets that gave entrance to the many mansions, stood out on one side the Royal Palace, built by the Empress Maria Thérèsa in the middle of the past century; and on the other the two-hundred-and-fifty-foot-high steeple of the thirteenth-century Matthias Church. Further on in that direction, Roger came to the Fisher bastion and there left his carriage to look down on the splendid panorama that it offered. Below him on the far bank, like a mottled carpet, spread the innumerable roofs of Pest, to the left the Danube broadened out and divided to encircle the Margareten Insel—a lovely well-wooded island—that his German driver told him was a private estate of one of the Austrian Archdukes.
That night Roger went to bed well content. He had not only successfully completed his self-imposed mission, but had seen enough of Budapest to cause Gardane to believe that he had spent several days
there.
His calculations about the progress of the mission proved near the mark, as it reached Budapest in mid-morning on the following day. The arrival of such a numerous cavalcade of French troops could not go unremarked. Having asked to be informed of it, Roger learned that it had taken up its quarters at the Jägerhorn: one of the biggest hostelries in Pest; so he at once drove there and reported to the General.
Over a gargantuan meal of traditional Hungarian dishes: corn on the cob; a succulent fish from Lake Balaton; chicken cooked in paprika; roast goose breasts and a great pâté of goose livers, Roger regaled Gardane and the other officers with an account of the delights to be enjoyed in the city. They listened with envy and a certain sourness that they were to spend only one night there; for Gardane had already learned from the French agent, to whom his advance courier had been sent, that fully-provisioned boats were waiting to transport the mission down the Danube. As an unnecessary delay might have been reported to the Emperor and brought down his wrath, the General had no option but to decree that they must all go aboard the following morning.
After the privations they had suffered in Poland and their dreary eight-day journey from Warsaw, they naturally spent a riotous night; so it was a sorry crew of bleary-eyed, mumbling men who reluctantly assembled on the wharf.
Three commodious barges had been provided: two in which the officers and their servants were to travel, and the third for their grooms and horses. Below decks, in the barges for the personnel, there were small cabins for the seniors, bunks for the others and accommodation for messing and sitting about during bad weather. The barges were fitted with masts and sails, and in their forepart horses were stabled, to be put ashore and tow them whenever the wind dropped.
With these aids, they made good progress as, instead of having to stop for the night at inns, they slept aboard while the barges continued steadily downriver. The only halts they made were for an hour or so at small towns, to buy chickens, geese, eggs and fresh vegetables. In consequence, they averaged well over eighty miles a day and, on May 1st, arrived at the small town of Cernavada. From there it was no more than twenty-five miles to the considerable port of Constanza, on the Black Sea; whereas at that point the Danube curved north for a hundred miles up to Galeti, on the border of Moldavia, and only then turned east, to meander for yet another hundred miles through lakes and marshes until at last, by several mouths, the great river emptied itself into the sea.
That night they slept in a big caravanserai and, for the first time, savoured fully the sights and smells of the East; as, although they were still in Europe, Rumania was a Turkish province. Next day, they rode to Constanza and, the weather being fine, enjoyed the change after being cooped up for a week on a barge, with nothing to do but lounge about on deck, or play cards. But, soon after they reached the port, they met with the first setback on their journey. Their Turkish interpreter informed the General that, on enquiry, he had learned that no ship large enough to carry them and their horses would be available to charter for some days.
Cursing their luck that this hold-up should have occurred in a dirty, dreary little seaport, composed mainly of ram shackle, wooden buildings, instead of in gay and beautiful Budapest, they did their best to while away the time.
On their second evening there the local Pasha, who ruled the place from an ancient, half-ruined castle, entertained them; but the party proved a dull affair. He could speak only Turkish, and few of Gardane’s officers knew more than some sentences in that language which those of them who had served under Napoleon on his Egyptian campaign had picked up at the time.
Roger was the exception, as he had become fairly fluent in it during the months that the beautiful Zanthé had been his mistress; but he remained as mum as the others, having decided that it might later prove a useful card up his sleeve to understand remarks made in Turkish while he was believed to be ignorant of it. In consequence, the sole conversation consisted of their interpreter passing on to Gardane what the Pasha said, and vice versa.
The food served was strange to the French: some dishes were so highly spiced that it brought tears to their eyes, and they found eating it while sitting cross-legged on low divans very uncomfortable. Most disappointing of all, no dancing girls were produced, only a small band that played weird, discordant music. As early as they decently could, after many compliments exchanged through their interpreter, they bowed themselves out, and returned to the caravanserai.
Gardane had been labouring under the illusion that the officers he was to leave in Turkey to instruct the Turks in the use of modern weapons had been picked because they were capable of at least making themselves understood in Turkish. Much annoyed by the revelation they they would prove next to useless, he decreed that henceforth they must spend several hours each day receiving instruction in the language from the interpreter. Roger, although not obliged to, sat in on these sessions, as it was seven years since he had parted from Zanthé, and he had forgotten much of the Turkish he had learned from her. To all appearances he proved a poor pupil, but listening in greatly refreshed his memory.
The only enjoyment the members of the mission derived from their stay in Constanza was the lovely sunshine; but that was more than offset by the irritation inflicted on them by lice and bedbugs. Much to their relief, on their fourth day in the port, a good-sized vessel had been chartered to take them on to Constantinople.
On the 5th May they went aboard and set sail. Roger hated travelling by sea as, in rough weather, he was always seasick, and the quarters below deck were cramped and uncomfortable. Luckily for him, the weather continued clement, although now and then the winds were unfavourable so it took nine days for the ship to cross the south-western bight of the Black Sea. But during the voyage the lessons in Turkish were continued; so by the time they entered the Bosphorus his knowledge of the language had returned to such a degree that he felt confident that he would have no difficulty at all in conversing easily in it.
All agreed on the beauty of the scene as the ship ploughed her way down the narrow waters that, between high hills, separate Europe from Asia. Then, on the afternoon of May 14th, when she entered the Golden Horn and berthed at Pera, they gazed with awe at the splendid spectacle presented by Seraglio Point on the opposite side.
Beyond a high wall on the shore of the promontory there sloped up terraced gardens and groups of tall cypresses to the scores of pavilions that formed the Palace of the Sultan. Above them and further inland, the domes of great mosques and towering minarets stood out against the azure sky.
For those of them possessed of imagination, it was fascinating to think that there, across the narrow strip of water, lay Stamboul, the site two thousand years before of a Greek colony, then, after the fall of Rome, the fabled Byzantium, for a thousand years the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and for the past four hundred the seat of power from which its Turkish conquerors still ruled an Empire that was in extent twenty times the size of any European Kingdom.
Immediately the ship docked, Gardane sent two of his officers ashore with the interpreter to the French Embassy. They returned with the Ambassador, General Sebastiani. He was then thirty-five, a man of splendid physique, extraordinarily handsome and known throughout the Army for his unfailing charm and good humour. To the amazement of Roger, Gardane and several other members of the mission who were acquainted with him, he appeared to have aged ten years. His face was furrowed, his eyes lacked lustre and he approached them with a dejected stoop.
It occurred to Roger that the Ambassador must have caught the plague, with which from time to time Constantinople was afflicted, and was only now recovering; but Sebastiani’s first words explained his sad condition. To Gardane he said:
‘General, I am in a poor state to welcome you and these gentlemen. A few weeks ago, my beloved wife, Fanny, gave birth to a child. Soon after she fell victim to a deadly fever, and I lost her. This bereavement has stricken me utterly. I am a changed man and no longer fit for anything. My only wish is to retur
n as soon as possible to France and be left alone with my grief. I have remained here awaiting your arrival only so that I might present you to the Sultan.’
After they had expressed their deep sympathy, he led them ashore and had them carried in palanquins up the steep hill to the Embassy. Spacious as it was, formerly having been a Pasha’s palace, it was not large enough to accommodate them all; but, having been warned by fast courier of the mission’s coming, Sebastiani had rented two houses nearby for the junior officers. Gardane, Roger, Couthon, Ladue, Rideau and the Ambassador’s old travelling companion Montdallion, were to be his personal guests. After partaking of refreshments and being given ample time to settle into their new quarters, the officers staying in the Embassy went down to dine with the Ambassador. He had obviously made an effort to pull himself together and, over the meal, gave them particulars of the situation in Constantinople. Looking at Gardane, he said:
‘About the possibilities of your success in Persia I can give no opinion; but here everything favours your aims.
‘Very fortunately for us, the English blundered badly last winter by forcing the Dardanelles and threatening Constantinople. The Turks were outraged and, urged on by me, dragged every cannon they could lay their hands on to the waterfront, in order to bombard the English Fleet. Finding themselves outgunned, the Fleet beat an ignominious retreat. The British Ambassador, the Hon. Charles Arbuthnot, having been informed that he was persona non grata, received his passports and departed to join the Fleet off Tenedos. Since then there has been no representative here of the Court of St. James, so you need fear no opposition.’
Roger had anticipated that this would probably be the case. It confirmed his assumption that he could secure no help or advice, and must act entirely on his own initiative.
Meanwhile, Sebastiani was going on. ‘Contrary to the belief of most people, the Sultan is by no means all-powerful. Selim III was exceptionally fortunate in that, unlike his predecessors for many years past, he was not kept a prisoner for the whole of his young manhood. In consequence, he has a much greater knowledge of statecraft and international relationships than would otherwise have been the case.
Evil in a Mask Page 14