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Chapter 1

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In the days before the Revolution put an end to all the privileges enjoyed by this sacrosanct caste M. le Marquis de la Villorée lived in his château and in his palace in Paris with the pomp and splendour of a royal court. He had servants and retainers, and an army of sycophants around him; when he drove along the roads of Normandy all heads were uncovered—even that of the parish priest—until his carriage had gone by.

Then came the Revolution, and with it the sudden shattering of every illusion of privilege or prerogative. The noble dukes and marquises were rudely awakened from their dream and made to understand that neither their fortunes nor their possessions were secured to them by divine ordinance, and that if they refused to bow their necks to the dictates of this new tyrannical democracy, their lives would pay the price of their arrogance. Noble heads, heads of King, Queen, princes, dukes and countless aristocrats fell beneath the knife of the guillotine like golden ears beneath a labourer’s scythe.

Warned by an anonymous friend of the imminence of arrest on a trumped-up charge of treason, M. le Marquis de Marillac de la Villorée on one evening seven years ago packed hastily together a few necessities, and at dead of night was luckily able to make the coast and there embark on an English ship which took him safely across the Channel. Since then he had lived in exile partly in England, partly in Belgium. A few scattered bits of his once colossal fortune being invested in foreign countries, he was able to render a few minor financial services to his exiled King, and more than one small debt owing by the French royal family to tradespeople in England was paid by M. le Marquis de Marillac.

He had not seen his wife and children for over seven years. Madame la Marquise, with her daughter and two sons, had chosen to remain at La Villorée and never yielded to the temptation of joining her husband in exile. Strong-willed and almost insanely loyal to the monarchical cause in France, she was convinced that within a very little while the forces of law and of tradition would triumph over those of organised murder, outrage and anarchy, and she felt it her duty to remain on the spot among her own people, her husband’s retainers, ready to share their poverty, as well as the many dangers which threatened them through their unswerving loyalty to the cause of the Bourbon kings. She knew well enough that by so doing she risked not only her own life but that of her children, but Mme. la Marquise could be counted more valorous than the Mother of the Gracchi, and certainly more fanatical, for she looked upon René and Alain and even Félise as instruments fashioned by God for the sole purpose of aiding the royal cause.

So she stayed on at La Villorée after most of her kindred and friends had shaken the dust of their country from their shoes. Strangely enough, the tigers of the Revolution passed her by. Once or twice she was molested, threatened even, but it never came to an arrest or the menace of the guillotine—probably because she did not care enough.

“If my death should help the cause of our King,” she had said more than once, “how gladly would I die!”

And she meant every word she said.

Selfless, dignified, and solitary save for the companionship of her children, her life was spent in hoping, always hoping that God would tire one day of the wickedness of men and open their eyes to the dictates of His will, which was nothing else but the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. She had seen the overthrow of the worst elements of the Revolution, and at the death of Robespierre and his murderous crowd her hopes rose to their giddiest heights, but five years had gone by since then, and the rightful King of France was still biding his time over in England. An abominable usurper named Napoleon Bonaparte, the bourgeois son of an obscure Corsican attorney, had now the pretension to rule France, and with his arms, his police and his spies to suppress any attempt at fighting for God and the rightful King. He was the idol of the people, styled Chief Consul of the Republic, and had the impudence to try and correspond on terms of equality with the King of England.

Mme. de Marillac spent her days turning to God in her despair and sighing: “How long, O Lord? How long?”

But she did all she could to infuse patience in all those hotheads in her own district who were for ever plotting to murder Bonaparte, to rise en masse against his tyranny, to march on Paris, to enter, in fact, in a hundred mad schemes for the overthrow of the new tyrant.

“The time is not yet,” Madame would declare in her quiet, resolute voice. “How can a lot of ignorant and undisciplined peasants wage war against the greatest military genius of all times who has conquered Italy and brought the proud Austrians to their knees?”

“Our men are burning with enthusiasm,” the leaders of the irregular bands of royalists would try to argue, “and enthusiasm is worth—”

“Nothing,” Madame would break in in her own authoritative way, “without some money and sound leadership.”

She didn’t care if it was Georges Cadoudal himself to whom she said this—Cadoudal who had raised an army in Vendée and in Brittany in the King’s cause. She had her own way of thinking and was always sure that she was right.

“If only we could induce the Duc de Berry to come over. He would put such confidence into the hearts of our men.”

This was Jacques Cottereau’s pet scheme, and Cottereau stood very high in Cadoudal’s councils. He wished to induce the Duc de Berry—own nephew to the uncrowned King of France and heir to his throne—to leave the security of Hartwell and English hospitality and to take command of these irregular troops in Normandy and Brittany, which he, Cottereau, along with Cadoudal and Pichegru, was raising with a view to waging guerrilla warfare against Bonaparte.

“You will never induce Monseigneur to come over,” Madame declared, “save at the head of disciplined troops. It is for this that M. le Marquis and all loyal adherents of our King are working at this moment. To precipitate events now would be madness.”

Cottereau protested with great vehemence.

“Madness? Madness? In Heaven’s name, why madness?”

“Because in Heaven’s name,” Madame replied coolly, “it is the will of His Majesty himself that we should do nothing without his sanction. And you know quite well, my good Jacques, that His Majesty is all against dragging our poor ignorant country-folk from their villages, and sending them back, starving, a year or two later, back to their miserable homes where in the meanwhile their wives and children would probably have perished from want. I am quoting you His Majesty’s own words in his last letter to me. Men must eat, you know, Cottereau. How are you going to feed your army?”

“We’d soon find means,” Cottereau declared sullenly.

“Oh, I know!” Madame retorted again; “by highway robbery, robbing mail-coaches, by murder and intimidation. Not that I object to killing and robbing Bonaparte’s adherents, who are infamous traitors to their country and their King, any more than I object to shooting a mad dog, or putting my heel on an adder’s head, but His Majesty dislikes those methods, and we must conform to his will.”

“Will you change your mind, Madame,” Cottereau argued, “if I induce Monseigneur to come over?”

“If I get my orders from His Majesty, or from Monseigneur the Duc de Berry, I will obey, of course,” Madame responded coldly. “But you are talking nonsense, Cottereau. Monseigneur, thank God! is in England—”

Cottereau gave a short, derisive laugh.

“And do you really think me such a weakling, Madame, that I could not find the means of landing in England if I chose?”

“I think,” Madame retorted coldly, though not quite so unkindly as before, “that you are capable of devising any mad scheme if you set your mind to it. All I can hope is that if you do succeed in landing in England, Monseigneur will be wise enough not to listen to you. I know His Majesty won’t.”

“We shall see,” Cottereau murmured in the end.

After which Madame rose, intimating that the interview was at an end.

Jacques Cottereau took his leave. It were impossible to guess from his sullen, glowering face what were his thoughts as he strode down the palatial staircase of the Château de la Villorée.

At the foot of the stairs he was met by René de Marillac, Madame’s elder son, a lad not more than eighteen. He had been present at a part of the interview between his mother and Jacques Cottereau. At a critical moment he had tiptoed out of the room, because he wanted to have a private word with this man. With glowing eyes he had drunk in every word that Cottereau had spoken, for René Vicomte de Marillac was only a boy, and his dreary life in the old château irked him. He had all a boy’s longing for excitement and adventure; he longed to shoulder a musket, to manoeuvre, to march and to plan; he wanted to take his share of all the glory which he felt awaited those who went forth into the world to fight for their country and their King.

He waited down in the hall till Cottereau came downstairs and Madame la Marquise was safely out of the way. Then he sidled up to the man and held out his slender hand to him, looking straight into the glowering face with the sullen-looking eyes and the unkempt beard, and said in a voice quivering with emotion:

“Remember, Jacques, that I am ready to follow you anywhere when duty and our King call me. I am only a boy, but I can shoot straight—”

He wanted to say more, but sobs had risen to his throat—and, boy-like, he would have been ashamed of tears—so without waiting for a reply he turned abruptly and ran quickly up the stairs.

Cottereau watched him for a moment with a queer expression in his deep-sunken eyes; then he shrugged his broad shoulders and went his way.