Читать книгу The Greatest Historical Novels - Рафаэль Сабатини - Страница 48

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Wondering if his own attendance was either necessary or desirable, but yielding to Monsieur de Kercadiou's gentle insistence, André-Louis found himself in a spacious pillared room that was lighted by very tall windows. A beam of pallid sunshine, breaking through heavy clouds, touched into vividness the colours of the soft Aubusson carpet, glinted on the profuse gildings against their white background, and sparkled in the great crystal chandelier that hung from the painted ceiling.

In a gilded armchair, from either side of which a flock of courtiers of both sexes was spread fanwise athwart the chamber, André-Louis observed a portly, florid man in the middle thirties, dressed in grey velvet finely laced in gold with the blue ribbon of the Holy Ghost across his breast.

Without having yet reached the pronounced obesity of his brother, Louis XVI, which in time he was to exceed, the Count of Provence already showed every sign of the same tendency. He had the big Bourbon nose, a narrow brow, whence his face widened downwards to a flabby double chin, and the full, excessively curling lips of the sensualist. The blue eyes were full and fine under heavy, smoothly arching eyebrows. He had a look of alertness without intelligence, of importance without dignity. Observing him, André-Louis read him accurately for stupid, obstinate, and vain.

The slight woman in white-and-blue sarcenet with the pumpkin headdress, hovering on his right, was the Countess of Provence. At no time attractive, her countenance now almost repelled by its sneering air of discontent. The younger woman on his left, who, if also without conspicuous beauty of features, was agreeably formed and of a lively expression, was the Countess of Balbi, his recognized mistress.

Monsieur de Plougastel led his countess forward. Monsieur inclined his powdered head, mumbling a greeting, his eyes dull. They quickened, however, when Mademoiselle de Kercadiou was presented. They seemed to glow as they took stock of her delicate golden loveliness, and the curl of the gross lips was increased into a smile.

'We give you welcome, mademoiselle. Soon we shall hope to welcome you to a worthier court, such as you were born to grace.'

Mademoiselle curtsied again with a murmured 'Monseigneur,' and would have withdrawn but that he detained her.

It was amongst his vanities to conceive himself something of a poet, and he chose now to be poetical.

How was it possible, he desired to know, that so fair a bloom from the garden of French nobility should never yet have come to adorn the court?

She answered him with commendable composure that five years ago, under the sponsorship of her uncle, Étienne de Kercadiou, she had spent some months at Versailles.

His Highness protested his annoyance with himself and Fate that he should have been unaware of this. He desired Heaven to inform him how such a thing should ever have come to pass. And then he spoke of her uncle Étienne, whom he had so greatly esteemed and whose death he had never ceased to deplore. In this he was truthful enough. There was a weakness in him which made him ever seek to lean upon some particular person in his following, rendering a favourite as much a necessity to him as a mistress. For a time this place had been filled by Étienne de Kercadiou, who, had he lived, might have continued to fill it, for Monsieur had this virtue, that he was loyal and steadfast in his friendships.

He detained her yet a while in aimless talk, whilst those about him, perceiving here no more than an exhibition of gallantry in a man whose callow ambition it was ever to appear in the guise of a gallant, grew impatient for the news from Paris which was expected from the men accompanying her.

Madame smiled sourly, and whispered in the ear of her reader, the elderly Madame de Gourbillon. The Countess of Balbi smiled too; but it was the indulgent, humorous smile of a woman who, if without illusions, is also without bitterness.

In the immediate background the Lord of Gavrillac waited with his hands behind him, nodding his great head, the light of satisfaction on his rugged pock-marked countenance to see his niece honoured by so much royal notice. At his side André-Louis stood stiff and grim, inwardly damning the impudence with which his Highness smirked and leered at Aline before the entire court. It was, he supposed, within the exercise of a royal prerogative to be reckless of what scandal he might cause.

It may have resulted from this that when at last the Lord of Gavrillac, having been presented and required to announce the latest news from Paris, begged leave to depute the task to his godson, there sprang from André-Louis's resentment a self-possession so hard and cold as to be almost ruffling to the feelings of those present.

His bow in acknowledgement of Monsieur's nod was scarcely more than perfunctory. Then erect, the lean, keen face impassive, his voice metallic, he delivered the brutal news without any softening terms.

'A week yesterday, on the tenth of the month, the populace of Paris, goaded to frenzy by the manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick and driven to terror by the news of a foreign army already on the soil of France, turned with the blind ferocity of an animal at bay. It stormed the Palace of the Tuileries and massacred to a man the Swiss Guard and the gentlemen who had remained there to defend the person of his Majesty.'

An outcry of horror interrupted him. Monsieur had heaved himself to his feet. His countenance had lost much of its high colour.

'And the King?' he quavered. 'The King?'

'His Majesty and the royal family found shelter under the protection of the National Assembly.'

An awed silence ensued, broken presently by Monsieur's impatience.

'What else, sir? What else?'

'The Sections of Paris appear to be at present the masters of the State. It is doubtful if the National Assembly can stand against them. They control the populace. They direct its fury into such channels as seems best to them.'

'And that is all you know, sir? All you can tell us?'

'That is all, Monseigneur.'

The large prominent eyes continued to survey him, if without hostility, without kindliness.

'Who are you, sir? What is your name?'

'Moreau, Highness. André-Louis Moreau.'

It was a plebeian name, awakening no memories in that elegant, frivolous world of woefully short memories.

'Your condition, sir?'

For Kercadiou, Aline, and Madame de Plougastel the moment was charged with suspense. It was so easy for André-Louis to avoid, as they hoped, full revelation. But he showed himself contemptuous of subterfuge.

'Until lately, until a week ago, I represented the Third Estate of Ancenis in the National Assembly.'

He felt rather than perceived the horrified, inward recoil from him of every person present.

'A patriot!' said Monsieur, much as he might have said 'a pestilence.'

Monsieur de Kercadiou came breathlessly to his godson's rescue. 'Ah, but, Monsieur, one who has seen the error of his ways. One who is now proscribed. He has sacrificed everything to his sense of duty to me, his godfather. He has rescued Madame de Plougastel, my niece, and myself from that shambles.'

Monsieur looked at the Lord of Gavrillac, at the Countess of Plougastel, and, lastly, at Aline. He found Mademoiselle de Kercadiou's glance full of intercession, and it seemed to soften him.

'You would add, mademoiselle?' he invited gently.

She was troubled. 'Why ... why, only that considering his sacrifice, I hope that Monsieur Moreau will deserve well of your Highness. He cannot now return to France.'

Monsieur inclined his fleshly head. 'We will remember that only. That we are in his debt for this. It will lie with Monsieur Moreau to make it possible for us in the time that is fast approaching to discharge this debt.'

André-Louis said nothing. In the hostile eyes that were bent upon him from every side, his calm seemed almost insolent. Yet two eyes in that assembly considered him with interest and without hostility. They belong to a stiffly built man of middle height and not more than thirty years of age, plainly dressed without fripperies: a man with a humorous mouth above an aggressive chin, and a prominent nose flanked by lively, quick-moving dark eyes under heavy brows.

Presently, when the court had broken into groups to discuss this dreadful news from Paris, and André-Louis, ignored, had withdrawn into one of the window embrasures, this man approached him. He carried a three-cornered hat with a white cockade, tucked under his right arm. His left hand rested on the steel hilt of his slim sword.

He came to a halt before André-Louis.

'Ah, Monsieur Moreau! Or is it Citizen Moreau?'

'Why, which you please, monsieur,' said André-Louis, alert.

'"Monsieur" will accord better with our environment.' He spoke with a soft, slurred accent, almost like a Spaniard, thus proclaiming his Gascon origin. 'Once, unless my memory betrays me, you were better known by yet another title: The Paladin of the Third Estate, was it not?'

André-Louis was not abashed. 'That was in '89, at the time of the spadassinicides.'

'Ah!' The Gascon smiled. 'Your admission is of a piece with the rest. I am of those who can admire gallantry wherever found. I love a gallant enemy as I loathe a flabby friend.'

'You have also a taste for paradox.'

'If you will. You made me regret that I was not a member of the Constituent Assembly, so that I might have crossed blades with you when you made yourself the militant champion of the Third Estate.'

'You are tired of life?' said André-Louis, who began to mistrust the gentleman's motives.

'On the contrary, mon petit. I love life so intensely that I must be getting its full savour; and that is only to be got when it is placed in hazard. Without that' ... he shrugged, '... as well might one be born an ox.'

The declaration, thought André-Louis, was one that went excellently with the man's accent.

'You are from Gascony, monsieur,' he said.

Mock gravity overspread the other's intrepid countenance. 'Po' Cap de Diou!' he swore as if to leave no doubt on the score of his origin. 'Now that is an innuendo.'

'I am always accommodating. It is to help you on your way.'

'On my way? But on my way to what, name of God?'

'To live intensely by the thrill of placing your life in hazard.'

'You suppose that that is what I seek?' The Gascon laughed shortly. He fell to fanning himself with his hat. 'Almost you put me in a heat, sir.' He smiled. 'I see the train of thought: this enemy camp; the general hostility to your opinions overriding even the generous thing you have done. There is no graciousness at court, sir, as any fool may perceive once his eyes cease to be dazzled by the superficial glitter. You gather that I am no man of courts. Let me add that I am certainly not the bully-lackey of any party. I desired, sir, to become acquainted with you. That is all. I am a monarchist to the marrow of my bones, and I detest your republican principles. Yet I admired your championship of the Third even more than I abhorred the cause you championed. Paradoxical, as you say. I am like that. You bore yourself as I should have wished to bear myself in your place. Where the devil is the paradox after all?'

André-Louis was brought to the point of laughter. 'You meet my stupidity with graciousness, sir.'

'Pish! I am not gracious. I but desire our better acquaintance. My name is de Batz; Colonel Jean de Batz, Baron of Armanthieu, by Gontz, which is in Gascony, as you have guessed. Though how the devil you guessed it, God alone knows.'

Monsieur de Kercadiou was ambling towards them. The Baron made a leg, valedictorily. 'Monsieur!'

And 'Serviteur!' said André-Louis, with an answering courtesy.