Читать книгу The Greatest Historical Novels - Рафаэль Сабатини - Страница 89

Table of Contents

De Batz spent the morning at the Tuileries with the Citizen Sévignon, as La Guiche was known to those with whom he had any acquaintance there. They employed the time in doing what was possible to influence the release of the Chevalier de Pomelles. But their efforts promised little success. Lavicomterie, upon whom de Batz was chiefly depending, pronounced the case a dangerous one in which to meddle. The evidence before the Committee of Public Safety was, he understood, of an overwhelming nature, and it had been examined by Saint-Just whose blood-thirst would hardly suffer the unfortunate agent's escape. Still, cautiously, Lavicomterie would see what could be done.

Sénard, the secretary of the Committee, that other valuable secret associate of the Baron's, also promised to do anything that might be safely possible. But in his view, as in Lavicomterie's, Saint-Just was the insurmountable obstacle.

'Well, well!' said de Batz. 'At least delay Pomelles's trial. We shall see what the next few days will bring forth.'

To La Guiche, as they stepped down into the chill damp of the gardens, he was more explicit. 'If we can gain a few days, all should be well, for in a few days the obstacle will have been removed.'

Nevertheless, it was in no state of elation that the two came back to the Rue de Ménars for the midday meal. They found André-Louis seated before the fire, which was now burning low, his foot upon the brass fender, his elbow on his knee, his chin in his hand. He turned his head, and showed them a face that was grey and drawn with pain, the face of a man who had suddenly aged. Having seen who came, he resumed his contemplation of the fire.

De Batz went to set a hand upon his shoulder. 'Come, André. Leave brooding. I know it hurts. But you must take heart. There are things to do that will shift your thoughts from your own wrongs. That will help.'

'There is nothing more for me to do. I have finished.'

'That is what you feel now. The blow is heavy. But your youth will lend you the strength to bear it. Turn your mind to other things. Oh, I know my world, André. I am a deal older than you, and I have not lived quite in vain, or without coming into some knowledge of the human heart. Distraction is what you need, and there is no distraction like work.'

André-Louis stared up at him and laughed. It was an expression of pain. 'Work? What work?'

'Why, the work that lies before us. I have sent for Desmoulins, he should have been here by now. When he comes ...'

André-Louis interrupted him.

'I have finished, I tell you. Finished with king-making.'

'Faith,' said La Guiche, 'I should feel the same in his case.'

De Batz moved slowly away, his chin on his breast. At the window he turned. He sighed. 'If this infernal news had reached us before his work was done at Blérancourt ...' He spread his hands, his face expressive.

'It would have been disastrous to the cause of his Highness the Regent, would it not?' said André-Louis.

'Naturally,' said the Marquis. 'And I should not have blamed you.'

André-Louis took his foot from the fender, and slewed round in his chair.

'I am glad to hear you say that, La Guiche.'

'Glad?' quoth de Batz, who did not like either the young man's tone, or his expression. 'Do you mean something, André?'

'If I ever meant anything.' He paused, then added: 'Desmoulins has been here in your absence, Jean, and he has gone again.'

'You gave him the documents. Good. No time need be lost. What did he say? Wasn't he elated?'

'I did not mention the matter.'

'But then ...' de Batz checked, frowning. 'You didn't give him the documents? But don't you realize the danger of keeping them? At any moment Saint-Just may hear from Blérancourt.'

André-Louis laughed again, that odd, hard, mirthless laugh. 'On that score at least you need have no anxiety. He will find nothing. There are the documents, Jean.' And he pointed to a heap of black ashes that lay on the narrow hearth, half-concealed by the fender.

The Baron came forward, staring as if the eyes would drop from his head. He fetched out a rough oath in a voice suddenly hoarse. 'Do you mean that you have burnt them? That you have burnt the proofs? The fruit of all that labour?'

'It surprises you?' André-Louis rose, thrusting back his chair.

'Not me!' said La Guiche.

De Batz swung upon the Marquis, his face purple.

'But—my God!—do you realize what he has burnt? He has burnt the evidence that would have sent Saint-Just to the guillotine and brought down the Robespierrists in execration. He has burnt the cause. That is what he has burnt. He has destroyed the labour of months; rendered fruitless everything that we have done.' He checked, and turned again, raging, to André-Louis. 'Oh, it is impossible! You couldn't have done it! You dared not do it! You are fooling me! You thought of it, perhaps, and you are making me realize the vengeance that you might have taken.'

Coldly André-Louis answered him. 'I am telling you what I have done.'

De Batz was trembling from head to foot in his anger. He raised his clenched fist, and held it poised a moment, as if about to strike André-Louis. Then he let it fall heavily to his side again.

'You scoundrel! Those papers were not yours to destroy. They belonged to the cause.'

'My betrothed was not his to destroy. She belonged to me.'

'God of Heaven! You'll drive me mad! Your betrothed! Your betrothed and the Regent! What is either of them when the fate of a nation is at issue? Is only the Regent concerned in this!'

'The Regent or his family,' said André-Louis. 'It is all one to me.'

'All one to you, you fool! Is it all one to you that the monarchy itself was at stake?'

'The monarchy means the House of Bourbon. I have not served the House of Bourbon one half so vilely as the House of Bourbon has served me. The harm that I have done to the House of Bourbon may be repaired. The harm that a member of it, the very one for whom I laboured and risked my life, has done to me can never be repaired. Could I continue in his service after this?'

'To leave his service was your right,' said La Guiche quietly, sadly. 'But not to destroy that which was not strictly yours.'

'Not strictly mine? Did I not discover and collect those documents? Did I not hourly risk detection and imperil my neck in doing it, so that I might make kings for France out of such base scoundrels as this Comte de Provence? And you say they are not strictly mine? Mine or not, they are destroyed. It is finished.'

Stricken by anger and despair, de Batz could only inveigh.

'And so, in a fit of spite, you villain, you wreck all our hopes in the very moment of success. You render vain all that has been done, wasted all the lives that have been sacrificed: Chabot, Delaunay, Julien, and the rest. The Freys, and even little Léopoldine. The little Léopoldine about whom you were so tender. All just waste. Oh, my God! Everything sacrificed on the altar of your damned resentment. All because ...'

'Oh, have done!' rasped André-Louis. 'I've heard enough! When you are calmer, perhaps you will understand.'

'What will I understand? Your villainy?'

'The agony that inspired me.' He passed a hand wearily across his brow. 'Jean,' he said hoarsely, 'if any consideration could have restrained me, it must have been the thought of what this would mean to you. But it did not occur to me at the time. We have been good comrades, Jean. I am sorry it should end thus.'

'You may take your regrets to Hell,' said de Batz. 'And that is where I wish you.' He paused merely so as to brace himself to continue: 'This is what comes of putting faith in a man who is without loyalties to any but himself, a man who is now a royalist, now a revolutionary, now a royalist again, as suits his own personal ends; just consistent only in that all the time he is Scaramouche. As God's my witness, I marvel that I don't kill you for what you have done.' With infinite contempt he repeated: 'Scaramouche!' And on the word, he struck André-Louis hard across the face with his open hand.

Instantly La Guiche was at his side, seizing his arm, restraining him, interposing himself between them.

André-Louis, his breathing quickened, the impression of the Baron's fingers showing faintly red upon the livid pallor of his face, smiled faintly.

'It is no matter, La Guiche. No doubt he is as right by his own lights as I am by mine.'

But this only served to feed the Gascon's furious temper.

'You'll turn the other cheek, will you? You mealy-mouthed moralist! You cheap-jack philosopher. Get you back to your theatre, you clown. Go!'

'I go, de Batz. I could have wished that we had parted otherwise. But it's no matter. I'll keep the blow, in memory of you.' He stepped past him, to the door. 'Good-bye, La Guiche.'

'A moment, Moreau,' the Marquis cried. 'Where are you going?'

But André-Louis did not answer him, the truth being that he did not know. He stumbled out, and closed the door. From a peg in the passage he took down his cloak and hat and sword, and with these passed out, and descended the stairs.

In the courtyard below he was arrested. As he issued from the house, a man in a heavy coat and a round hat was entering by the porte-cochère, followed by two municipals. It hardly required that escort to announce the police spy. He stood in the path of André-Louis, scrutinizing him.

'You lodge here, citizen? What is your name?'

'André-Louis Moreau, agent of the Committee of Public Safety.'

This man, however, was not intimidated by the description. 'Your card?'

André-Louis produced it. The fellow looked at it, and nodded to his municipals. 'You are my man. Order for your arrest.' He waved a paper under André-Louis's nose.

'The charge?' inquired André-Louis, momentarily taken aback.

The man turned on his heel contemptuously. Over his shoulder, as he retreated, he spoke to his men. 'Fetch him along.'

André-Louis asked no further questions, offered no protest. He had no doubt of the explanation. News had come to Saint-Just from Blérancourt, and the representative had been quick to act. And the papers which by now should have been in the hands of Desmoulins, the papers with which he could have paralyzed all action on the part of Saint-Just, and by the production of which he could have justified his unauthorized activities at Blérancourt, were just a heap of ashes over which de Batz was no doubt still raging above-stairs.

If it was matter for anything, thought André-Louis, it was matter for laughter. And he laughed. His world had crumbled about him.

They marched him across the Tuileries Gardens, along the quay, over the Pont Neuf to the Conciergerie. In the porter's lodge they searched him. They found upon him besides a watch and some assignats, to the value of perhaps a thousand livres, nothing of worth or consequence. These effects were restored to him, and he was marched away by dark-vaulted, stone-flagged passages below-stairs to a solitary cell, where they left him to meditate upon the imminent and abrupt ending of his odd career.

If he meditated upon it, he did so without dismay. There was such pain in his heart, such numbness in his mind, that he could contemplate his end with complete indifference. He seemed dead already.

In a curious detachment he reviewed now the work he had done in Paris since that June morning which had seen the fall of the Girondins. It was not nice. It was all rather sordid. In his king-making he had pursued the tactics of the agent provocateur. It was ignoble. But at least it was appropriate in that it was done in the service of an ignoble prince. It would be best to end it all, to sleep, and to be free at last. Of Aline he sternly endeavoured not to think at all, since he could not bear the image which the thought of her brought to stand before his mental eyes.

Late that night as he sat in the dark the key grated in his door. It opened, and in the yellow light of a lantern, two men stood framed in the doorway. One took the lantern from the other, spoke some words, entered, and closed the door. He came forward, and set the lantern on the soiled deal table. He was a slender, elegant young man with the face of an Antinous under a cluster of golden hair. His eyes were large, liquid and tender, but as they looked upon André-Louis, who sat unmoved, the lines of the handsome face were stern. It was Saint-Just.

'So you are the rogue who went to play comedy at Blérancourt?' He spoke on a note of quiet derision.

Something of the old spirit of Scaramouche flared up from that dejected soul.

'I am rather a good comedian, don't you think, my dear Chevalier.'

Saint-Just frowned, annoyed by the title. Then he faintly smiled as he shook his golden head. 'Not good enough for comedy. I hope you'll play tragedy better. The stage is set for you on the Place de la Révolution. The play is "The National Barber."'

'And you are the author, I suppose. But there may be a part there for you, too, before very long, in a play called "Poetic Justice" or "The Biter Bit."'

Saint-Just continued to regard him steadily. 'You are possibly under the delusion that you will be given an opportunity to talk when you come to trial? That you will be able to tell the world of certain things you ferreted out at Blérancourt?'

'Is it a delusion?'

'Entirely. For there will be no trial. I have given my instructions. There will be a mistake. A mistake for reasons of State. You will be included, entirely by accident, in the next batch sent to execution. The mistake—the so regrettable mistake—will be discovered afterwards.'

He ceased speaking and waited.

André-Louis shrugged indifferently. 'Who cares?'

'You think that I am bluffing you?'

'I see no other object in your coming here to tell me this.'

'Ah! It does not occur to you that I might wish to give you a chance.'

'I thought that would follow. After the bluff, the bargain.'

'A bargain, yes; if you choose. But bluff there is none. You stole certain papers from Thuillier at Blérancourt.'

'Yes, and others from Bontemps. Hadn't you heard?'

'Where are they now?'

'Do you mean to say you haven't found them? Yet you'll have searched my lodgings, I suppose.'

'Don't play the fool, Moreau.' The gentle voice acquired a rasp. 'Of course I have had your lodgings searched: searched under my own supervision.'

'And you haven't found the letters? But how vexatious for you! I wonder where they can have got to.'

'So do I,' snapped Saint-Just. 'My curiosity is so lively that I'll give you your life and a safe-conduct in exchange for the information.'

'In exchange for the information?'

'In exchange for the letters, that is to say.'

André-Louis took his time, regarding him. Under his admirable self-control, an anxiety was to be guessed in Saint-Just. 'Ah! That's different. I am afraid it's beyond my power to give you the letters.'

'Your head will fall if you don't, and that tomorrow.'

'Then my head must fall. For I can't give you the letters.'

'What do you hope to gain by obstinacy? The letters will buy your life. Where are they?'

'Where you'll never find them.'

There followed a considerable pause, during which Saint-Just continued steadily to regard him. The representative's breathing had quickened a little. In the yellow light of the lantern his colour seemed to have darkened.

'I am offering you your only chance of life, Moreau.'

'How you repeat yourself,' said André-Louis.

'You are resolved not to tell me?'

'I have told you. I have nothing to add.'

'Very well,' said Saint-Just quietly, yet with obvious reluctance. 'Very well!' He picked up the lantern, and walked to the door. There he turned. He held up the lantern, so that its light fell full upon the prisoner's face. 'For the last time: will you buy your life with them?'

'You're tiresome. Go to the devil.'

Saint-Just pressed his lips together, lowered the lantern, and went out.

André-Louis sat alone in darkness once more. He told himself that no doubt he was rightly punished for what he had done. Then he relapsed into his weary indifference of what might follow.

Early next morning a gaoler brought him a lump of horrible black bread and a jug of water. He drank the water, but made no attempt to touch the repulsive bread. After that he sat on, in a dull, numbed state of body and of mind, and waited.

Sooner than he had expected, less than an hour after serving him that breakfast, the gaoler appeared again. He held the door open, and beckoned him.

'You are to come with me, citizen.'

André-Louis looked at his watch. It was half-past nine. Singularly early for the tumbrils to be setting out. Was he, perhaps, to have a trial, after all? At the thought a tiny flame of hope was kindled, almost despite him, in his soul.

But it was extinguished when he found himself conducted to the hall where the toilet of the condemned was usually performed. Here, however, a great surprise awaited him. The vaulted place was tenanted by a single person: a short, trim, sturdy figure dressed in black. It was de Batz.

The Baron advanced to meet him. 'I have an order for your release,' he said, quietly grave. 'Come along.'

André-Louis wondered if he was still asleep in his cell and dreaming. His sensations were curiously unreal, and the gloom of the hall on that January morning served to add to their unreality. In this vague condition he stepped beside de Batz to the porter's lodge, where they were detained. The Baron presented a paper, and the concierge scratched an entry in a book, then grinned up at them from under his fur bonnet.

'You're lucky, my lad, to be leaving us so soon. And on foot. It's more usual to ride from here in style. A good-day to you!'

They were outside on the quay, under the grey sky, beside the yellow, swollen river. They walked along in silence towards the Pont Neuf. Midway across this a quacksalver was setting up his booth. A little way beyond him, André-Louis slackened his pace. The Baron slackened with him.

'It is time we talked, Jean. There will be some explanation of this morning walk.'

The Baron looked at him, and the sternness of his face relaxed.

'I owed you what I have done. That is all. For one thing, I struck you yesterday. Because you might desire satisfaction of me one day for the blow, I could not meanly leave you to perish.'

Despite himself, André-Louis smiled at the Gasconnade.

'Was that your only reason for doing whatever you have done?'

'Of course not. I owed it you on other grounds. As an amend, if you choose.' He leaned upon the parapet of the bridge, looking down at the water swirling against the piers. André-Louis leaned beside him. They were practically alone there. Briefly, gloomily, tonelessly, de Batz informed him of what had happened.

'Tissot witnessed your arrest yesterday in the courtyard. He brought us word of it at once, of course; and as we did not know what might follow, but knew that we were not safe, ourselves, we made off at once, and went to earth at Roussel's in the Rue Helvétius. We were thankful to get away, and no more than in time. I left Tissot to observe. He reported to me last night that, within a few minutes of our departure, Saint-Just, himself, arrived with a couple of municipals. They ransacked my lodgings so thoroughly that they have left them in a state of wreckage.

'Your action in not giving the documents to Desmoulins so that with them we could now defy Saint-Just placed us all in a position of great danger. It became necessary to meet it. I went to Saint-Just two hours ago. He was still in bed. But he was glad to see me, and received me with threats of instant arrest, with the guillotine to follow, unless I chose to purchase my life and liberty by surrendering to him the letters which you had stolen from Thuillier and Bontemps.

'I laughed at him. "Do you suppose, Saint-Just, that I should walk into your house without being aware that this is how you would receive me, and, therefore, without taking my precautions? You are not really clever, Saint-Just. You succeed in imposing yourself upon those who are even more foolish than yourself; that is all. When you threaten to take off my head, you really threaten to take off your own. For the one follows upon the other as inevitably as effect upon cause."

'That gave him something to think about.

'"You have come to bargain with me?" he said.

'"A moment's reflection must have shown you that I could come for no other purpose, and you might have spared the breath you wasted in threats."

'He seemed relieved, poor fool. "You have brought me the letters, then?"

'"Either you are ingenuous, Saint-Just, or you think that I am. No, my friend, I have not brought you the letters, and I never shall. I have brought you a warning, that is all. A warning that if you raise a finger against me, and unless you do what else I require, those letters will instantly be in the hands of Danton."

'That put him in a panic. "You would never dare!" he roared.

'"But why not?" I asked him. "It is you who will not dare to refuse me, now that you know that your head will pay the price of your refusal. For you can be under no illusion as to what use Danton will make of the letters. Their publication will show that the ci-devant Chevalier de Saint-Just (that is how they will speak of you, how they are speaking of you already), the ci-devant Chevalier de Saint-Just is true to the evil aristocratic stock from which he springs. That he enriches himself at the expense of the Nation, and that he abuses his power to issue letters of cachet so as to put away the inconvenient persons he has wronged. And that he covers it all under a mantle of virtue, of asceticism, hypocritically preaching purity in private as in public life. A nice tale, Saint-Just. A nice tale to be told by a man with the proofs in his hand."

'He sprang at me like a tiger, his hands reaching for my throat. I laid him low by a kick in the stomach, and invited him to leave violence, come to his senses, and consider his position and mine.

'He gathered himself up, in a rage. He sat down, half-naked as he was, on his tumbled bed and talked foolishly at first, then more wisely. I should have all I wanted in return for the letters.

'But I shook my head at him. "I do not trust you, Saint-Just. I know your record. You are a low, dishonest scoundrel, and only a fool would take your word. It is for you to take mine. And take it you must because you cannot help yourself. I'll keep faith with you as long as you keep faith with me. Do as I require of you, and I give you my word of honour that no man shall ever see those letters. You may consider them as good as destroyed, and you may sleep in peace. But I do not surrender them, because, if I did so, I should have no guarantee that you would not play me false. In other words, I retain them so as to keep you honest."

'That, of course, was not the end of it. We talked for nearly half-an-hour. But at last he came to it, as it was clear that he must. What choice had he? Better take the risk of my keeping faith with him than face the certainty I had given him that the letters would go to Danton at once. He ended by surrendering. He would attempt nothing against me, and he would give me at once an order for your release and a safe-conduct for you, in case it should now be necessary, so as to enable you to depart the country.'

There was silence. They continued to lean upon the parapet.

André-Louis fetched a ponderous sigh. 'You have been generous, Jean. I did not deserve this at your hands.'

'I am aware of it.' De Batz was stern. 'But I struck you yesterday, and I say again, it is my code that I must preserve the life of any man who has grounds for demanding satisfaction of me.'

André-Louis turned sideways against the stone parapet, so as to face the Gascon. 'But you also said that you have another reason?'

'It is true. I have preserved you also because I require of you in return a last service to the cause.'

'Ah, that, no! Name of God, I will not raise a finger ...'

'Wait, child! Hear first what the service is. It is one that you may actually desire to discharge. If you don't I'll not insist. I invite you to seek out the Comte de Provence. He should be at Turin by now, under the hospitality of his father-in-law, the King of Sardinia. Tell him of what has happened here, and of how we had brought matters to the very threshold of success for him. Then tell him how the chance was destroyed and why.'

It took André-Louis aback. 'To what purpose this?'

'The story has a moral. It may serve as a warning to him. Considering it, he may come into some acquaintance with honour. Let him know that his wanton neglect of it on this occasion has cost him more than the loss of Toulon. Thus he may render himself more worthy of the position he holds at the head of the monarchical cause in France, and he may see to it in future that he holds that position by virtue of something more than his birth. You may say that I sent you. Tell him that, if I remain, it is because I trust that this bitter lesson will not be wasted.' He paused, and the keen dark eyes flashed as he turned them upon his companion. 'Will you go?'

A smile of infinite bitterness broke across the haggard face of André-Louis.

'I will go, Jean.'