The Man who Killed the King Read online

  Once the revolutionary leaders had achieved their object they had had nothing more to fear, so had allowed the quite unjustified distrust of the King, with which they had inspired the people, to die down. Indeed, their fears had never had any serious foundation, for the Christian humility which was the outstanding characteristic of Louis XVI fitted him better for a martyr than for a king. At every crisis he had declared emphatically that he would rather die himself than that one drop of the peopled blood should be shed in his defence; and, in spite of the vacillation which was second nature to him, from that single determination he had never deviated. Moreover, from the very beginning of his reign, he had conscientiously striven to better the lot of his poorer subjects, and had he not wavered hopelessly between the divided counsels of his ministers he would have introduced many liberal reforms. After being carried to Paris, therefore, instead of resisting the development of the New Order, he had lent himself willingly to its establishment, and regained much of his past popularity by giving a ready assent to all the measures proposed by the National Assembly.

  As a result, when Roger had left France the Royal Family, although virtually prisoners in the Tuileries, still lived in considerable state. They continued to hold their Court, even if on a less splendid scale than when at Versailles; they sometimes went to the opera and attended public functions, and not infrequently their appearance was greeted with cheers, which showed that the ordinary citizens of Paris were still mainly loyal to them. Although all legislative power was now vested in the Assembly, the King was still the executive head of the nation, and continued to rule through his Council of Ministers. It had been clear, too, that only a handful of extremists wished to replace the Monarchy with a Republic, so nearly everyone agreed that a satisfactory balance had been achieved between the rights of the People and the powers of the Throne.

  The brutalised mobs of the Faubourgs, which had been used by the politicians of the Left to intimidate the old order into submission, could not be expected to return to their dens on a mere announcement that the Revolution was accomplished, so occasional riots of some size, and many acts of individual lawlessness, still occurred; but by the summer of 1790 there had been fair reason to suppose that law and order would soon be fully re-established, and that France might enter on a fine period of prosperity as a constitutional Monarchy.

  That these hopes had not been realised Roger saw at once, as he was driven through the streets of Le Havre. Business had been bad when he left France, owing to the great numbers of wealthy aristocrats who had fled abroad, but there had still been plenty of goods for sale in the shops. Now, many of them were closed and the remainder three-parts empty. In 1790 the National Guard had kept their uniforms spick and span; now, most of those he saw wore stained and faded tunics. Most of the bigger houses were either shuttered and empty or had been turned into tenements where ugly festoons of washing half hid the scrolled ironwork of their balconies, while on the street corners lounged little groups of idlers, many of them wearing clothes that had once been good but were now patched and threadbare. Since the years of the great famine in the middle ’8os bread had frequently been scarce in Paris, but Normandy had never suffered from any food shortage; yet on this summer day in Le Havre, before each baker’s and grocer’s shop there waited long queues of dejected women, and as Roger glanced about him nearly every face he saw had a lean and hungry look.

  The town was, perhaps, three times the size of his native Lymington—via which he had elected to travel so that he might spend a night en route with his father, Rear-Admiral Brook, who was temporarily without a command—but Lymington’s port was the busier of the two and its tradesmen were merchant princes compared with the French shopkeepers, who appeared to have been reduced to little better than hucksters.

  Nevertheless at the inn—once Le Roi Soleil but now rechristened Les Amis de la Constitution et de L’Egalité—he secured a very passable meal. It seemed that the French, despite all difficulties, were still capable of producing good omelettes and fine wine for anyone prepared to pay for them, and the sight of Roger’s English guineas procured him everything for which he asked; but the inn servants were ill-clad, dirty and offhand. They no longer addressed rich Englishmen as “milor”, but called Roger “citoyen”, and eyed him with half-hostile, half-envious looks.

  As he ate he ruminated on his mission, and liked the thought of it even less than when he had, with such reluctance, accepted it. The ugly, dangerous decrepitude into which the fabric of French life had fallen had been brought home to him more vividly by his seven minutes’ drive than by a four-hour conversation he had recently had with M. de Talleyrand. All the same, he considered that the conversation had been of great value to him in other ways and he recalled parts of it now.

  On his writing to suggest a meeting he had received a prompt and characteristic reply:

  Dear friend (had written the profligate nobleman who still styled himself Bishop of Autun), did you know that I have been excommunicated, so that all men are now forbidden to serve me with fire and water? But come to sup with me tomorrow evening and we will feast on iced paté washed down with good wine.

  So Roger had gone to the French Embassy in Portman Square, not a little flattered by the readiness of so outstanding a personage to devote a whole evening to him. M. de Talleyrand, satin-clad, powdered and exquisitely groomed, had received him with the smile that had seduced some of the loveliest ladies of the ancien régime and which in a still distant future was to be sought with nervous eagerness by half the Crowned Heads in Europe.

  He was thirty-eight years of age, slim, delicate-looking, serene of brow, and with the indelible stamp of the aristocrat upon his every word and gesture. His limp—the result of an accident in childhood—only added to his grace of movement. His slightly retroussé nose gave him an air of boyish impudence, and his blue eyes were capable of either mirroring or concealing thoughts of incredible swiftness.

  After they had talked for a few minutes on general topics, Roger said, “May I hope that your Grace regards the secret pact we entered into three years ago as still in force?”

  “Ah,” smiled the Bishop, “so you are going to France again! I suspected as much.”

  “Your Grace’s deductions are rarely at fault,” Roger smiled back. “But may I enquire what led you to this one?”

  “The suggestions of urgency in your request for a meeting, coupled with the fact that events in France are once more moving towards a major crisis. Had I believed you to be concerned only with assuring yourself that I continue to enjoy good health I would not have put off attending the Duchess de Mortemar’s soirée in order to afford you this private conversation.”

  “I am both honoured and grateful that your Grace should accord me preference.”

  “Mon ami, knowing the distrust with which your master regards me, it is I who am honoured that by seeking me out you should show that you still have faith in me. Our pact, as I recall it, was that we should pool our information on all matters unprejudicial to the interests of our respective nations, and work together to bring about an alliance between them. In this I am, as ever, unreservedly at your service.”

  “I thank you,” Roger exclaimed heartily, “for I have been set a task that I fear is beyond my powers but which, if achieved, would lead to an almost certain accomplishment of our mutual aspirations.”

  “That is good news indeed, and I pray that you may succeed better than I have done. I offered a guarantee that the Low Countries should be respected and that the island of Tobago should be ceded, but I have been unable to induce your Government even to consider an alliance with us. Mr. Pitt behaved as though he had swallowed a ramrod with his morning coffee; that bloodless fish, his cousin Grenville, received me so coldly that I feared the Foreign Office chair on which I sat would turn to a block of ice beneath me; His Majesty King George was barely civil, and the Queen turned her back as I made my bow. The story of such slights having been put upon a representative of France is hardly calcu
lated to have improved the reception that an Englishman is now likely to meet with in Paris.”

  “I should have thought the cordiality with which you have been welcomed by the Whig nobility would have done much to redress the balance,” murmured Roger tactfully, “and am I not right in believing that your Grace is not formally accredited here by your Government? If so, the coldness of your official reception, although regrettable, should be accounted no more than personal prejudice.”

  Talleyrand took a pinch of snuff. “ ’Tis true that by a stupid law all persons who were members of the National Assembly are debarred for two years from holding any office under the Crown, so I could not be appointed Ambassador, but your point begs the question. Although that charming scapegrace, the Duc de Biron, was the nominal head of our first mission, and the young Marquis de Chauvelin has since been given formal status as our Ambassador, everyone knows that it was myself who was charged with the real business in hand. Still, no matter; fortunately my back is as waterproof as any duck’s. I sought only to prepare you for the fact that Englishmen are no longer acclaimed in Paris as the champions of liberty.”

  “Yet I understand that your Grace has succeeded in securing a reaffirmation of our intention to remain neutral.”

  “Ah, but for how long will it remain good? That is what the Jacobins who now control events in Paris will be asking. Their lives depend on maintaining the new order, and they take the attitude that everyone who is not their friend must necessarily be their enemy. You will find that many of them are now convinced that England is only biding her time before joining those who seek to destroy them.”

  “Provided we continue in our present policy, surely they would not be so crazy as to give deliberate cause for Britain to add her might to the coalition that is forming against France?”

  “I would I could be certain of that. Ministries now succeed one another in Paris more swiftly than ever did women’s fashions, and each is more fanatical than the last. De Lessart was Minister for Foreign Affairs when I was sent here last January; but he is long since gone, and I received my last instructions from Dumouriez, who, although not a Brissotin himself, is the dominating personality in their Ministry. He is a military man, and one of the few among our new masters who understand even the rudiments of strategy. Much as he desires to maintain peace with England, I know he feels that for our own protection we may have to invade the Austrian Netherlands.”

  Roger pulled a face. “That would almost certainly result in British intervention.”

  “I’ve not a doubt of it. Dumouriez has hopes that we might keep Britain out by a solemn undertaking to give Belgium her independence after the war is over; but how far such a promise could be relied upon I must leave to your own judgment. The Brissotins, or Girondins, as they are now coming to be called, regard the spreading of the new freedom as an almost religious duty. The Belgian lands have for so long been discontented under Austrian rule that they are proving most fertile soil for the doctrines of the Revolution. Dumouriez counts on our troops being acclaimed in their cities as liberators, and if that proves the case I cannot see any French Government of the people ever allowing them again to be separated from France.”

  “From what you say I fear the odds are that all Europe will become embroiled before this business is over,” Roger remarked gloomily. “That makes it more tragic than ever that this war to re-establish the Monarchy should ever have been allowed to start. The émigrés were far too few in numbers to do anything on their own, so it was a wanton act on the part of the French Government to have opened hostilities against the Elector of Treves simply because he had given them asylum.”

  “In that, I fear I must confess myself to have been partly responsible.”

  Roger lifted his eyebrows. “I am amazed to hear your Grace admit it. When we discussed the matter two years ago you were most firmly of the opinion that a war would prove disastrous to France. Its prevention was the one thing that you and I shared secretly in common with Robespierre and his little group of extremists.”

  “The circumstances were very different. We feared then that Spain was about to attack Britain and that France would be drawn in as the former’s ally. That would have meant a great war, whereas . . .” Talleyrand broke off for a second to give a rueful but disarming smile, “. . . my friends and I intended that this should be only a very little one.”

  “Surely it was foreseen that the Emperor of Austria would come to his Elector’s assistance?”

  The Bishop threw up his slender hands. “Leopold was a man of peace, and had shown little inclination to fight a war on his sister’s behalf. Moreover, I am personally convinced that both she and the King did their utmost to dissuade him from such a course. His death, and the sequel of his son championing their cause, was entirely unforeseeable. We counted wrongly, alas, on the influence of the King and Queen with their fellow sovereigns to keep the war from spreading.”

  “Again you amaze me! In 1790 they were quite prepared to plunge France into war solely to honour an old and unpopular treaty. Yet you tell me that this spring you counted on them to oppose a war which had as its object their own rescue and restoration to power.”

  “For that I consider I had good grounds. King Louis’s one and only consistency has been his determination that the blood of his people should not be shed on his account as long as he could in any way prevent it. Robespierre and his enragés were also opposed to war, but for very different reasons; they believed that it might unite France and give the Monarchy a new chance to rehabilitate itself in the eyes of the people. Apart from those two minorities, both the Jacobins and those who think as I do wanted war—just a little one—although again for very different reasons.”

  “Is your Grace inclined to tell me of them?”

  “Why not? The Girondins, who now form the majority at the Jacobin Club, must go forward because they dare not go back. It is essential to their continuance in power to press the Revolution further: therefore they are attempting to bring about the dethronement of the King. They reasoned that a war with his brothers was certain to have the desired effect, as it would be easy to convince the people that he and the Queen had incited the émigrés to invade France; upon which popular indignation would result in the overthrow of the Monarchy.”

  “And your reason, your Grace?”

  “Exactly the opposite. Early this year I formed the conclusion that the Monarchy was doomed unless its prestige could be resurrected as a result of some new national crisis. The King is still the executive head of France. In the event of war the executive power always becomes of more importance than the legislative. I was convinced that the King would take the side of his people rather than that of his brothers, and like Robespierre, who was shrewd enough to fear it, I believed that the nation would unite behind him. Louis de Narbonne, Madame de Staël, a few others and myself decided that in a short victorious campaign against the émigrés, in which the King should personally appear in the rôle of Commander-in-Chief, lay the best, if not the only, hope of restoring his popularity and thwarting the designs of those who seek to destroy him.”

  Roger remembered Louis de Narbonne well. In the old days this clever, illegitimate nephew of Louis XV had been one of the circle of gifted, liberal nobles—including de Mirabeau, Dupont de Nemours, Mathieu de Montmorency and the brothers Lameth—who had congregated about de Talleyrand. Between them they had done more than any other body of men to bring about the first Revolution, while Madame de Staël had consistently used her bitter wit to defame the Queen. Her father, the vain and pompous Swiss banker Monsieur Necker, foisted as First Minister on the King by popular outcry, had contributed more than any other single individual to the plight into which the Monarchy had fallen.

  Sadly Roger shook his head. “I recall that at the time of the fall of the Bastille your Grace took a grave risk, and sank personal prejudices, in a fine endeavour to save the Court from its own folly. But these others that you mention; if they have now become the champions of th
e Monarchy, times have changed indeed.”

  The Bishop shrugged. “Before ’89 the French cart was being drawn by a sick and weary horse. My friends and I insisted on changing it for a healthy one—too healthy, for it has now run away with the cart. That is the trouble; and in such a case all sane persons must unite in an attempt to avert calamity. But come, my friend, you must be hungry; let us go in to supper.”

  The meal was no frugal affair, for Talleyrand, as befitted his family name de Périgord, was one of the great gourmets of his age. Roger, however, was much too interested in his host’s mind to do full justice to the delicacies of his table. As soon as the servants had withdrawn he reverted to the simile of the runaway horse, and asked:

  “How long is it since moderate men first began to be sensible of this danger?”

  Talleyrand wiped his lips carefully with a napkin and poured himself another glass of wine. “Soon after you left France a number of the cooler-headed members of the Jacobin Club took alarm at the trend of events. They resigned from the Club, and finding their action met with popular support founded a new one in the ex-convent of the Feuillants. Soon their numbers exceeded those of the Jacobins, and it looked as if there were good hopes that they would be able to check the runaway. They would certainly have succeeded had not the King, as always, allowed himself to be influenced by short-sighted people, and refused to co-operate with them.”

  “Can that be wondered at in view of their past record as Jacobins?”

  “Not in a pudding-head like Louis XVI. But a wise man reviews each new situation on its merits, without giving undue weight to the past. His attitude was the same to Lafayette, when that shallow-pated individual at last saw the red light, and made a tardy but sincere effort to pull him out of his predicament. For all Lafayette’s vanity and incompetence, he still had a great following at the time, and might have done the trick if only the King would have let bygones be bygones.”