The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
feared terrible consequences to themselves. As I have said, no man who saw the crowd in the streets on that January morning could have a doubt on this. And the Convention was aware of it, the Committees of the Sections were aware of it. From the Temple to the Place de la Révolution, a double file of soldiers held the route in which all traffic was that day forbidden. The King had for escort not merely a mounted regiment of National Gendarmerie, and a regiment of grenadiers of the National Guard, but a battery of cannon that rolled thundering through the streets immediately ahead of the royal carriage. This was densely surrounded by guards. Its closed windows were smeared with lather, so that not so much as a glimpse of the royal countenance should act as an incitement to the spirit which the authorities knew to be abroad. The tramp of marching feet, the rumble and rattle of the gun-carriages, and the rolling of the drums were the only sounds. A silence such as that in which those thousands stood to see his Majesty pass to execution must have been witnessed to be credited, must have been experienced to realize its impressiveness, its unnatural, uncanny solemnity.
'I dwell on this, Monseigneur, to show you how far I was from any miscalculation of the public spirit upon which I was depending. The authorities were aware that their own existence was at stake that day.' He raised his voice with sudden vehemence. 'I do not hesitate to assert that their gamble in sending the King to execution was infinitely more desperate than mine in conceiving the attempt to rescue him.'
He flung down that sentence like a gauntlet, and paused a moment to see if any would take it up, his eyes challenging in particular Monsieur d'Entragues. Then, returning to his earlier, rather wistful, tone, he resumed his narrative.
'Before seven o'clock that morning I was at the point I had chosen for the attempt, at the corner of the Rue de la Lune. I climbed to the top of the bastion and waited. Time passed. The crowd behind the military files increased in density and stood silent in the chill of awe which went deeper than the chill of that misty winter's morning. I scanned the throng for my five hundred, in ever-increasing anxiety. I could discover none of them. At last, when already in the distance we could make out the approaching roll of the drums, I was joined on my eminence by two of my followers, the Marquis de la Guiche and Devaux. They shared my despair when I was unable to explain the absence of the others.
'Afterwards, when all was over, I discovered that in the night the Committee of Surveillance, furnished, no doubt, by our betrayer, with a list of the names and addresses of my five hundred, had taken its measures. Two gendarmes had waited upon each of my royalists. They were placed under temporary arrest in their own lodgings, until noon, until it should be too late for any attempt to thwart the intentions of the Convention. No further measures were taken against them. Five hundred men are not to be indicted upon the word of a single traitor, and there was no evidence against them otherwise. We had been too cautious. Also perhaps the moment was not one for proceedings against men who had sought to avert a deed by which the Nation was temporarily appalled.
'That is all my tale. When the royal carriage was abreast of me, I lost my head. It does not often happen, Gascon though I may be. I leapt down from the bastion. Devaux and La Guiche followed me. I attempted to break through the crowd. I waved my hat. I raised a shout. Even then I hoped against hope that we three could accomplish the task alone and give a lead that would be followed. I raised a cry of "Save the King!" Perhaps the thunder of the drums drowned my feeble voice for all except those immediately about me. These shrank from me in dread. Yet it is significant, Monseigneur, it shows yet again how well-judged were the assumptions upon which I acted, that no attempt was made to seize me. I departed unhindered with the only two of my band who like myself had not spent the night at their usual lodging.
'That, Monseigneur, is the full account of the failure of that Gasconnade of mine. As for the moneys that I have spent ...'
'Leave that,' the Regent peevishly interrupted him. 'Leave that.' He sat there, his heavy body sagging limply, his double chin sunk to his breast, vacant-eyed, lost in thought. The narrative had shamed him for his cavalier reception of the intrepid Baron, and it had shamed those others with him. Even d'Entragues, that hostile critic, stood silent and abashed.
But in vain persons shame is an emotion commonly with reactions of resentment against those who have provoked it. Presently, while de Batz waited, his Highness rallied. He sat up, threw back his head, wrapped himself in a mantle of dignity, and delivered himself with pompous formality.
'We are grateful to you, Monsieur de Batz, for these explanations, no less than for your activities, which we regret, with you, should not have been attended by the success they appear to have deserved. At the moment that would seem to be all, unless ...' He looked questioningly from d'Avaray to d'Entragues.
Answering that glance, Monsieur d'Avaray silently shook his head, made a faint gesture of protest with one of his delicate almost translucent hands. D'Entragues bowed stiffly.
'I have no comments, Monseigneur, for Monsieur de Batz.'
The Baron looked at them with frank incredulity. They had no comments!
'I realize, of course,' he said, and so level was his tone that they could only suspect his irony, 'that what I have done deserves no commendation. Judgment must always be upon results.' And then, in a vindictive desire to heap coals of fire upon their heads—heads which he began to account ignoble and contemptible—he went on smoothly: 'But my task in the service of the monarchy is far from ended. My little army of loyal men is still on foot. I should not have quitted France but that I accounted it my duty to make a full report to your Highness in person. Having made it, I crave your Highness's leave to return, and such commands as you may have for me.'
'You propose to return? To Paris?'
'I have said, Monseigneur, that I would not have left but for the duty to report to you.'
'And what do you hope to do there now?'
'Perhaps—unless I have entirely forfeited your confidence—your Highness will instruct me in your wishes.'
The Regent was at fault. He turned to d'Entragues for assistance. D'Entragues was equally destitute of ideas and said so in many words.
'We will consider, Monsieur de Batz,' the Regent informed him. 'We will consider, and inform you. We need not detain you longer at the moment.'
With condescension, as if to temper the chill of that dismissal, Monsieur held out his plump white hand. The Baron took it, bowed very low over it, and bore it to lips that were faintly twisted in a smile.
Then he straightened himself, turned sharply on his red heels, and, ignoring the others, marched stiffly out of that cedar-panelled, low-ceilinged, uncarpeted audience-chamber.
CHAPTER XII
THE VULNERABLE POINT
On the steps of the Bear Inn next morning, the Baron de Batz came face to face with Monsieur Moreau. He halted in surprise.
'Ah!' said he. 'It is our friend the Paladin.'
'Ah!' said André-Louis. 'It is our Gascon gentleman who is in love with peril.'
The Baron laughed on that, and proffered his hand.
'Faith! Not always. I have been through the worst peril that can beset a man: the peril of losing his temper. Does it ever happen to you?'
'Never. I have no illusions.'
'You do not believe in fairies, or even in the gratitude of princes?'
'It is possible to believe in fairies,' was the gloomy answer.
André-Louis was plunged in gloom. It appeared that his journey from Dresden had been in vain. The Regent's opposition to Monsieur de Kercadiou's departure had made an end of indecision. The Regent's assurance that their return to France was imminent encouraged Monsieur de Kercadiou to insist that the marriage must wait until they should be back at Gavrillac. Against this, André-Louis had argued in vain. His godfather accounted himself pledged, and would not listen.
Yet