The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
say: "poor devils!" with a clear conviction that it is much better that we should say it of them than that they should say it of us.'
Not until dinner was done, and an Armagnac had come to succeed the Bordeaux, did the banker break the ice of the business for them, making himself the advocate of his compatriot.
'I have told the citizen-representative, my dear de Batz, that you are a considerable man of affairs, and that you are particularly interested in the purchase of large lots of confiscated émigré property so as to break it up and sell it again piecemeal. I do not need to tell you that the Citizen Delaunay could be of great assistance to you by virtue of the information he receives in his capacity as a representative.'
'Ah, no! Ah, no! That I must correct!' The deputy was all virtuous eagerness. 'A misconception were so easily formed. I do not say ... I do not think that it would amount to an abuse of trust if I took advantage of knowledge gained as a result of my position in the government. After all, it is a recognized practice, not only in France, but elsewhere. This, however, is not the knowledge that I offer. It is a malicious world, and a man's actions, especially the actions of a man of State, are so easily misunderstood or misinterpreted. The knowledge that I offer, then, is the quite exceptional knowledge of land values. I am country bred, and all my life the land has been my particular study. It is this knowledge that I offer, you understand, citizen.'
'Oh, but perfectly, 'said de Batz. 'Perfectly. Do not give yourself the trouble of explaining further. As for your knowledge of land values, it is no doubt exceptional; but then, so is mine; otherwise I should never have embarked upon these transactions. I must regret, of course, that where the association might be of value to me, it is withheld by certain scruples which I must not presume to criticize.'
'Do you mean that you consider them without foundation in reality?' said Delaunay, as if asking to be persuaded of the fact.
De Batz excluded all persuasiveness from his reply. 'I do not perceive who would suffer by the use of the information which it would be in your power to supply. And it is my view that, where no suffering is inflicted, no scruples can be tenable. But a man's conscience is a delicate, sensitive thing. I am far from wishing to offer arguments against sentiments which are conscientious.'
Delaunay fell gloomily thoughtful. 'Do you know,' he said, 'that you have presented a point of view that had never occurred to me?'
'That I can perfectly understand,' said the Baron in the tone of one who finds a subject tedious and desires to drop it.
And dropped it might have been if André-Louis had not thought that it was time for him to take a hand.
'It may help you, Citizen-Representative, if you reflect that these transactions are actually of advantage to the State, which thus finds a ready purchaser for the properties it seeks to liquidate.'
'Ah, yes!' Delaunay was as eager now as he had appeared reluctant before. 'That is true. Very true. It is an aspect I had not regarded.'
Across the table Benoît winked slyly at de Batz.
'Let me turn it over in my mind, Citizen de Batz, and then perhaps we might discuss the matter anew.'
The Baron remained cool. 'If it should be your pleasure,' he said in a tone of maddening indifference.
Walking home that evening, to the Rue de Ménars, André-Louis was in excellent spirits.
'That fish will bite,' he said. 'You may land him when you will, Jean.'
'I perceived it. But, after all, he's small fry, André. I aim at bigger things.'
'The big things are to be reached by stages. Not all at once, Jean. Impatience never helps. A small fish, this Delaunay. Agreed. But he may serve us as a bait for bigger ones. Do not despise him. To change the metaphor, use him as the first rung of the ladder by which we are to scale the Mountain. Or, to change it yet again, let him be the first of the sheep to show the way through the gap.'
'To the devil with your metaphors!'
'Bear them in mind, none the less.'
They reached No. 7 in the Rue de Ménars. De Batz opened the wicket in the porte-cochère and they entered the courtyard of the unpretentious house. Within, sitting on the steps, they found a burly, shabby fellow in a cocked hat too big for him, set off by an imposing tricolour cockade. He rose at sight of them, knocking the ashes from the short clay pipe he had been smoking.
'The Citizen Jean de Batz, heretofore Baron de Batz?' he challenged truculently.
'I am Jean de Batz. Who are you?'
'Burlandeux is my name. Officer of the municipal police.' His tone lent a sinister quality to the announcement.
The Baron was not impressed. 'Your business, citizen-municipal?'
The fellow's unclean face was grim. 'I have some questions to put to you. We should be better above. But as you please.'
'Above, by all means.' The Baron spoke indifferently. 'I trust you are not to waste my time, citizen.'
'As to that, we shall see presently.'
They went up to the first floor, André-Louis through his uneasiness admiring the Baron's perfect deportment. De Batz knocked, and the door was instantly opened by Biret-Tissot, his servant, a wisp of a man with a lean, olive face, keen, dark eyes and the wide mouth of a comedian.
De Batz led the way into a small salon, Burlandeux following and André-Louis bringing up the rear. The municipal would have checked him, but de Batz intervened. 'This is my friend, the Citizen Moreau. You may speak freely before him. God be praised, I have no secrets. Close the door, André. Now, citizen-municipal, I am at your service.'
Burlandeux advanced deliberately into the elegant little salon, with its gilded furniture, soft carpet, and Sèvres pieces set before the oval mirror on the overmantel. He took his stand with his back to the long, narrow window.
'Moreau, eh? Why, yes. He was named to me as your associate.'
'Correctly named,' said de Batz. 'And then?'
Before that peremptoriness Burlandeux came straight to business. 'You've been denounced to me, citizen ci-devant, for anti-civism. I learn that you hold meetings here of persons who are none too well regarded by the Nation.'
'With what purpose is it alleged that I hold these meetings?'
'That is what I have come to ask you. When you've answered me, I shall know whether to lay the information before the Committee of Public Safety. Let me see your card, citizen.'
De Batz at once produced the identity-card issued by the section in which he resided, a card which under a recent enactment every citizen was compelled to procure.
'Yours, citizen?' the municipal demanded of André-Louis with autocratic curtness.
Both cards were perfectly in order, having been issued to their owners by Pottier de Lille, the secretary of the section, who was in the Baron's pay. Burlandeux returned them without comment. Their correctness, however, did not dismay him.
'Well, citizens, what have you to say? You'll not pretend to be patriots in these dainty, pimpish lodgings.'
André-Louis laughed in his face. 'You are under the common delusion, my friend, that dirt is a proof of patriotism. If that were so, you would be a great patriot.'
Burlandeux became obscene. 'You take this —— tone with me, do you? Ah, that! But we shall have to look into your —— affairs. You have been denounced to me as agents of a —— foreign power.'
It was de Batz who answered coolly. 'Ah! Members of the Austrian Committee, no doubt.' This was an allusion to a mare's nest which some months earlier had brought into ridicule the Representative Chabot, who claimed to have discovered it.
'By God, if you are amusing yourself at my expense, you'd better remember he laughs best who laughs last. Come, now, my fine fellows. Am I to denounce you, or will you show me reason why I shouldn't?'
'What reason would