The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
the Convention had other distractions. At the moment Condé was occupied by the Austrians, and then in Thermidor Valenciennes suffered the same fate and Kléber capitulated at Mainz. The Vendée was in flagrant insurrection, and in the South there were mutterings of a royalist storm.
A cause for all these disasters, and for the menace of worse that seemed to overhang the land, had to be discovered by the Utopians who had endowed France, and who hoped to endow the world, with the glorious rule of Universal Brotherhood. It was discovered in the machinations of aristocrats at home and of Pitt and Coburg abroad. Against Pitt and Coburg the Convention could only inveigh. But against her home conspirators she could take action. And to this end was passed the Law of Suspects which was to overwhelm the new Revolutionary Tribunal with work and bring the guillotine into daily function.
Thus the Reign of Terror was established. Danton, newly married, having been active in establishing it, went off to his lands at Arcis-sur-Aube, there to devote himself to agriculture and uxoriousness. Robespierre became more than ever the focus of popular hope and popular idolatry, with Saint-Just at his side to inspire him, and his little group of supporters to ensure that his will should be paramount. Already there were rumours that he aimed at a dictatorship. Saint-Just had boldly declared that a dictator was a necessity to a country in the circumstances in which France found herself, without, however, explaining how this could be reconciled with the purity of views which beheld tyranny in all individual authority.
For François Chabot, that other stout henchman of the Incorruptible Maximilien, these continued to be busy days. The Law of Suspects gave a free rein to his passion for denunciation, and almost daily now his capucinades were to be heard from the tribune of the Convention.
He would wade, he announced, through mud and blood in the service of the people. He would tear out his heart and give it to be eaten by the irresolute in republicanism, that thus they might assimilate the pure patriotism by which it was inspired.
Daily now the bread queues increased at the bakers'; daily the populace, its passions whetted by famine, grew more bloodthirsty; daily the tumbrils, with their escorts of National Guards and rolling drums, rumbled down the Rue Saint-Honoré to the Place de la Révolution. Nevertheless, the curtain still rose punctually every evening at the Opera; there was an undiminished attendance at the Fifty and other gaming-houses in the Palais Égalité—heretofore Palais Royal—and elsewhere; and life in the main pursued a normal course on this swiftly thinning crust of a volcano.
De Batz watched, organized, and waited. His work lay in Paris, and in Paris he would remain whatever might be happening elsewhere. The Marquis de la Guiche, that most enterprising and daring of his associates, who went by the name of Sévignon, would have lured him away to join the insurrectionaries in the South. The Marquis, himself a soldier, reminded de Batz that he was a soldier, too, and pointed out that in the South a soldier's work awaited him. But de Batz would not move, such was his faith in the schemes of André-Louis, and in the end La Guiche departed alone to carry his sword where there was employment for it. The Baron did not oppose his departure. But he regretted it deeply, for there was no man more whole-heartedly devoted to the restoration of the monarchy than this utterly fearless, downright Marquis de la Guiche, who had been the only one to stand by him in that attempt to rescue the King.
He overcame, however, his regrets and remained at the post he had allotted himself. Here all was going as it should. At the present pace the revolution could not last much longer. Soon, now, this unfortunate populace must be brought to realize that its sufferings were the result of the incompetence of its rulers and of the chaos which had been born of their idealism. If without awaiting this, it could be made to discover that the elected were corrupt and dishonest, and it could assign to their corruption, and not merely to incompetence, the hunger which it was made to endure, then a storm should arise that must sweep away forever those windy rhetoricians. This had been the thought of André-Louis. The soundness of its foundations was being confirmed by the march of events observed at close quarters.
Meanwhile, the captivity of the Queen and her family continued. A month and more had passed since the attempt to rescue her, and nothing further had been heard of the negotiations with Vienna for the exchange of prisoners. De Batz began to be uneasy. Reasonably he suspected that the negotiations had aborted. The Queen's salvation must depend now upon the speedy exploding of the revolution. Therefore he spurred on André-Louis in the delicate task to which his confederate had set his hand.
André-Louis required no spurring. The task itself absorbed him. He approached it like a chess-player carefully studying the sequence of moves by which the end was to be reached.
François Chabot was his immediate object, to be gained by the brothers Frey, mere pawns to be taken or not in passing as developments should indicate. And the Freys were making things easy for him. His skilfully masked approach of defences, which the brothers knew in their consciences to be extremely vulnerable, had not failed of its intimidation. Junius, having considered, had discovered that their security lay in welcoming an association which they dared not take the risk of refusing. He had been helped to his decision by a hint from Proly that de Batz was in alliance with Moreau, and that de Batz wielded a wide and mysterious influence, a power which it was not prudent to provoke.
So the Freys opened their doors to the Baron and his friend, and had no immediate cause to regret it. On the contrary, the Baron, disposing of very considerable sums, showed himself from the outset able and willing to coöperate with the Freys in any of the financial ventures which engaged them and for which funds were necessary. Soon, indeed, the brothers came to congratulate themselves upon an association which at first had been forced upon them against their inclinations. The Baron displayed a shrewdness in finance which commended him increasingly to the respect and even friendship of the Freys, and which resulted in some transactions of considerable profit to them both.
André-Louis, too, being associated with the Baron, was by now on intimate terms with these Jewish bankers, a constant visitor at their substantial house in the Rue d'Anjou, and at their well-furnished table, which had first rendered apparent to the starveling Chabot the advantages of accepting the friendship of these very zealous apostles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The quiet, comely little Léopoldine never failed to make him welcome to dinner at her brothers' house, and made no secret of the fact that she found a pleasure in his company. Her gentle brown eyes would soften as they watched him: her ears were attentive to all that he said, and her lips ready to smile at any sally of his. Thus very soon he was entirely at home with the Freys. They made him feel—as they had made Chabot feel—almost one of the family.
One evening, after he and de Batz had dined at the Rue d'Anjou, and whilst they were still at table, Chabot being of the party, Junius expounded to them a scheme in which he believed that millions could be made.
He and his brother were fitting out at Marseilles a corsair fleet to operate in the Mediterranean, raiding not only the ships of enemy powers, but also those ports on the Spanish and Italian coast which could easily be surprised.
Junius coloured the undertaking so speciously as to make it appear of outstanding national importance, a patriotic enterprise of advantage to the Republic, since it harassed her enemies. André-Louis appeared to be profoundly impressed. He praised the project in such high terms for both its financial and patriotic soundness that de Batz at once offered a contribution of a hundred thousand livres.
Junius smiled approval. 'You are quick to judge opportunity, my friend.'
Chabot was looking at him with round eyes. 'You have the advantage of being wealthy,' he said with a sigh of envy.
'If you would enjoy the same advantage, this is your opportunity, Citizen-Representative.'
'I?' Chabot smiled sourly. 'I have not the necessary means to acquire a share. My labours have all been in the service of humanity. They bring no pecuniary reward.'
'Think of the treasure you might have amassed in Heaven if the Republic had not abolished it,' said André-Louis.
'My friend, you are flippant,' the representative reproved him. 'You gibe upon sacred subjects. It is not worthy.'
'Do you still regard Heaven as a sacred subject?'
'I