The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
not be a pawn in this game, Jean. She must not be a victim of our intrigues. She must not be part of the price at which we are to purchase the head of Chabot for the advancement of the House of Bourbon. We are on the fringe of infamy. And I will have no part in it, or countenance it.'
De Batz heard him out with tightening lips and narrowing eyes, his Gascon temper roused by this unexpected opposition, this hostility to a piece of strategy in which he had been taking pride. But he curbed his feelings. As André-Louis had said, the circumstances surrounding them were too dangerous to admit of their quarrelling between themselves. The matter must be settled by argument. De Batz must adopt conciliation.
'No need to harangue me at such lengths, André. I am sorry if my thought offended you, and I am relieved that your interest in the girl is not personal. That would have been a serious obstacle.'
'Not more serious than it is.'
'Ah, wait. You have insufficiently considered. You have lost sight of the aim. Great ends are not to be served without sacrifice. If we are to let emotion or sentiment govern us, we should never have set our hands to this task. It is not for ourselves that we labour. We are here to rescue a whole people from damnation, to recover a throne for its rightful owners, and to bring back to France the best of her children who have been driven into exile. Are we to boggle over the sacrifice of an insignificant little foreign Jewess in the course of a scheme which may send a hundred heads to the guillotine? Can we be nice? Will you remember that we are king-makers?'
André-Louis knew that there was no answer save on the grounds of sentiment. But, so repugnant was the vision of that pure, innocent child being flung in prey to the loathsome, crapulous, bloodstained ex-Capuchin, that André-Louis could not harden himself against it.
'It may all be as you say,' he answered. 'And yet this thing shall not be. It will recoil upon us. Evil will come of it. I have been ruthless, as you say. At moments my ruthlessness has left you aghast. But I am not ruthless enough for this. It is too foul.'
Still de Batz kept a tight grip upon his restive patience. 'Oh, I admit the foulness. But there are other foulnesses to be combated, to be avoided. We want no repetitions of the September massacres, and such horrors. For that you never hesitated to lay a train that will end in bringing a score of Girondin heads under the knife of the guillotine. They are fine heads, too. Yet you quibble about this child of no account. We cannot be selective in our means. This is the only certain way, and I have taken it.'
'It is not the only way. Others would have been found as effective. It was only a question of patience.'
'Patience! Patience, when the Queen is languishing, tortured and insulted in prison, and may at any moment be haled forth to trial and ignominious death together with her children? Patience, when the little King of France is in the hands of assassins who are ill-treating him and brutalizing him? Don't you see that it is a race between us and the forces of evil that are at work to destroy those sacred members of the royal family? And you can talk of patience! You yield to gusty emotion over a negligible girl, to whom we do no worse wrong than thrust her into a wedlock to which she may at first be reluctant. Where is your sense of proportion, André?'
'In my conscience,' he was fiercely answered. 'I am not responsible for the sufferings of the Queen, and I ...'
'You will be responsible for their protraction beyond what is necessary, if you neglect any means to curtail them.'
'The Queen herself would not desire her freedom, her safety, at this evil price.'
'As a mother and a queen she must desire that of her children at any price.'
'It remains that this price is one which my conscience will not suffer me to pay. It is idle to argue with me, Jean. I will not suffer it to be done.'
'You will not suffer it? You?' And then, quite suddenly, de Batz broke into a laugh. He had seen something to which anger had been blinding him.
'You will not suffer it!' he cried yet again, but on an entirely different note, a note of unalloyed derision. 'Prevent it, then, my friend.'
'That is my intention.'
'And how will you accomplish it?'
'I shall go to the Freys at once.'
'To ask for Léopoldine's hand in marriage for yourself? Not even so would you prevent it, unless you could inspire them with a faith in yourself greater than their faith in Chabot. Why, you fool, André! Do you dream that those avid Jews, faced with destitution and starvation unless they take prompt measures to entrench themselves, are going to allow any scruples about Léopoldine to check them? Faith! You are amusing, do you know? You are moved to a tenderness for their sister greater than that which they feel themselves; and this with no intention to make her either your mistress or your wife. Do you begin to see that you are ridiculous?'
'It does not make me ridiculous simply to be less foul than those about me.'
'In which you include me, no doubt. Well, well, I'll suffer it. I must allow something to your knight-errant's chagrin.'
'I'll prevent it somehow, God helping me.'
'It will tax your quixotry, short of murdering Chabot, which would merely bring you to the guillotine. You are beating your head against a wall of sentiment, mon petit. Leave it. Ours is a serious mission. Sacrifices there must be. At any moment we may be sacrificed ourselves. Does not that justify us of everything?'
'It cannot justify us of this. And I will have no part in it.' He was vehement.
De Batz ill-humouredly shrugged his shoulders, and turned away.
'So be it. There is no need why you should have part in it. The train is laid. Not all your efforts could now stamp it out. Salve your conscience with that. The rest will happen of itself.'
It was true enough. It was happening even then. For in his panic Junius allowed no time to be lost. And Fate conspired with de Batz by sending Chabot to dine with the Freys that day after the sitting of the Convention.
Léopoldine was in her usual place at table, flushing and uncomfortable, her pudicity affronted by the increasingly ardent oglings of Chabot, her flesh creeping when he pawed her soft round arm and leered into her eyes as he called her his little partridge. Once before Emmanuel, observing this amorousness in the ex-Capuchin, had proposed to his brother that Léopoldine should not be brought to table when Chabot was present, and Junius had been disposed to adopt the suggestion. But today things were different. Symptoms, which previously had dismayed Emmanuel and annoyed Junius, were now welcomed.
When the meal was done, and Chabot sat back replete and at ease, his greasy redingote unbuttoned, Junius opened the attack. Léopoldine had gone about her household duties, and the three men sat alone. Emmanuel was nervous and fidgety; Junius stolid as an Eastern idol for all his inner anxieties.
'You have a housekeeper, Chabot.'
'So I have,' said Chabot with disgust.
'She is dangerous. You must get rid of her. One of these days, she will sell you. She has been to demand a present from me, as the price of her silence upon our transactions with the corsairs. That is not a woman to retain about you.'
Chabot was disturbed. He cursed her roundly and obscenely. She was a vile baggage; insolent and ill-natured. It was only wanting that she should turn blackmailer as well.
'But, after all, what can I do?'
'You can send her packing before she is in a position seriously to compromise you. Such a woman is unworthy of association with a republican of your integrity.'
Chabot scratched his unkempt head, and grunted. 'All that is very true. Unfortunately, the association has already gone rather far. You may not have observed that she is about to become a mother.'
It was a momentary set-back for Junius. But only momentary.
'All the more reason to get rid of her.'
'You don't understand. She asserts that I am the father of this future patriot.'
'Is it true?' came