The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
his hesitation by the offer of money down. Promise him a hundred thousand francs—more, if necessary—for his immediate coöperation. I will supply the money.' He pulled open a drawer of his writing-table, and took out a bundle of assignats bound with tape. He flung it down. 'There it is. Take it, and bestir yourselves. This is no petti-fogging affair. There's a chance of fortune if you go about it with address.'
Spurred by the prospect of swift and easy fortune, they went about the business with all the address they could command. That same night at the Jacobins they jointly tackled Chabot, and bluntly put the matter to him. At first he recoiled in terror. The very magnitude of the operation daunted him. It seemed to him that where the profits were so vast the risks must be grave. But to show him that in the matter of a profit personal to himself there was no risk or doubt, Delaunay thrust under his nose the hundred thousand francs he had received for the purpose.
'Take them. They are yours as an earnest of all that you may make. And there are millions to be made.'
Chabot gasped as he pondered that bundle of assignats.
'But if I expose the fraud of the India Company, how can I afterwards ...'
'It will not be for you to do that,' Julien interrupted him. 'I will bell the cat. Your part will be to ask for a commission of investigation, and get yourself appointed to it with us and with one or two others we shall name to you. All you will have to do will be to frame the decrees.'
Cupidity growing in his glance, Chabot continued to eye the proffered money.
'Give me a moment,' he begged his tempters, and mopped his brow. 'What will be said when it is discovered that I have been buying the shares of the Company? What will ...'
'Simpleton!' said Delaunay contemptuously. 'Do you suppose that any of us will do that? We shall appoint Benoît or another to buy and sell for us. Our hands will not be seen at all.' Peremptorily he added: 'It is you or another, Chabot. I give you the first chance because we are old friends. But resolve yourself. Will you take the money, and join us; or must I offer it elsewhere?'
Before that immediate and terrible risk, Chabot capitulated. He stuffed the bundle into the breast of his shabby coat. Then he made a little oration.
'If I consent, it is only because I perceive that no harm can result to the Republic, or to any sound patriot. These rascally directors of the India Company, who have been defrauding the national treasury, will be the only sufferers; and it is proper that they should be punished for their dishonesty. Yes, my friends, before the tribunal of my conscience I stand clear. If it were otherwise, let me assure you that no prospect of gain however considerable would move me to take part in this.'
Julien looked at him with wonder in his deep-set eyes. 'Nobly spoken, Chabot. How worthy you ever prove yourself of the great trust the people repose in you! A man of your purity of republican principles is destined for the highest honours his country can bestow upon him.'
And the unfrocked priest, suspecting no irony in the speech of that rascally unfrocked parson, bowed his head. 'I covet no honours. I desire but to perform the duty which my country has imposed upon me. The burden was not of my seeking. But I will carry it while my legs will bear me up and while breath does not fail me.'
They left him, to go and seek Bazire. As they went, 'Do you know, Julien,' said Delaunay in his gentle, sluggish voice, 'that the little rascal believes himself.'
CHAPTER XXX
THE INDIA COMPANY
Informed of the successful association with the scheme, not only of Chabot, but also of Bazire, that other prominent deputy and pillar of the dominant party of the Mountain, André-Louis repaired on the morrow to the Convention, to hear Julien make his preliminary denunciation.
De Batz accompanied him, and together they found seats in the gallery, among the idle riff-raff which daily crowded it and so often interrupted the proceedings of the legislators below, in order to make clear to them how they should interpret the will of the sovereign people. For we are now in Fructidor of the Year 2 of the French Republic One and Indivisible, by the Calendar of Freedom. The Reign of Terror is sweeping to its climax. The dreadful Law of Suspects is being widely enforced. The law of the maximum has been enacted in an endeavour to restrain the constant rise in the price of the necessaries of life, which keeps pace with the constant depreciation of the paper money of the Republic. The lately established Revolutionary Tribunal is submerged in business. Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, most zealous and industrious of public servants, can barely find time to eat or sleep. Executions are multiplying. The great daily spectacle is the passing of the tumbril to the Place de la Révolution, where the axe of the guillotine clanks busily at the hands of Charles Sanson, the public executioner, fondly and familiarly known to the rabble as Charlot. The bread-and-meat queues grow longer and sadder; hunger becomes more general among the poor, the bread more and more foul. But the people suffer it out of faith in the integrity of the legislators, counting upon their assurances that this lenten time is but the prelude to a season of plenty. Meanwhile, to delude and pacify them, doles are distributed to the indigent, largely as a result of the activities of the astute Saint-Just.
Nevertheless, the curtain continues to rise punctually at the Opera, the cafés and eating-houses continue to be crowded at the usual hours by those who can afford to pay. Février's, in the Palais Royal, does a brisk trade; at Venua's banquets are nightly spread for the prosperous and well-nourished representatives of a starving people. Life pursues its course, and such men as de Batz, if of sufficient circumspection and assurance, may move freely.
And freely de Batz moved, his clothes scrupulously elegant, his hair dressed with the same care as of old, his manner as assured and haughty as in the days before the fall of the Bastille. His confidence was based upon that great army of agents and associates, gradually recruited, which by now was permeating every stratum of Parisian life. André-Louis, moving as freely, relied in any emergency that might arise upon the protection of his civic card, which announced him for an agent of that dread body, the Committee of Public Safety.
Thus these two came openly and without diffidence to mingle with the crowd in the gallery of the Convention.
There was little to interest them until the sturdy little figure of Chabot was seen mounting the tribune to address the Assembly, and they rubbed their eyes to behold a transmogrified Chabot. No longer was he the unkempt, unclean, red-bonneted sans-culotte. He came spruce as a dandy in a tight-fitting brown frock and snowy cravat, his hair combed and tied. The Assembly stared, assuming that at last he followed the fashion set by his illustrious leader, the great Robespierre. This until the declaration he came to make suggested another explanation. He was there to proclaim himself a lover; and it was supposed that, like a bird at mating-time, he had assumed this gay plumage suitably to fill the part.
'Before I pass to the questions of public interest upon which it is my duty to address you, I desire to touch upon a matter entirely personal to myself.'
Thus he opened, pausing there to resume a moment later.
'I take this opportunity of announcing to you that I am about to marry. It is known that I have been a priest, a Capuchin. I should therefore lay before you the motives that have urged me to this resolve. As a legislator I have thought that it was my duty to set an example in all the virtues. It has been made a reproach against me that the love of women has played too large a part in my life, and I have come to perceive that I can best silence that calumny by taking the wife that the law accords to me. The woman I am to marry is of recent acquaintance. Brought up like the women of her country in the greatest reserve, she has been screened from the eyes of strangers. I do not pretend where she is concerned to be in love with anything beyond her virtue, her talents, and her patriotism. And it is the reputation of these gifts in myself which have discovered for me the road to her affections.'
He proceeded to add that no priest should soil his nuptials, or any superstitious ceremonies defile them, and thereby showed how well he knew his audience.