The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
mine?'
'Ay, of yours. Don't waste time in denying it. I know what I know.'
'You know too much, Benoît.'
'For your safety, you mean?'
'No, Benoît. For your own.' And smoothly though the words were spoken, there was a cold, steely edge to them that made the banker suddenly apprehensive.
André-Louis was watching him with glittering eyes. Slowly, incisively, letting his words fall like drops of icy water, André-Louis asked a question that voiced the very threat already trembling on the banker's lips. 'Will you tell the Revolutionary Tribunal that this piece of chicanery concerned with the India Company is a thing of my invention, done at my instigation? Will you?'
'And if I did?'
The glittering eyes never left his own. They held his glance in a singular magnetic fascination.
'What is your evidence? Who are your witnesses? A group of venal rascals who traffic in their mandate, who abuse their position in the State, to grow rich by blackmail and by fraudulent speculation. Yes, fraudulent, Benoît, and fraudulent in the grossest manner. Will the word of these rogues, these thieves—for it is upon their word that you have it that this scheme is mine—destroy a man whose hands are clean, who cannot be shown to have purchased a single share in the India Company? Or will it destroy a man like you, who, taking advantage of the fraud, has invested a quarter of a million in the Company's stock? Which do you think, Benoît?' Again came that short, toneless laugh. 'And there you have the answer that you sought. Now you know precisely why I have neglected, as you say, this opportunity to make a fortune.'
Benoît, his face the colour of clay, his jaw fallen, his breathing shortened, stood there and trembled. He had his answer indeed.
'My God!' he groaned. 'What game do you play here?'
André-Louis advanced upon him. He set a hand upon the banker's fleshy shoulder in its gay green coat.
'Benoît,' he said quietly, 'you have the reputation—it is whispered of you, no more—of being a safe man. But not all those whom you have served, not if each were as influential as Robespierre himself, could keep you safe if this were known. Remember that, Benoît. I, too, am a safe man. Take comfort in the thought. Keep faith with me, and I'll keep faith with you. Keep faith with me, and you may yet keep your head whatever heads may fall. Break it, mention this matter to a single soul, and be sure that Charlot will make your toilet for you within forty-eight hours. And now that we understand each other, suppose that we talk of other things.'
Benoît departed enlightened and yet in darkness. Something was moving here, something deep, dangerous, and portentous of which even knowledge might be perilous. Yet that knowledge he would seek, but not until he had made himself safe by ridding himself of the evidences of his participation in the India Company business. He would sell his stock at once, content at need to suffer a loss where by waiting he might clear a colossal profit. Then, being rid of that dangerous burden, with nothing on his hands to betray him, he could laugh at the threat which imposed silence. But the stock was impossible to sell at any price by now, since all those who were in the secret had already purchased to the limit of their available resources.
CHAPTER XXXI
GERMINATION
The ci-devant Chevalier de Saint-Just, that flaming torch of patriotism and republican integrity, was about to depart on a mission of importance to Strasbourg, where a strong hand was just then required. No stronger hand could the party of the Mountain supply than that of this elegant, fiercely eloquent, ardently zealous young idealist. Such was the reputation into which he had come. Engrossed in national work, he was accounted of an asceticism unusual in his age, of a purity of life that was a model to mankind, and of an incorruptibility that rendered him a fit lieutenant to Robespierre, that Great Incorruptible. His youth—he was scarcely more than a boy—his well-knit, graceful figure, his handsome face with the golden curls clustering thickly about his smooth white brow, and his indubitable talents had raised him by the autumn of '93 to the position of a popular idol. If he had contrived to place Robespierre supreme, as the first man in France, he had at the same time not been neglectful of himself. With his talents, remorselessness, and ambition, it is possible that he was content to play the acolyte; it is probable that he dreamed of ultimately wresting to himself the office of high-priest in the republican temple.
His last act in the Convention before departing on that Strasbourg mission had served to increase his popularity. He had moved that decree for the confiscation of all foreign property, the foreshadowing of which had led to the tightening of the relations between Chabot and the Freys. And he had moved it in an address which was a challenge of France to the world in arms against her. Her frontiers were being violated by the mercenaries of the despots; her blood was being shed in the sacred cause of Freedom; whilst the vile agents of Pitt and Coburg were sapping her strength by tapping the veins of her commercial and social life. They must strike the enemy wherever he was to be met. They must strike him here in their midst no less than on the frontiers. Let all foreign property in France be placed under seal.
That motion was carried. The ardent terms in which it had been advocated were reported, circulated, and extolled by every true son of France.
Fortunately for the Freys, Chabot was already married to their sister. Some days before, poor little Léopoldine had submitted to the horrible ordeal, had been immolated by her brothers on the foul altar of Mammon. The worthless assignment they had made rendered their property immune from the decreed confiscation. Chabot, the unclean, licentious ex-Capuchin, turned fop, was installed in the handsome apartments on the first floor of the Freys' house, and thus to be regarded as its inquiline.
The delectable Poldine, as he now called her, the little partridge whose maiden plumpness had so whetted his lascivious appetite, was now his own possession; and her dowry was on a scale that in itself should make him rich, had made him rich already. And even this dowry had ceased to signify. Soon now he would count his wealth from other sources in hundreds of thousands, for with reëstablished confidence the stock of the India Company must soar rapidly back towards the high figure from which it had so precipitately tumbled. Wealth, greatness, and honours awaited François Chabot. Very clearly his eyes perceived the golden glow on his horizon. Robespierre had been a fool to be afraid of money, to neglect opportunities to enrich himself which his position gave him. For money, as Chabot had so lately discovered, was the stoutest staff upon which a man could lean. With it, before all was done, he would try a fall with Robespierre himself; and Robespierre, caught without any golden panoply about him, should go down to make way for François Chabot.
Meanwhile, he would neglect no opportunity of focussing the popular attention. He would keep all eyes upon himself, so that his republican ardour might dazzle the beholders. With this in view he was of those who in an impassioned speech demanded the trial too long delayed of the infamous Austrian woman, that wicked Messalina, the Widow Capet.
The Convention yielded promptly. It dared do no other even if it had wished. Already popular feeling against this woman had made it prudent to abandon the secret negotiations with Austria for the exchange of prisoners by which she would have been delivered. The execution of the King had been in the nature of a dangerous experiment. In decreeing it the Convention had staked its existence. It would stake that existence now, and undoubtedly lose it, if it hesitated in dealing mercilessly with this woman to whom so many national calamities were attributed.
And so at three o'clock in the morning on the 2d of October, the unfortunate widow of Louis XVI was conveyed in a closed carriage, faced by two municipals to guard her, from the prison of the Temple to the guillotine's antechamber, the Conciergerie.
When it was known on the morrow, André-Louis was oddly bitter. He smiled sourly upon de Batz, who sat crushed with horror.
'And so,' he said slowly, 'the sacrifice of poor little Léopoldine has been in vain. It has not sufficed, after all, to propitiate your dreadful gods. They must have a queen