The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
the hands of incompetent men. Disruption and famine followed. Discontent arose and a disposition to violence which only required clear direction so as to be turned into the proper channels.
'This is what we set out to do: to expose for the venal scoundrels that they were, the men whom the people trusted; and to show the connection between this rascality and the sufferings and privations which in the name of Liberty the people were undergoing.'
Briefly he sketched the India Company scandal in which they had implicated Chabot, Bazire, and the other prominent men of the Mountain party, momentarily bringing that party into disrepute and suspicion. He showed how again their active propaganda had intensified the feeling.
'It was a bad moment for the Robespierrists. They knew themselves sorely shaken in the public esteem. But they rallied. Saint-Just, the ablest of them all, the champion and guiding spirit of Robespierre, boldly grasped the nettle and preached a crusade of purification against all those who trafficked in their mandate, to which trafficking he assigned the public distress.
'For a moment confidence was restored. But it left the Robespierrists shaken, and another such blow at the right moment must lay them low.'
He went on to mention the return of Danton, and to dwell upon Danton's moderate and rather reactionary spirit, aroused by the excesses of the Hébertists and Robespierrists. He showed how confidently de Batz counted upon Danton to bring back the monarchy once the others were out of the way; and he went on to the measures taken for their elimination. Danton had begun by attacking Hébert and his gang, and he had destroyed them, aided at the last moment by Robespierre.
And then, at last, he came to the steps which he personally had taken so as to expose the venality, hypocrisy, and secret tyranny of that popular idol Saint-Just, clearly convincing the Regent that the revolution would never survive Saint-Just's fall.
'I come back to Paris,' he said, 'with the completest proofs of Saint-Just's villainy and corruption.' He detailed them, and went on: 'Desmoulins is to expose him in the Vieux Cordelier as a beginning. Then another—and that other will be Danton himself—will follow up the publication by an attack in the Convention; an attack which is not to be met; an attack under which Saint-Just must inevitably go down, dragging Robespierre with him, and leaving the party discredited, despised, detested. Danton will remain at the head of a state faced by a people weary of revolution and finally disillusioned on the subject of revolutionists, finally persuaded that their faith has been abused.'
He paused. They were silent, intent, moved by an excitement which had been visibly growing in a measure as the clear narrative proceeded. As he paused, there was a movement almost of impatience from d'Avaray, whose pale eyes were fixed upon him. The Regent, no less intent, mumbled:
'Well, sir? Well?'
D'Entragues's keener wits had been a little puzzled by the tense André-Louis was employing. 'Do you mean,' he asked, 'that this is the situation which is now established?'
'This is the situation we had established just before I left Paris. It was something to compensate for the fall of Toulon and the royalist defeat in the South; something worth a dozen royalist victories in the field, for it opens the door for the unopposed return of the monarchical party. Your Highness perceives this?'
The Regent was trembling in his excitement.
'Of course I perceive it. It is astounding. I can scarcely believe in so much good fortune at last, after all that we have suffered.'
'I am glad that you perceive the inevitability of the success to follow, Monseigneur.'
'By now it must have followed,' cut in d'Avaray. 'If this was the state of affairs you left in Paris. The rest must already have happened.'
André-Louis stood looking at them with brooding eyes. The normal pallor of his face had deepened in the last moment or two; the ghost of an oddly mocking smile had crept round the corners of his lips.
'Come, sir,' cried the Regent breathlessly. 'Have you any doubt of what Monsieur d'Avaray says? Surely no doubt is possible.'
'No doubt would have been possible if the plan for which we had laboured had been executed. If the weapons of success of which I had obtained possession had been wielded.'
D'Entragues took a step towards him. The Regent and d'Avaray leaned forward. From the three of them simultaneously came the awed question: 'What do you mean?'
'I should not be troubling you with this report if the Baron de Batz had not desired me to lay it before you,' said André-Louis by way of preface. Then he explained himself. 'On my return from Blérancourt with those proofs which I had employed my wits and risked my head to obtain, I made the discovery that during all those months when I had been braving death in Paris in the service of the monarchical cause, the head of that cause had been taking advantage of my absence to seduce the lady whom he knew was promised to me in marriage. It is only now, since my arrival here this morning, that I have discovered the full extent of this betrayal. So as to remove the barriers which the lady's honour and loyalty must present to his ignoble aims, this disloyal Prince did not scruple to have me represented as dead and to suppress my letters to her which would have proved me living. An incredible story is it not, messieurs?'
In the momentary pause that he made, they were too dumbfounded to interpose a word. Dispassionately he continued:
'When I discovered this, I perceived that no good could come to any country under the rule of a Prince so treacherous and base. Therefore, I thrust into the fire those papers which, by destroying the Robespierrists, must have opened the gates for your Highness's speedy return to France.
'That is all my report, messieurs,' he concluded quietly. 'I should not, I repeat, have troubled to journey here to make it but that the Baron de Batz considered that your Highness should have it. He perceives a moral in the tale, which he hopes—since he remains behind to continue to labour in your service—your Highness will also perceive, and perceiving it perhaps study to become worthy of the high destiny to which you may yet be called.'
'You dare?' said d'Avaray, leaping to his feet.
'Oh, no. Those words are not mine. They are the message from Monsieur de Batz. Myself, I nourish no such hope. If I had no illusions on the subject of the gratitude of princes, at least I had illusions on the subject of their honour when I set out at the risk of my life to become a king-maker. But it has never been among my illusions that a man can run counter to his nature.' He shrugged, and ceased at last, his dark eyes travelling from one to the other of them, the curve of his lips expressing his unutterable contempt.
The Prince sat back, white to his twitching mouth, his body limp. D'Avaray, with eyes flaming in a livid face, remained standing where he had risen. D'Entragues, the only one to preserve his colour, faced André-Louis at closer quarters and conned him with narrowing, wicked eyes.
'You scoundrel! Not only have you committed this atrocious crime, but you dare to come here and tell us of it to our faces, so lost to respect of his Highness that you can permit yourself to speak as you have done.'
'Did you use the word "respect," Monsieur d'Entragues?' He laughed into the dark countenance that was within a foot of his own. 'It need not surprise you or him that my feeling is something very different. Let him be thankful that his royal blood places him beyond the reach of the satisfaction it is my right to claim.'
The Regent rocked in his chair. 'This insolence! My God, this insolence! To what have I fallen?'
'To what, indeed!' said André-Louis.
But d'Avaray, quivering with anger for his master, came swiftly round the table. 'It shall be punished, Monseigneur. I claim to act for you where your rank forbids you to act for yourself.' He confronted André-Louis. 'That for your insolence, you poor rascal!' he said, and swept his fingers across the young man's cheek.
André-Louis fell back, and bowed to him, even as the Regent struggled to his feet.
'No, no! D'Avaray! It shall not be! I forbid it, do you hear? I forbid it! Let him go! What do his words matter? You cannot meet a man so base, a nameless bastard. To the door with him! D'Entragues,