The English Heiress (36 page)

“She will not be with you more than the one night. Mademoiselle Fouché—”

“Who?” Roger gasped.

“Mademoiselle Fouché,” de Rocheville repeated with a smile. “Yes, the daughter of your friend. How did you think I learned of you? Monsieur Fouché is—never mind that, but his daughter has for a long time visited the priest and nuns who are imprisoned in the Conciergerie to bring them what comforts she can. She has managed to see the queen. On September third, Mademoiselle Fouché will come here escorted by a gentleman—me—to pay a visit to your wife. Thank God it is summer and she can wear a large hat and carry a parasol. She will change clothes with her majesty, who will leave after a suitable half-hour visit. During the afternoon, Mademoiselle de Conyers should make several trips to shop or visit, alternating her use of the front and rear doors to come and go. One of the trips, Mademoiselle Fouché will go out instead. No one will remember how many times Mademoiselle de Conyers came and went. Obviously, if she is at home, she must have returned each time.”

Leonie nodded. “That will work, except—I have heard the queen’s hair is white now. Be sure there is a wig to match Mademoiselle Fouché’s hair color and one for Mademoiselle Fouché to match mine.”

A broad smile illuminated de Rocheville’s face. “Thank you, madame. That was one thing we had not thought of. You also have a large hat, I hope?”

“Yes, one moment and I will fetch it so that you may get another to match. It is very common.”

She ran up to get her hat, and Roger shook his head at de Rocheville. “I wish I were as sure you will be able to free Madame as Leonie is that this exchange of women will work.”

“It shouldn’t be difficult,” de Rocheville said. “Most of the people who have come here have been taken from the prisons. The jailers are such drunken, depraved animals that a few coins will buy a prisoner out.”

“But the queen is not ‘any’ prisoner.”

“Then the coins will have to be gold,” de Rocheville said cynically.

“There must be gendarmes specially ordered to guard the queen,” Roger insisted.

“Michonis is an officer of the gendarmerie,” de Rocheville countered. “He will be sure that there is no trouble with the men who are supposed to guard her. And the chief jailer will give no trouble—although he pretends to be vigilant, he only obeys Michonis in everything.”

Leonie had come back with the hat, and de Rocheville lowered his eyes to it and began to study it with, Roger felt, more intensity than it deserved. He felt decidedly uneasy, for all the assurances he had been given, but he could not bring himself to refuse. This time his cooperation really was necessary. It was not likely that Mademoiselle Fouché, who could come to visit Leonie without raising suspicion, was also acquainted with others in de Rocheville’s escape route. He said nothing, watching de Rocheville hand the hat back to Leonie and begin to pull on his boots.

“I will go with the queen,” de Rocheville said, his eyes fixed on what he was doing, “so you will not see me again on this business we have been doing together. Someone, however, will come. You will know him by your father’s gun.”

Roger closed the door after him and went wearily to get the makeshift bed from where he had hidden it. Leonie watched him, then said softly from behind him, “You think this will fail.”

“Yes.”

“Why?” There was no protest in the question. Leonie too, had sensed something in de Rocheville’s manner.

Roger shook his head. “I suppose because it seems so easy. Madame will just walk out of the prison. Well, others have done so… Yet…”

“He does not really believe it,” Leonie said. “He said he would not see you again—but if he comes with the queen, he will. That was a slip, wasn’t it? Does he expect to be betrayed?”

“No. He would not have involved us if he thought that. I don’t believe we are in any special danger, Leonie. No matter what happens to de Rocheville, he will not drag anyone down with him Perhaps he just wants it too much or—I have heard Michonis is a great one for a jest—perhaps he thinks his tongue will slip.”

“I am sorry for the queen,” Leonie sighed.

It did not occur to her that Roger could be wrong, and indeed he was not. On the night of September second they waited and waited in vain. At twelve they doused their lights and sat together in the dark. At three Leonie went slowly up to bed. The guard changed at midnight. No matter which set of guards was supposed to have been bribed, it was now long past the time it would have taken to come to their house from the prison, even on foot. On September fifth Roger heard from a customer that Michonis had been arrested for complicity in a plot to free the “widow Capet”.

He kept his eyes on the gun he was working on to free a jammed lock-mechanism. “All by himself?” he asked caustically. His voice gave no indication of any interest deeper than a relish in gossip.

“The chief jailer will be removed, and the gendarmes who took the bribes will be shortened by a head, but Michonis says there was no plot. He insists it was a joke, a mistake, a misunderstanding… You know the kinds of things they say.”

Roger asked another question or two, but idly, as if he had little interest. He was relieved that de Rocheville seemed not to have been implicated. He expected, indeed to see him or to have another group of guests arrive any day, but this did not happen nor did anyone else bearing his father’s gun come to see him. He could only assume it was because the whole situation was growing steadily worse and worse.

Life in Paris had become a nightmare even to the people who had nothing to hide. Shops closed early, which was reasonable because it was illegal to carry package after dark, so that it was pointless to buy anything after the sun set. In fact, only the direst need could bring a person out in the streets at night. To be caught on even the most innocent errand by a night patrol generally meant imprisonment—which led in short order to execution, regardless of whether or not a crime had been committed. Not that barricading oneself in the house was of much use. It was quite usual for a night patrol to burst in and examine everyone in the household. To entertain a guest was equivalent to engaging in a conspiracy.

Because Roger serviced the guns of the officials and gendarmes in the area, he was well known to them and—unless there was some good reason—it was unlikely that his house would be invaded. Still, the atmosphere was horrifying. Ten, then twenty, then more were guillotined each day. Again and again Roger thanked God for Leonie’s courage. It was marvelous to him, not so much because she showed fortitude in the face of danger but because she was cheerful, almost merry, going about her daily tasks and laughing as often and as easily as ever. It was more marvelous because it was not gallows humor, either. Leonie made no jokes about “sneezing into a basket”.

Had Roger known the source of Leonie’s placid good humor, he would have been appalled. She did have courage and would have faced even certain death without hysterics. But Leonie did not even think of death or imprisonment. She was so convinced that Roger would find a way out if danger became imminent that she was able to stay alert to any sign of suspicion or odd behavior without any real fear. To her mind the worst that could happen was deprivation and discomfort. Perhaps they would have to flee and go hungry and hide in the dark. Naturally, she would rather continue to live in relative comfort, but she was not afraid of running and hiding.

She saw Roger was worried and put up with his occasional sharpness without impatience. It never occurred to her that he was personally afraid—in which she would have been reasonably correct, considering a slip on either of their parts would get them guillotined, and he had no more wish to die than any other healthy young man in love. However, Leonie did not think in terms of the guillotine. She blithely assumed that Roger was distressed because he did not want her to “suffer”. She never forgot how he had reacted to the idea that she should go hungry or the way he insisted she must sleep alone in the bed at the inn. Although that had annoyed her at the time because she did not wish to sleep alone, she did not forget how grateful she would have been for Roger’s self-denial if she had not already loved him. Her heart swelled with tenderness at his foolish concern for her, but she said nothing. It was useless to tell him she would not mind what he called “suffering”, that to her it would be no more than an irritating inconvenience. That would make him feel even worse.

Thus, both faced the future in happy ignorance of the other’s real thoughts. Fortunately, revelation was not forced upon them. If Michonis had known of them, he went to the guillotine without ever implicating anyone, reiterating that no treason had been intended. Roger could not guess what had happened to de Rocheville. Perhaps he had escaped from the city. All Roger knew was that he heard no more of him and, more important, no more of any further attempts to rescue Marie Antoinette. Her trial began on October twelfth. On the fifteenth she was declared guilty of a number of fanciful crimes, the most disgusting of which was that she had taught her son immoral practices. On the sixteenth, at 12:15 p.m., Marie Antoinette was executed.

If the trial and execution of the queen were meant as a diversion, it failed. Nothing could divert the people of Paris from a situation that grew steadily worse. In September the royalists had given the port of Toulon to the British. Immediately after this, government by terror was publicly declared to be the “business” of the convention. On September seventeenth the Law of Suspected Persons, drafted largely by Robespierre, permitted—or rather encouraged—the immediate arrest of persons whose conduct, associations, talk or writings showed them to be “enemies of liberty”. In addition, all persons who did not have a certificate of citizenship or who could not prove they had “carried out their obligations as citizens”, whatever that meant, were subject to immediate imprisonment.

Safety for Roger and Leonie hung on the thin thread of the goodwill of the commissioners who were his customers and the fact that most of the gendarmes in the Section knew him well. The commissioners themselves were not much safer than the ordinary citizens. They watched each other constantly, wondering whether they should accuse their friends before their friends accused them. Among the bloodiest of the supporters of Robespierre in his concept of government by terror were Joseph Fouché and Pierre Gaspard Chaumette.

Joseph Fouché had been sent to Lyons by the convention when the royalist forces there had been defeated and he had made a sanguinary example of the city. In future the provincial cities would know better than to object to the dictates of the convention. Chaumette had performed a similar duty elsewhere, but Roger knew of him because he was in charge of the commissioners of the Temple, where the dauphin was still imprisoned. The other commissioners spoke about Chaumette sometimes—with glances over their shoulders that betrayed what they thought of him. Still, Roger was not disturbed when Chaumette first came into the shop. Times being what they were, Roger assumed he came to buy a gun, and that was indeed what he asked for.

Roger showed him what he had with easy apologies because it was very little. His main business was repair, he pointed out. It was almost impossible to buy guns now or even the parts from which to manufacture them, and he had nothing for sale except the few pieces confiscated by gendarmes or other officials from persons accused of various crimes. To his surprise, Chaumette did not leave after he had rejected the few weapons Roger had for sale. Instead he looked at Roger measuringly and said, “You are of excellent repute both as a workman and as a citizen, Saintaire.”

“Thank you,” Roger replied briefly, turning away to lock the unwanted pistols into a cupboard.

“I have heard of you from a common friend, Citizen Fouché.”

“He does what little business I need done,” Roger agreed, reluctantly turning back again to face Chaumette. He was worried now. Chaumette was a known and avowed atheist. He could have nothing in common with Fouché, whose daughter devotedly assisted the nuns and priests who had been imprisoned for refusing to set the state above the Church in their loyalties and who had offered herself as a substitute for the queen in the escape plot. It was true that Fouché himself made no parade of his sympathies and that probably Mademoiselle Fouché kept her activities as quiet as possible, particularly since Joseph Fouché was also strongly atheist. That thought clicked in Roger’s mind, and he put it together with the expression of mild surprise on Chaumette’s face and smiled.

“Oh, you much mean Joseph Fouché. I was thinking of Jean-Baptiste Fouché avocat.”

“Yes, Citizen Fouché’s cousin. I know him also. Joseph lodges with him.”

“Yes, I have had the honor of meeting Citizen Joseph Fouché once or twice.”

“So he said. He also said you had a horse and carriage. Is this true?”

“Yes,” Roger replied.

He leaned forward a little, as if he wanted to speak softly while he explained why he happened to have such an equipage, but his real purpose was to level a pistol at Chaumette’s belly under the counter. The ball would be only slightly impeded by the thin wood of the back of the counter, and its impact should double Chaumette up, giving Roger time to shoot him in the head with the other pistol. It was convenient, he thought grimly, that the sound of shots was a frequent, everyday occurrence in his shop and would not bring curious neighbors. The only dangers were that Chaumette’s screams when the first bullet hit him might be heard, and that someone might remember he had entered Roger’s shop and not emerged.