The Sultan's Daughter (15 page)

Lannes, Bourrienne and the Polish aide-de-camp Sulkowsky travelled in the carriage with the General. Roger rode alongside it on a horse that had been provided for him and was thankful to escape the constant jolting of the vehicle, which must have been very wearing to its occupants. At first he wondered why they, too, did not ride; until he realised that Bonaparte, who never wasted a moment, was employing his time by dictating notes to Bourrienne about the state of the coast and that, despite the bumping, that hard-worked official was somehow managing to take them down.

Their first stop was Dunkirk, and there Roger asked Bourrienne for some of the back pay due to him. The
Chef de Cabinet
unlocked a brass-bound chest in the boot and gave him a small bag of gold coin together with a great bundle of
assignats
. The latter were paper money issued by the Government some years previously on the security of the lands confiscated from the Church and nobility. In exchange for gold they had since dropped to a fraction of their face value, but shopkeepers were still compelled by law to accept them. Dividing the bundle into three, Roger arranged for them to be sent to the young Major at General Desmarets's
headquarters with the request that they be passed on to the soldier whose fingers he had cut off with the spade and the two Coastguards whom he had injured, as some compensation for the wounds they had sustained while only doing their duty.

Bonaparte had sent Sulkowsky to the harbour-master with an order that he should collect any Captains of ships, fishermen and smugglers whom he could readily find and bring them to the local military headquarters. As soon as these worthies arrived the General fired a series of questions at them about the capacity of the wharves, the amount of shipping of all kinds based on Dunkirk, the effect of offshore currents and so on. He then carried out a personal inspection of the port. Roger, meanwhile, took the opportunity to buy himself a hat and topcoat, also a razor, change of linen and a few other things.

Lannes had already been sent ahead to ride along the beach to Furnes, where they picked him up in mid-morning. They then drove on to Nieuport and, after Bonaparte had carried out a brief inspection, snatched a hurried meal there. By four o'clock they reached Ostend and in this larger port the procedure at Dunkirk in the morning was repeated.

For some years past the Belgian Netherlands had been absorbed into the French Republic; so they spent that night at the residence of the Military Commandant. But during the evening Roger managed to get a little time in which to carry out a highly private matter of his own.

Having secured pen, ink and paper, he took them with him when he went up to the bedroom he had been given to wash in before supper. On two of the sheets of paper he scrawled a semi-literature letter in French. Anyone reading it would have accepted it as a communication from some small distributor of smuggled goods to his opposite number in England. The greater part of it concerned current prices for French cognac and scent and for Brussels lace, and asked for large consignments of English cloth. But near the end he inserted a paragraph that read as follows:

I hear that great quantities of jelly-fish are breeding on the French coast. The spring tides will, people say, carry them to
England. You owning fishing smacks should warn your fellows of this, else they'll do great damage to the nets. Big shoals of them can likely be spotted in daylight, but not so at night, and especially in foggy weather
.

He addressed an envelope for the letter to Mr. George Peabody at the Crown Inn, Dover. Then he put it in another envelope addressed to Citizen Oammaerts,
Patron de l'Auberge du Bon Voyage
. He had to wait until after supper before he could slip away, but down by the docks he soon found a man who could direct him to the inn. It was one of the secret post-offices that had been established in all the principal ports along the French coast to enable English agents to have their reports smuggled over. Roger had never previously made use of this one but it was a part of his business to memorise them all.

As he was not yet in uniform he could go into the inn without fear of arousing unwelcome comment in connection with his clandestine business. Even so, he took advantage of the prevailing fashion to arrange his voluminous cravat so that it should hide the lower part of his face.

He would, if necessary, have left his letter with a postman but, having called for a drink, he felt very much happier on learning that the little, wizened-faced man behind the bar, with gold rings in his ears, was Citizen Cammaerts. After knocking back the tot of brandy he had ordered, he slipped the letter and a louis across to the landlord, who took them both, ripped open the outer envelope, glanced at the inner one and slipped it into his pocket with a nod but no word.

Roger had put a special mark on the envelope, so that when Mr. Peabody received it he would pay the bearer five guineas then without delay forward the letter to an address in Queen Anne's Gate. Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville at the Foreign Office would receive copies of it very shortly afterwards and, from the paragraph about the jelly-fish, they would have no difficulty in deducing that a French invasion could be expected on a foggy night before the spring was out.

When Roger got back to the Commandant's house Bourrienne asked him where he had been, but he shrugged the question off by replying that he had drunk so much wine at
supper that he had felt he must get a breath of fresh air. Then, very pleased at having got this urgent information safely away, he went up to bed.

Next day they drove further up the coast and crossed to the island of Walcheren. After Bonaparte had assessed its possibilities as an invasion base, they went on to Antwerp. There they had another quick midday meal, after which Bonaparte questioned a number of people and inspected the port. By nightfall they arrived in Brussels and early on the 16th set out on the long drive to Paris.

It had been a whirlwind tour. Bonaparte had left Paris on the 10th, so in seven days he had covered well over five hundred miles. He alone among the party appeared unaffected by the strain. Even tough little Lannes was showing it, but when they drew up in the newly named Rue de la Victoire the pale-faced, frail-looking Corsican told the unfortunate Bourrienne to come into the house with him so that they could look through such correspondence as had arrived in his absence.

Roger took his leave and jogged on wearily to La Belle Etoile, almost falling from his saddle outside the inn. By then it was past midnight so the place was in darkness, but persistent knocking brought the landlord, Maitre Blanchard, down to the door. He was swathed in a woollen robe and still wearing his cotton nightcap.

The worthy Norman believed Roger to be a Frenchman, but had known him to be an aristocrat and secretly a Royalist during those desperate times when he had passed himself off as a fervid revolutionary. But he had always kept Roger's secret, proved the staunchest of friends and still had up in his attic a big trunk of clothes, varying from the tattered garments of a
sans-culotte
to the elegant attire of a young exquisite, that Roger had used as occasion required during the long periods in which he had made La Belle Etoile his home.

On recognising Roger, Maitre Blanchard welcomed him with delight, roused a serving boy from a cubby-hole under the stairs to take his horse, and led him in. Seeing his exhausted state, he tactfully refrained from asking what had become of him during the past two years, and took him up
to a comfortable bedroom. There he pressed Roger to let him bring him up a grog or hot posset, but Roger declared that he would sleep like a log without any aid to somnolence.

Flopping into bed he was almost instantly asleep, and he slept on well into the following morning. When he did become fully awake he rang for the chambermaid and told her to bring him a substantial breakfast. Hungry as a hunter, he ate it in bed, then proceeded slowly to wash and dress himself in becoming clothes from the chest that had been brought down from the attic. While doing so he groaned more than once, for he was terribly stiff from his long ride on the previous day and the insides of his thighs were almost raw.

It was midday before he made his way downstairs and encountered the landlord coming out of the coffee room. With a smiling bow to him, Maitre Blanchard addressed him in a low voice as ‘Monsieur le Chevalier' then said, ‘Knowing one of your favourite dishes to be duck, my wife is about to braise one in the Normandy fashion for dinner. We should be greatly honoured if you would join us.'

Roger had enjoyed many a good meal in the Blanchards's private parlour, and he assented with the utmost readiness. He whiled away an hour scanning the latest issues of the
Moniteur
, then was summoned and went through to greet his motherly hostess.

Over the meal, which they washed down with two bottles of excellent Chambolle Musigny, Roger told them of the voyage he had made to India, of his return via Egypt and Venice and of his having been given a post on General Bonaparte's Staff. To this simple couple India seemed as distant as another planet and they listened with rapt attention while he was describing its strangeness, colour and marvels. Then, when Maître Blanchard produced a dust-encrusted bottle of his native Calvados, Roger—knowing that his host followed all political developments with shrewd interest and that his clients kept him well informed about what was going on—said:

‘But enough of myself. Tell me now how you have fared, and the latest gossip in this great city of Paris.'

‘Monsieur, we cannot complain,' replied Blanchard. ‘In
fact by last September things had become quite like old times and———'

‘Old times!' interrupted his wife. ‘How can you say that when those who rule us flaunt their godlessness and lechery so shamelessly?' Turning to Roger, she went on indignantly, ‘Paris has become another Babylon, monsieur. The Christian faith is mocked at, the men have made money their god, and the women of all classes sell themselves; the richer ones for jewels, and the poorer ones for a good dinner or a few ribbons.'

‘That was already the case when I was last here,' Roger commented. ‘While one does not approve such a state of things, it is, to some extent, understandable. Having lived in fear for so long, when any display of rich living could lead to the guillotine and all forms of enjoyment were frowned on by the Committee of Public Safety, it is hardly surprising that when the Terror ended a wave of hysterical relief should sweep people into giving free rein to their baser passions.'

‘You misunderstood me, my love,' added her husband. ‘By “old times” I meant that there was much more money about, men were beginning to address one another as
“Monsieur”
again, instead of
“Citoyen”
, and many people who had been in prison or had fled from the Terror were once more freely walking the streets of Paris.'

‘The 18th
Fructidor
altered all that,' Madame Blanchard put in quickly.

Her husband nodded. ‘As I was about to say, we have since suffered another revolution and, but for the threat of the guillotine, we again suffer under a tyranny almost as bad as that of Robespierre.'

‘That was General Augereau's doing, was it not?' Roger remarked.

‘Yes. He arrived here from Italy in the late summer. Covered with jewels and prancing about on his great charger, he rode round the city stirring up trouble wherever he went. By early September he had hatched a plot with Barras. On the 4th he led two thousand soldiers to the Legislative Assembly, arrested the officers of its guard and suborned their men. When the Deputies asked him by what right he dare break into their Chamber he waved his sabre in their
faces and bellowed, “By the law of the sword”. He arrested some of them and dispersed the rest. By nightfall it was all over. Barras placarded the city with announcements that a Royalist plot had been discovered and that the revolution had been saved only by immediate action. Over two hundred Constitutionalist Deputies were permanently deprived of their seats. Carnot got away, but Barthélemy refused to flee. He, General Pichegru and some dozen other leaders of the Moderates were condemned to transportation and shipped off to Cayenne.'

Madame Blanchard raised her eyes and hands in horror. ‘Monsieur, you cannot conceive that even the worst of men could treat others of their kind with such brutality. They were trundled across France all the way to Rochefort in open iron cages on wheels, half-starved, and at every stop that was made their guards allowed mobs of ruffians to pelt them with refuse. Even worse followed, for it has since been learned that their voyage to America lasted seven whole weeks. For all that time they lay battened down in the hold with only weevilly biscuits and brackish water to sustain them.'

‘Indeed, madame,' Roger agreed, with a sad shake of his head, the “dry” guillotine is far more to be feared than the “wet” one. Many of them, too, were men advanced in years who, as in the case of poor Barthélemy, had rendered valuable service to their country. It is disgraceful that they should have received such treatment.'

After a moment he turned to Blanchard and asked, ‘Is it believed that there was a Royalist plot?'

‘No; not the ghost of one,' the landlord declared firmly. ‘I doubt if there was a single Deputy who wanted a King back, and most of the Constitutionalists differed so widely from one another in their views of what ought to be done that no group would have been large enough to overthrow the Directory.'

‘Since they had in common the aims of securing a greater degree of tolerance and bringing about a peace, I find it surprising that sufficient of them did not combine to form a powerful party.'

‘That can be partly explained by the seating arrangements in the Chamber, initiated by the Thermidorians. With the
object of preventing the formation of such formidable blocs as the “Mountain”, which might have opposed them, the Directors got a law passed that a separate chair and desk should be provided for each Deputy, and once a month they had to draw lots for where they were to sit. The result was that no two of them sat side by side for more than four weeks. Men of similar opinions could not get together and consult with one another during a session, so their opposition was uncoordinated and haphazard.'