Lord Hornblower

Chapter XVIII

“May I speak to you, my lord?” asked Brown.

He had put the breakfast tray by the bed, and had drawn aside the window curtains. Spring sunshine was gleaming on the distant Loire. Brown had waited respectfully until Hornblower had drunk his first cup of coffee and was coming slowly back to the world.

“What is it?” asked Hornblower, blinking over at him where he stood against the wall. Brown’s attitude was not a usual one. Some of the deferential bearing of the gentleman’s servant had been replaced by the disciplined erectness of the old days, when a self-respecting sailor held his head up and his shoulders back whether he was being condemned to the cat or commended for gallantry.

“What is it?” asked Hornblower again, consumed with curiosity.

He had had one moment of wild misgiving, wondering if Brown were going to be such a frantic fool as to say something about his relations with Marie, but the misgiving vanished as he realised the absurdity and impossibility of such a thing. Yet Brown was acting strangely—one might almost think he was feeling shy.

“Well, sir—I mean my lord,” (that was the first time Brown had slipped over Hornblower’s title since the peerage was conferred,) “I don’t know rightly if it’s anything your lordship would wish to know about. I don’t want to presume, sir—my lord.”

“Oh, spit it out, man,” said Hornblower testily. “And call me ‘sir’ if it’s any comfort to you.”

“It’s this way, my lord. I’m wanting to get married.”

“Good God!” said Hornblower. He had a vague idea that Brown had been a terror for women, and the possibility of his marrying had never crossed his mind. He hastened to say what he thought would be appropriate. “Who’s the lucky woman?”

“Annette, my lord. Jeanne and Bertrand’s daughter. And I am the lucky one, my lord.”

“Jeanne’s daughter? Oh, of course. The pretty one with the dark hair.”

Hornblower thought about a lively French girl marrying a sturdy Englishman like Brown, and for the life of him he could see no reason against it at all. Brown would be a better husband than most—it certainly would be a lucky woman who got him.

“You’re a man of sense, Brown,” he said. “You needn’t ask me about these things. I’m sure you’ve made a wise choice, and you have all my best wishes for your happiness and joy.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“If Annette can cook as well as her mother,” Hornblower went on meditatively, “you’re a lucky man indeed.”

“That was another thing I wanted to say to you, my lord. She’s a cook second to none, young though she is. Jeanne says so herself, and if she says so—”

“We can be sure of it,” agreed Hornblower.

“I was thinking, my lord,” went on Brown, “not wanting to presume, that if I was to continue in your service your lordship might consider engaging Annette as cook.”

“God bless my soul,” said Hornblower.

He mentally looked down a vista a lifetime long of dinners as good as Jeanne cooked. Dinners at Smallbridge had been almost good but most decidedly plain. Smallbridge and French cooking offered a most intriguing study in contrasts. Certainly Smallbridge would be more attractive with Annette as cook. And yet what was he thinking about? What had happened to those doubts and tentative notions about never seeing Smallbridge again? Some such ideas had certainly passed through his mind when he thought about Marie, and yet here he was thinking about Smallbridge and thinking about Annette heading his kitchen. He shook himself out of his reverie.

“Of course I can give no decision on the point myself,” he said, fencing for time. “Her Ladyship will have to be consulted, as you understand, Brown. Have you any alternative in mind?”

“Plenty, my lord, as long as you are satisfied. I’ve thought of starting a small hotel—I have all my prize-money saved.”

“Where?”

“In London, perhaps, my lord. But maybe in Paris. Or in Rome. I have been discussing it with Felix and Bertrand and Annette.”

“My God!” said Hornblower again. Nothing like this had crossed his mind for a single moment, and yet—“I have no doubt you would be successful, Brown.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“Tell me, this seems to have been a lightning courtship. Is that so?”

“Not really, my lord. When I was here last Annette and I—you understand, my lord.”

“I do now,” said Hornblower.

It was fantastic that Brown, the man who hove the line that saved the Pluto, the man who silenced Colonel Caillard with a single blow of his fist, should be talking calmly about the possibility of opening an hotel in Rome. Actually it was no more fantastic than that he himself should have seriously debated with himself the possibility of becoming a French seigneur, and turning his back on England. He had done that no later than fast night; love for Marie had grown during the last five days even while his passion was indulged—and Hornblower was not the sort of fool to be ignorant of how much that implied.

“When are you thinking of marrying, Brown?” he asked.

“As soon as the law of this country allows, my lord.”

“I’ve no idea how long that means,” said Hornblower.

“I am finding out, my lord. Will that be all you need at present?”

“No. I’ll get up at once—can’t stay in bed after hearing all this exciting news, Brown. I’ll come through with a handsome wedding-present.”

“Thank you, my lord. I’ll fetch your hot water, then.”

Marie was waiting for him in her boudoir when he was dressed. She kissed him good morning, passed a hand over his smoothly shaven cheeks, and, with her arm over his shoulder, led him to her turret window to show him that the apple trees in the orchard below were showing their first blossoms. It was spring; and it was good to be in love and to be loved in this green and lovely land. He took her white hands in his, and he kissed every finger on them, with a surge of reverent passion. As each day passed he had come to admire her the more, her sweetness of character and the unselfishness of her love. For Hornblower respect and love made a heady mixture—he felt he could kneel to her as to a saint. She was conscious of the passion that was carrying him away, as she was conscious of everything about him.

“’Oratio,” she said—why should it stir him so frightfully to hear that ridiculous name of his pronounced in that fashion?

He clung to her, and she held him and comforted him as she always did. She had no thought for the future now. In the future lay tragedy for her, she knew; but this was the present, and during this present Hornblower had need of her. They came out of their paroxysm of passion smiling as they always did.

“You heard the news about Brown?” he asked.

“He is going to marry Annette. That is very proper.”

“It does not seem to be news to you?”

“I knew it before Brown did,” said Marie. There was a dimple that came and went in her cheek, and a little light of mischief could sparkle in her eyes. She was wholly and utterly desirable.

“They should make a good pair,” said Hornblower.

“Her chest of linens is all ready,” said Marie, “and Bertrand had a dot for her.”

They went downstairs to tell the Count the news, and he heard it with pleasure.

“I can perform the civil ceremony myself,” he said. “Do you remember that I am the maire here, ‘Oratio? A position that is almost a sinecure, thanks to the efficiency of my adjoint, and yet I can make use of my powers should the whim ever overtake me.”

Fortunately, as regards the saving of time, Brown was able—as they found out on calling him in to ask him—to declare himself an orphan and head of his family, thus obviating the need for parental permission on which French law insisted. And King Louis XVIII and the Chamber had not yet carried out their declared intention of making a religious ceremony a necessary part of the legal marriage. There would be a religious ceremony, all the same, and the blessing of the Church would be given to the union, with the safeguards always insisted on in a mixed marriage. Annette was never to cease to try to convert Brown, and the children were to be brought up in the Catholic faith. Brown nodded as this was explained to him; religious scruples apparently weighed lightly enough on his shoulders.

The village of Smallbridge had already been scandalised by the introduction into its midst of Barbara’s negro maid: it had shaken disapproving heads over Hornblower’s and Barbara’s heathen habit of a daily bath; what it would say in the future about the presence of a popish female and a Popish family Hornblower could hardly imagine. There he was, thinking about Smallbridge again. This was a double life in very truth. He looked uneasily across at the Count whose hospitality he was abusing. It was hard to think of guilty love in connection with Marie—there was no guilt in her. And in himself? Could he be held guilty for something he could do nothing to resist? Was he guilty when the current whirled him away in the Loire, not a mile from where he was standing at present? He shifted his glance to Marie, and felt his passion surge up as strongly as ever, so that he started nervously when it penetrated his consciousness that the Count was addressing him in his gentle voice.

“’Oratio,” said the Count, “shall we dance at the wedding?”

They made quite a gala occasion of it, a little to the surprise of Hornblower, who had vague and incorrect ideas about the attitude of French seigneurs of the old regime towards their dependants. The barrels of wine were set up in the back courtyard of the château, and quite an orchestra was assembled, of fiddlers, and of pipers from the Auvergne who played instruments something like Scottish bagpipes that afflicted Hornblower’s tone-deaf ear atrociously. The Count led out fat Jeanne in the dance, and the bride’s father led out Marie. There was wine, there were great masses of food, there were bawdy jokes and highfalutin speeches. The countryside seemed to show astonishing tolerance towards this marriage of a local girl to an heretical foreigner—local peasant farmers clapped Brown on the back and their wives kissed his weather-beaten cheeks amidst screams of mirth. But then, Brown was universally popular, and seemed to know the dances by instinct.

Hornblower, unable to tell one note of music from another, was constrained to listen intently to the rhythm, and, intently watching the actions of the others, he was able to scramble grotesquely through the movements of the dances, handed on from one apple-cheeked woman to another. At one moment he sat gorged and bloated with food at a trestle table, at another he was skipping madly over the courtyard cobbles between two buxom maidens, hand in hand with them and laughing unrestrainedly. It was extraordinary to him—even here he still had moments of self-analysis—that he could ever enjoy himself so much. Marie smiled at him from under level brows.

He was amazingly weary and yet amazingly happy when he found himself back again in the salon of the château, his legs stretched out in inelegant ease while Felix, transformed again into the perfect major-domo, took the orders of him and the Count.

“There is an odd rumour prevalent,” said the Count, sitting upright in his chair apparently as unwearied and as dapper as ever. “I did not wish to disturb the fête by discussing it there. People are saying that Bonaparte has escaped from Elba and has landed in France.”

“That is indeed odd,” agreed Hornblower lazily, the import of the news taking some time to penetrate his befogged brain. “What can he intend to do?”

“He claims the throne of France again,” said the Count, seriously.

“It is less than a year since the people abandoned him.”

“That is true. Perhaps Bonaparte will solve the problem for us that we were discussing a few nights ago. There is no doubt that the King will have him shot if he can lay hands on him, and that will be an end of all possibility of intrigue and disturbance.”

“Quite so.”

“But I wish—foolishly perhaps—that we had heard of Bonaparte’s death at the same time as we heard of his landing.”

The Count appeared grave, and Hornblower felt a little disturbed. He knew his host to be an acute political observer.

“What is it you fear, sir?” asked Hornblower, gradually gathering his wits about him.

“I fear lest he gain some unexpected success. You know the power of his name, and the King—the King or his advisers—has not acted as temperately as he might have done since his restoration.”

The entrance of Marie, smiling and happy, interrupted the conversation, nor was it restarted when they resumed their seats. There were moments during the next two days when Hornblower felt some slight misgivings, even though the only news that came in was a mere confirmation of the rumour of the landing with no amplification. It was a shadow across his happiness, but so great and so intense was the latter that it took more than a slight shadow to chill it. Those lovely spring days, wandering under the orchard blossoms, and beside the rushing Loire; riding—how was it that riding was a pleasure now when always before he had detested it?—through the forest; even driving into Nevers on the one or two ceremonial calls his position demanded of him; those moments were golden, every one of them. Fear of Bonaparte’s activity could not cloud them—not even fear of what would be said to him in a letter that must inevitably soon come from Vienna could do that. On the surface Barbara had nothing to complain about; she had gone to Vienna, and during her absence Hornblower was visiting old friends. But Barbara would know. Probably she would say nothing, but she would know.

And great as was Hornblower’s happiness it was not untrammelled, as Brown’s happiness was untrammelled—Hornblower found himself envying Brown and the public way in which Brown could claim his love. Hornblower and Marie had to be a little furtive, a little guarded, and his conscience troubled him a little over the Count. Yet even so, he was happy, happier than he had ever been in his tormented life. For once self-analysis brought him no pangs. He had doubts neither about himself nor about Marie, and the novelty of that experience completely overlaid all his fears and misgivings about the future. He could live in peace until trouble should overtake him—if a spice to his happiness were necessary (and it was not), it was the knowledge that trouble lay ahead and that he could ignore it. All that guilt and uncertainty could do was to drive him more madly still into Marie’s arms, not consciously to forget, but merely because of the added urgency they brought.

This was love, unalloyed and without reservations. There was an ecstasy in giving, and no amazement in receiving. It had come to him at last, after all these years and tribulations. Cynically it might be thought that it was merely one more example of Hornblower’s yearning for the thing he could not have, but if that was the case Hornblower for once was not conscious of it. There was some line from the prayer-book that ran in Hornblower’s head during those days—’Whose service is perfect freedom’. That described his servitude to Marie.

The Loire was still in flood; the cataract where once he had nearly drowned—the cataract which was the cause of his first meeting with Marie—was a rushing slope of green water, foam-bordered. Hornblower could hear the sound of it as he lay in Marie’s arms in her room in the turret; often they walked beside it, and Hornblower could contemplate it without a tremor or a thrill. That was all over. His reason told him that he was the same man as boarded the Castilla, the same man who faced el Supremo’s wrath, the man who fought to the death at Rosas Bay, the man who had walked decks awash with blood, and yet oddly he felt as if those things had happened to someone else. Now he was a man of peace, a man of indolence, and the cataract was not a thing that had nearly killed him.

It seemed perfectly natural when the Count came in with good news.

“The Count d’Artois has defeated Bonaparte in a battle in the south,” he said. “Bonaparte is a fugitive, and will soon be a prisoner. The news is from Paris.”

That was as it should be; the wars were over.

“I think we can light a bonfire tonight,” said the Count, and the bonfire blazed and toasts were drunk to the King.

But it was no later than next morning that Brown, as he put the breakfast tray beside Hornblower’s bed, announced that the Count wished to speak to him as early as convenient, and he had hardly uttered the words when the Count came in, haggard and dishevelled in his dressing-gown.

“Pardon this intrusion,” said the Count—even at that moment he could not forget his good manners—“but I could not wait. There is bad news. The very worst.”

Hornblower could only stare and wait, while the Count gathered his strength to tell his news. It took an effort to say the words.

“Bonaparte is in Paris,” said the Count. “The King has fled and Bonaparte is Emperor again. All France has fallen to him.”

“But the battle he had lost?”

“Rumour—lies—all lies. Bonaparte is Emperor again.”

It took time to understand all that this implied. It meant war again, that was certain. Whatever the other Great Powers might do, England could never tolerate the presence of that treacherous and mighty enemy across the Channel. England and France would be at each other’s throats once more. Twenty-two years ago the wars had started; it seemed likely that it would be another twenty-two years before Bonaparte could be pulled from his throne again. There would be another twenty-two years of misery and slaughter. The prospect was utterly hideous.

“How did it happen?” asked Hornblower, more to gain time than because he wanted to know.

The Count spread his delicate hands in a hopeless gesture.

“Not a shot was fired,” he said. “The army went over to him en masse. Ney, Labédoyère, Soult—they all betrayed the King. In two weeks Bonaparte marched from the Mediterranean to Paris. That would be fast travelling in a coach and six.”

“But the people do not want him,” protested Hornblower. “We all know that.”

“The people’s wishes do not weigh against the army’s,” said the Count. “The news has come with the usurper’s first decrees. The classes of 1815 and 1816 are to be called out. The Household troops are disbanded, the Imperial Guard is to be reconstituted. Bonaparte is ready to fight Europe again.”

Hornblower vaguely saw himself once more on the deck of a ship, weighed down with responsibility, encompassed by danger, isolated and friendless. It was a bleak prospect.

A tap on the door heralded Marie’s entrance, in her dressing-gown, with her magnificent hair over her shoulders.

“You have heard the news, my dear?” asked the Count. He made no comment either on her presence or on her appearance.

“Yes,” said Marie. “We are in danger.”

“We are indeed,” said the Count. “All of us.”

So appalling had been the news that Hornblower had not yet had leisure to contemplate its immediate personal implications. As an officer of the British Navy, he would be seized and imprisoned immediately. Not only that, but Bonaparte had intended years ago to try him and shoot him on charges of piracy. He would carry that intention into effect—tyrants have long memories. And the Count, and Marie?

“Bonaparte knows now that you helped me escape,” said Hornblower. “He will never forgive that.”

“He will shoot me if he can catch me,” said the Count; he made no reference to Marie, but he glanced towards her. Bonaparte would shoot her too.

“We must get away,” said Hornblower. “The country cannot be settled under Bonaparte yet. With fast horses we can reach the coast—”

He took his bedclothes in his hand to cast them off, restraining himself in the nick of time out of deference to Marie’s presence.

“I shall be dressed in ten minutes,” said Marie.

As the door closed behind her and the Count, Hornblower hurled himself out of bed shouting for Brown. The transition from the sybarite to the man of action took a few moments, but only a few. As he tore off his nightshirt he conjured up before his mind’s eye the map of France, visualising the roads and ports. They could reach La Rochelle over the mountains in two days of hard riding. He hauled up his trousers. The Count had a great name—no one would venture to arrest him or his party without direct orders from Paris; with bluff and self-confidence they could get through. There were two hundred golden napoleons in the secret compartment of his portmanteau—maybe the Count had more. It was enough for bribery. They could bribe a fisherman to take them out to sea—they could steal a boat, for that matter.

It was humiliating thus to run like rabbits at Bonaparte’s first reappearance; it was hardly consonant with the dignity of a peer and a commodore, but his first duty was to preserve his life and his usefulness. A dull rage against Bonaparte, the wrecker of the peace, was growing within him, but was still far from mastering him as yet. It was resentment as yet, rather than rage; and his sullen resignation regarding the change in conditions was slowly giving way to tentative wonderings regarding whether he could not play a more active part in the opening of the struggle than merely running away to fight another day. Here he was in France, in the heart of his enemy’s country. Surely he could strike a blow here that could be felt. As he hauled on his riding-boots he spoke to Brown.

“What about your wife?” he asked.

“I hoped she could come with us, my lord,” said Brown, soberly.

If he left her behind he would not see her again until the end of the war twenty years off; if he stayed with her he would be cast into prison.

“Can she ride?”

“She will, my lord.”

“Go and see that she gets ready. We can carry nothing more than saddle-bags. She can attend Mme la Vicomtesse.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

Two hundred gold napoleons made a heavy mass to carry, but it was essential to have them with him. Hornblower thumped down the stairs in his riding-boots; Marie was already in the main hall wearing a black habit and a saucy tricorne hat with a feather. He ran his eyes keenly over her; there was nothing about her appearance to excite attention—she was merely a lady of fashion soberly dressed.

“Shall we take any of the men with us?” she asked.

“They are all old. It would be better not to. The Count, you, myself, Brown and Annette. We shall need five horses.”

“That is what I expected,” answered Marie. She was a fine woman in a crisis.

“We can cross the bridge at Nevers, and head for Bourges and La Rochelle. In the Vendée we shall have our best chance.”

“It might be better to make for a little fishing village rather than a great port,” commented Marie.

“That’s very likely true. We can make up our minds about it, though, when we are near the coast.”

“Very well.”

She appreciated the importance of unity of command even though she was ready with advice.

“What about your valuables?” asked Hornblower.

“I have my diamonds in my saddle-bag here.”

As she spoke the Count came in, booted and spurred. He carried a small leather sack which clinked as he put it down.

“Two hundred napoleons,” he said.

“The same as I have. It will be ample.”

“It would be better if it did not clink, though,” said Marie. “I’ll pack it with a cloth.”

Felix entered with the Count’s saddle-bags and the announcement that the horses were ready—Brown and Annette awaited them in the courtyard.

“Let us go,” said Hornblower.

It was a sorry business saying goodbye. There were tears from the women—Annette’s pretty face was all beslobbered with grief—even though the men, trained in the stoical school of gentlemen’s service, kept silence.

“Goodbye, my friend,” said the Count, holding out his hand to Felix. They were both old men, and the chances were that they would never meet again.

They rode out of the courtyard, and down to the road along the river; it was ironical that it should be a lovely spring day, with the fruit blossom raining down on them and the Loire sparkling joyously. At the first turn in the road the spires and towers of Nevers came into sight; at the next they could clearly see the ornate Gonzaga palace. Hornblower spared it a casual glance, blinked, and looked again. Marie was beside him and the Count beyond her, and he glanced at them for confirmation.

“That is a white flag,” said Marie.

“I thought so too,” wondered Hornblower.

“My eyes are such that I can see no flag at all,” said the Count ruefully.

Hornblower turned in his saddle to Brown, riding along encouraging Annette.

“That’s a white flag over the palace, my lord.”

“It hardly seems possible,” said the Count. “My news this morning came from Nevers. Beauregard, the Prefect there, had declared at once for Bonaparte.”

It was certainly odd—even if the white flag had been hoisted inadvertently it was odd.

“We shall know soon enough,” said Hornblower, restraining his natural instinct to push his horse from a trot into a canter.

The white flag still flew as they approached. At the octroi gate stood half a dozen soldiers in smart grey uniforms, their grey horses tethered behind them.

“Those are Grey Musketeers of the Household,” said Marie. Hornblower recognised the uniforms. He had seen those troops in attendance on the King both at the Tuileries and at Versailles.

“Grey Musketeers cannot hurt us,” said the Count.

The sergeant of the picket looked at them keenly as they approached, and stepped into the road to ask them their names.

“Louis-Antoine-Hector-Savinien de Ladon, Comte de Graçay, and his suite,” said the Count.

“You may pass, M. le Comte,” said the sergeant. “Her Royal Highness is at the Prefecture.”

“Which Royal Highness?” marvelled the Count.

In the Grand Square a score of troopers of the Grey Musketeers sat their horses. A few white banners flew here and there, and as they entered the square a man emerged from the Prefecture and began to stick up a printed poster. They rode up to look at it—the first word was easily read—’Frenchmen!’ it said.

“Her Royal Highness is the Duchess of Angoulême,” said the Count.

The proclamation called on all Frenchmen to fight against the usurping tyrant, to be loyal to the ancient House of Bourbon. According to the poster, the King was still in arms around Lille, the south had risen under the Duke d’Angoulême, and all Europe was marching armies to enchain the man-eating ogre and restore the Father of his People to the throne of his ancestors.

In the Prefecture the Duchess received them eagerly. Her beautiful face was drawn with fatigue, and she still wore a mud-splashed riding habit—she had ridden through the night with her squadron of musketeers, entering Nevers by another road on the heels of Bonaparte’s proclamation.

“They changed sides quickly enough again,” said the Duchess.

Nevers was not a garrison town and contained no troops; her hundred disciplined musketeers made her mistress of the little place without a blow struck.

“I was about to send for you, M. le Comte,” went on the Duchess. “I was not aware of our extraordinary good fortune in Lord ‘Ornblower’s being present here, I want to appoint you Lieutenant-General of the King in the Niveroais.”

“You think a rising can succeed, Your Royal Highness?” asked Hornblower.

“A rising?” said the Duchess, with the faintest of interrogative inflections.

To Hornblower that was the note of doom. The Duchess was the most intelligent and spirited of all the Bourbons, but not even she could think of the movement she was trying to head as a ‘rising’. Bonaparte was the rebel; she was engaged in suppressing rebellion, even if Bonaparte reigned in the Tuileries and the army obeyed him. But this was war; this was life or death, and he was in no mood to quibble with amateurs.

“Let us not waste time over definitions, madame,” he said.

“Do you think there is in France strength enough to drive out Bonaparte?”

“He is the most hated man in this country.”

“But that does not answer the question,” persisted Hornblower.

“The Vendée will fight,” said the Duchess. “Laroche-Jacquelin is there, and they will follow him. My husband is raising the Midi. The King and the Household are holding out in Lille. Gascony will resist the usurper—remember how Bordeaux cast off allegiance to him last year.”

The Vendée might rise; probably would. But Hornblower could not imagine the Duke d’Angoulême rousing much spirit of devotion in the south, nor the fat and gouty old King in the north. As for Bordeaux casting off her allegiance, Hornblower remembered Rouen and Le Havre, the apathetic citizens, the refractory conscripts whose sole wish was to fight no one at all. For a year they had now enjoyed the blessings of peace and liberal government, and they might perhaps fight for them. Perhaps.

“All France knows now that Bonaparte can be beaten and dethroned,” said the Duchess acutely. “That makes a great difference.”

“A powder magazine of discontent and disunion,” said the Count. “A spark may explode it.”

Hornblower had dreamed the same dream when he had entered Le Havre, and used the same metaphor to himself, which was unfortunate.

“Bonaparte has an army,” he said. “It takes an army to defeat an army. Where is one to be found? The old soldiers are devoted to Bonaparte. Will the civilians fight, and if so, can they be armed and trained in time?”

“You are in a pessimistic mood, milord,” said the Duchess.

“Bonaparte is the most able, the most active, the fiercest and the most cunning soldier the world has ever seen,” said Hornblower. “To parry his strokes I ask for a shield of steel, not a paper hoop from a circus.”

Hornblower looked round at the faces; the Duchess, the Count, Marie, the silent courtier-general who had stood behind the Duchess since the debate began. They were sombre, but they showed no signs of wavering.

“So you suggest that M. le Comte here, for example, should submit tamely to the usurper and wait until the armies of Europe reconquer France?” asked the Duchess with only faint irony. She could keep her temper better than most Bourbons.

“M. le Comte has to fly for his life on account of his late kindness to me,” said Hornblower, but that was begging the question, he knew.

Any movement against Bonaparte in the interior of France might be better than none, however easily suppressed and whatever blood it cost. It might succeed, although he had no hope of it. But at least it would embarrass Bonaparte in his claim to represent all France, at least it would hamper him in the inevitable clash on the north-eastern frontier by forcing him to keep troops here. Hornblower could not look for victory, but he supposed there was a chance, the faintest chance, of beginning a slight guerrilla war, maintained by a few partisans in forests and mountains, which might spread in the end. He was a servant of King George; if he could encompass the death of even one of Bonaparte’s soldiers, even at the cost of a hundred peasant lives, it was his duty to do so. A momentary doubt flashed through his mind; was it mere humanitarian motives that had been influencing him? Or were his powers of decision becoming enfeebled? He had sent men on forlorn hopes before this; he had taken part in some himself; but this was, in his opinion, an utterly hopeless venture—and the Count would be involved in it.

“But still,” persisted the Duchess, “you recommend supine acquiescence, milord?”

Hornblower felt like a man on a scaffold taking one last look at the sunlit world before being thrust off. The grim inevitabilities of war were all round him.

“No,” he said. “I recommend resistance.”

The sombre faces round him brightened, and he knew now that peace or war had lain in his choice. Had he continued to argue against rebellion, he would have persuaded them against it. The knowledge increased his unhappiness, even though he tried to assure himself—which was the truth—that fate had put him in a position where he could argue no longer. The die was cast, and he hastened to speak again.

“Your Royal Highness,” he said, “accused me of being pessimistic. So I am. This is a desperate adventure, but that does not mean it should not be undertaken. But we must enter upon it in no light-hearted spirit. We must look for no glorious or dramatic successes. It will be inglorious, long, and hard. It will mean shooting French soldiers from behind a tree and then running away. Crawling up in the night to knife a sentry. Burning a bridge, cutting the throats of a few draught horses—those will be our great victories.”

He wanted to say ‘those will be our Marengos and our Jenas’, but he could not mention Bonaparte victories to a Bourbon gathering. He raked back in his memory for Bourbon victories.

“Those will be our Steinkerks and our Fontenoys,” he went on. To describe the technique of guerrilla warfare in a few sentences to people absolutely ignorant of the subject was not easy. “The Lieutenant-General for the King in the Nivernais will be a hunted fugitive. He will sleep among rocks, eat his meat raw lest a fire should betray him. Only by being reconciled to measures of this sort can success be won in the end.”

“I am ready to do those things,” said the Count, “to my last breath.”

The alternative was exile until his death, Hornblower knew.

“I never doubted that I could rely on the loyalty of the Ladons,” said the Duchess. “Your commission will be ready immediately, M. le Comte. You will exercise all royal power in the Nivernais.”

“What does Your Royal Highness intend to do in person?” asked Hornblower.

“I must go on to Bordeaux, to rally Gascony.”

It was probably the best course of action—the wider spread the movement the greater Bonaparte’s embarrassment. Marie could accompany the Duchess, too, and then if the enterprise ended in complete disaster escape would be possible by sea.

“And you, milord?” asked the Duchess.

All eyes were upon him, but for once he was not conscious of it. It was an entirely personal decision that he had to make. He was a distinguished naval officer; let him make his way to England and the command of a squadron of ships of the line was his for certain. The vast fleets would range the seas again, and he would play a major part in directing them; a few years of war would see him an admiral with a whole fleet, the man upon whom the welfare of England would depend. And if he stayed here the best he could hope for was the life of a hunted fugitive at the head of a ragged and starving brigand band; at worst a rope and a tree. Perhaps it was his duty to save himself and his talents for England, but England had able naval officers by the score, while he had the advantage of knowing much about France and the French, and even of being known to them. But all these arguments were beside the point. He would not—could not—start a little feeble squib of a rebellion here and then run away and leave his friends to bear the brunt of failure.

“I will stay with M. le Comte,” he said. “Provided that Your Royal Highness and he approve of such a course. I hope I will be of assistance.”

“Certainly,” said the Duchess.

Hornblower caught Marie’s eye, and a horrid doubt suddenly assailed him.

“Madame,” he said, addressing her, “you will accompany Her Royal Highness, I presume?”

“No,” said Marie. “You will need every man, and I am as useful as a man. I know every ford and bridle-path round here. I stay with M. le Comte too.”

“But Marie—” said the Count.

Hornblower made no protest at all. He knew he might as well protest about the fall of an elm-tree branch or a change in the direction of the wind. He seemed to recognise destiny—the utterly inevitable—in all this. And one glance at Marie’s face silenced the Count’s expostulations.

“Very well,” said the Duchess.

She looked round at them; it was time for the rebellion to begin in earnest. Hornblower put aside his personal feelings. There was a war to be fought; war with all its problems of space and time and psychology. He set himself, almost without willing it, to pick up the tangled threads. Above the desk where the Prefect had sat to execute instructions from the Paris Government was a large scale map of the Department. On the other walls hung even larger scale maps of the sub-prefectures. He looked over at them. Roads, rivers, forests. Goodbye to England.

“The first important thing to know,” he began, “is where the nearest regular troops are stationed.”

The campaign of the Upper Loire was begun.