The Rising Storm

DENNIS WHEATLEY

THE RISING STORM

HUTCHINSON & GO. (Publishers) LTD

London New York Melbourne Sydney Cape Town

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO

MY MOTHER

WITH LOVE AND IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF MY FIRST VISITS WITH HER TO PARIS, VERSAILLES AND FONTAINEBLEAU

Printed in Great Britain by The Anchor Press, Ltd., Tiptree,

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

THE MYSTERIOUS RENDEZVOUS

THE forest of Fontainebleau was at its loveliest. The past winter had been exceptionally severe but now, towards the end of April, spring had come to northern France again. In the long rides the young grass made a carpet of emerald and the great trees were feathered with tenderest green. The day was a Sunday, the weather fine, the air balmy and the sky a palish blue.

No hunting, except by the King's packs, was ever permitted in the royal domain, and the only buildings in it were widely separated keepers' cottages. Once clear of the town, and the huge slate-roofed Chateau with its many courts, gardens, promenades and lake, one might ride for miles without setting eyes on a human being. Only the occasional scurrying of an animal, and the faint, mysterious whispering of the branches overhead, broke the stillness.

Down one of the rides, deep in its solitude, a young man was riding his horse at a walking pace. He was dressed with considerable elegance in the fashion of the year, 1789. His three-cornered hat was laced with gold, as were also his long-skirted dove-grey coat and embroidered waist­coat. His breeches and gauntlets were of the softest doeskin; his tall riding-boots polished to a mirror-like brilliance. His brown hair was un-powdered, but elaborately dressed with side-curls above the ears and a neat queue tied with a ribbon at the back of his neck. He had a thinnish, brown face, straight nose, mobile mouth and a good chin. He was twenty-one years of age, although he looked somewhat older.

At first sight a man might have put him down as a young gallant who had never fought outside a fencing school, but that impression was hardly in keeping with his sword—an old-fashioned weapon with a plain steel hilt entirely contradicting his otherwise foppish appearance.

Had anyone meeting him on his solitary ride spoken to him they would never have suspected from his reply that he was anything other than the young French nobleman that he appeared to be, because four years' residence in France while in his teens, and a natural flair for languages, had made him bi-lingual; but he was, in fact, the son of an English Admiral, and his name was Roger Brook.

However, he was not using his own name at the moment. On his return to France, after an absence of close on- two years, he had again assumed the soubriquet that he had earlier adopted—that of M. le Chevalier de Breuc. So doing not only saved him the annoyance of being cheated by innkeepers and others as presumably a rich English milord but for his present purpose it served him better to be thought a Frenchman.

For the past four days he had been living at the Auberge du Cadran Bleu in the little town of Fontainebleau, and he had spent the greater part of his time wondering how he could manage to get himself admitted to the private apartments of the Chateau.

It was in a further attempt to find a solution to that extremely knotty problem that he had hired a horse and was riding slowly through the forest on this April afternoon; for he had felt that two or three hours of complete solitude and concentration might produce the inspiration of which he stood so badly in need.

Like all the royal Palaces at that date anyone was at liberty to saunter about its grounds or walk through its great halls and galleries, even when the King and Queen were in residence—as Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were now. They lived for most of the day in public and there was no bar to the curious coming to stare at them as they went from one part of the Palace to another, or even while they ate their food at State dinners. But it was quite a different matter to acquire the entree to the royal circle, with the privilege of attending levees and mingling freely with the members of the Court.

To do so was Roger Brook's object in coming to Fontainebleau; in fact it was one of the main reasons for his return to France, and unless he could find some way to get on intimate terms with the Royal Family itself, or at least some of its most trusted advisers, the mission upon which he had been sent was doomed to failure.

Two years earlier he had, partly by chance but also largely owing to his own wit and courage, been able to render a signal service to his country in providing the key to the successful outcome of some ex­tremely delicate diplomatic negotiations.1 It was then that Britain's twenty-nine-year-old Prime Minister, brilliant Billy Pitt, had realized the possibilities that lay in a young man who possessed his qualities of good birth, education and manners, coupled with a certain innocence of expression which covered considerable shrewdness and determination.

The Government of the day was dependent for its information about affairs at foreign Courts on its diplomatic representatives abroad and the spies they employed. But the former, while having the entrée to society in the capitals in which they served, were naturally greatly handicapped in obtaining particulars of secret policy through the very fact that they were Britain's representatives; and the latter, while valuable for securing purely military information, were not of the social status to penetrate the cabinets of Kings and the boudoirs of their mistresses.

Roger Brook, on the other hand, could both pass as a Frenchman and be received as an equal by the aristocracy of any country. So Mr. Pitt had decided to employ him as his personal secret agent and, in the previous year, had sent him to the Courts of Denmark, Sweden and Russia.1 Now, after a short but hectic sojourn in England, during which he had narrowly escaped being hanged for murder, the Prime Minister had charged him with further work in France.

His new mission was a delicate and nebulous one. It presented no apparent dangers or call for heroic measures, but needed considerable tact and the ability to form cool, unbiased judgments as to the real value of statements made by a great variety of people, most of whom were bitterly prejudiced. It was, in fact, to assess the probable outcome of the political ferment which was now agitating the whole French nation.

That drastic changes were about to take place no one could doubt. The centuries-old feudal system, of which the monarchy was the apex, had worked reasonably well in its day; but Cardinal Richelieu had destroyed the power of the great nobles and a generation later Louis XIV had turned them into little more than bejewelled lackeys by in­sisting that they should leave their estates permanently to add to the lustre of his own setting at Versailles; so the monarchy had become absolute, with no restraint of any kind on the power that the Kings exercised over the whole nation.

The so-called Parliaments of Paris, Bordeaux and other great cities were no more than judicial assemblies, without power to make or alter laws, their function being only to register the royal edicts and conduct trials of special importance. The Monarch ruled through a number of Governors and Intendants, who again had no power to legislate but were high Civil Servants charged with administering the royal decrees in their respective provinces and collecting taxes. So the people had no legitimate outlet of any kind for their grievances, and had become entirely subject to the good or evil influences that a handful of men and women near the King, but incredibly remote from them, exerted on him.

Thus a situation had gradually developed in which new taxes were levied, restrictions placed on commerce, treaties made, armies conscrip­ted and wars declared, all without nobles, clergy or people having the least say in these matters which concerned them so vitally.

Roger Brook had had an unusually good opportunity of absorbing the background of the situation, owing to the variety of his experiences during his four years in France as a youth. He had for over a year occupied a privileged position in the household of a great nobleman in Paris, but he had for still longer lived with a middle-class family in a provincial city. He had for some months enjoyed the comfort of a luxurious chateau buried in the heart of the country, but he had also spent many weeks tramping from village to village through north­-western France as the assistant of a poor quack doctor. So he knew that discontent at the present state of things was far from being confined to one class.

He had seen the miserable mud-walled, windowless hovels of the peasantry and knew the many impositions which made their lives so hard. There was the forced labour, often at seasons most inconvenient to themselves, that they were compelled to give on the King's highways; the Government's control of grain, which forced them to sell at a fixed price, so that they were debarred from making a good profit; the petty dues that they had to pay on going through toll-gates whenever they moved a mile or so from their homes, and a great variety of small but irksome taxes which provided the main incomes of the local nobility and clergy.

Yet he also knew that many of them were by no means so abjectly poverty-stricken as they appeared. The fact that few of even the better farmhouses had glass in their windows was not because their owners could not afford to pay for it; the reason was that their taxes were assessed quite arbitrarily on their apparent capacity to pay, and this evil system drove them to conceal every sou they made above their bare living expenses instead of using the money for the betterment of their own condition.

Deplorable as was the state of the peasantry, the great bulk of the nobility felt that they had equally good grounds for complaint. By tradition only the profession of arms was open to them, and that was so ill-paid that during the past two centuries they had gradually become impoverished through having to sell much of their property to equip themselves to fight in France's wars. The thrifty peasants had already acquired over a third of all the cultivatable land in France, and hundreds of noble families now had nothing left but a dilapidated ch&teau and a few acres of grazing-ground.

Yet neither class had any sympathy for the woes of the other. The nobles—some of whom eked out a miserable existence on as little as twenty-five louis a year—knew that their tenants cheated them when­ever they could. The peasants bitterly resented the freedom of the nobility from all forms of taxation, and grudged every sou they had to surrender in that variety of petty dues which made up the sole source of income of their masters. Neither the uncouth, ragged tillers of the soil, nor the proud, out-at-elbows country gentry had collectively any animus against the Court; but both were sullen, discontented, and ready to welcome any change which might lead to a betterment of their lot.

It was in the cities and towns that the real trouble was brewing. The growth of industry had produced in all of them a slum population that recognized no individual master. Their poverty was appalling and in times of scarcity they died by the thousand; so they were inflammable material for the fiery words of any agitator.

In the towns, too, the greatest change had occurred since the break­down of the feudal system. With it had passed the mediaeval thraldom of the Church, leading to freer thought and the spread of secular education. An extremely numerous middle class, including thousands of respectable artisans as well as professional men and wealthy mer­chants, had grown up in them. It was they who most bitterly resented the privileged position of the idle, arrogant nobility. Moreover, for half a century past, many of them had been reading the controversial works of the political philosophers, and this had led to an almost universal demand among them that they should be given some share in the government of their country.

Finally, it was the deplorable state into which the finances of France had fallen in recent years, coupled with a succession of bad harvests that had inflicted grievous hardship on the poor, both in town and country, which had led to a nation-wide agitation for a complete overhaul of the machinery of State.

Even when Roger had fled from France twenty months earlier, as the result of a duel, die popular clamour for reform had reached such a pitch that the government was seriously concerned by it.

That spring of 1787, so desperate had the financial situation become that the King had resorted to an expedient which none of his prede­cessors had been forced to adopt for over a hundred and fifty years— the summoning of an Assembly of Notables at Versailles to discuss ways and means of re-establishing the nation's credit. But instead of accepting their advice his Ministers had endeavoured to use them as support for a new patchwork of ineffective measures. The nobles and the higher clergy, of which the Notables were almost entirely composed, had become openly resentful, and the Parliament of Paris had refused to register the new edicts. Thereupon the King had temporarily exiled the Parliament to Troyes and dissolved the Assembly; so, far from any good having come out of this meeting, the grievances of the nation had received the widest possible publicity, which led to still more violent agitation against the incompetent Government.

For a further year the ancien regime had been bolstered up by one expedient after another, but by the summer of '88, faced with an empty treasury, the King had been driven to dismiss his principal Minister, the vain and ineffectual Lomenie de Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, and recall the Swiss banker, Monsieur Necker, who, since he held the most liberal views, had the confidence of the public. It had then been decided to give way to the insistent demand for the calling of an Etats General

—the nearest thing France could be said to have to an assembly truly representative of the nation.

As a States General had not been convened since 1614 many months had elapsed since the decision to call one, while innumerable questions of procedure were argued by a second Assembly of Notables, and arrangements made for the election of clergy, nobles and commoners to the Three Estates which it comprised; but at last all these matters had been settled and the deputies were to meet at Versailles in the coming month.

The hopes placed in the outcome of this meeting were many and varied. The King hoped it would find him a way out of his financial difficulties without loss of his authority, the people that it would lead to a reduction of their taxes, Monsieur Necker that it would result in his increased prestige, and both the bourgeoisie and the majority of the nobles and clergy that out of it would emerge some form of constitutional government.

But until it actually met one man's guess was as good as another's It might become a permanent institution on the lines of the British Parliament, or it might be summarily dismissed after a few ineffectual sessions, as had been the Assembly of Notables. It was to assess the most likely possibility that Roger Brook had been sent to France, and, further, to form a well-grounded opinion as to what would follow in either case.

If the Estates were abruptly dismissed, would that lead to open rebellion—or even civil war? If so was it likely or unlikely that Louis XVI would succeed in holding down his rebellious subjects? Was there any likelihood of him granting his people a Constitution ? If that occurred and the Estates became a permanent body with legislative powers, who would dominate it—Necker or some other? And would whoever it might be incline to friendship or enmity with Britain? All this and much more Mr. Pitt was most anxious to know, so that as the situation developed he might adjust his policy accordingly.

Roger had just spent a fortnight in Paris. He had looked up a number of old acquaintances and made many new ones; he had talked with innumerable people in cafes, shops and places of entertainment. Having lived for so long in France he already knew that the average English­man's belief, that the French were a nation of bloodthirsty cut-throats dominated by a leaven of fastidious but decadent and unscrupulous aristocrats, was far from the mark; and that in reality the individuals of the two races were inspired in their private lives by very similar thoughts and feelings. But on his return to the French capital he was very soon conscious of two things.

Firstly, although he had thought himself so well informed at the age of nineteen, how abysmally ignorant he had really been upon a great variety of matters. Secondly, that a quite staggering change had taken place in the mentality of the French people.

Previously, with the exception of one in a thousand, they had given their whole minds to business and pleasure, regarding politics as a thing apart that concerned only the King and his Ministers: so that however much they might deplore the state into which their country had fallen it was futile for them to think about it, since it was quite im­possible for them to influence the future course of events. But now, with the extraordinary innovation of being given the opportunity to elect representatives who would voice their opinions, politics had entered like a virus into the blood of the whole race. They were like a child with a new toy, and wherever he went people were discussing in a most heated fashion the forthcoming meeting of the States General, the excellencies of Monsieur Necker or the iniquities of the "Austrian woman", as they now called the Queen. It was therefore easy for him to gather a consensus of opinion and his unobtrusive activities had soon led him to three definite conclusions:—

That the people of Paris were not in the main antagonistic towards the King or the monarchy, as such; but they were towards the Queen and a continuance of absolutism. That there would be serious trouble if the King dismissed the States with nothing accomplished. And that His Highness the Due d'Orleans was sailing very near treason in some of his measures to gain popularity for himself at the expense of the Court and his cousin the King.

From the provincials he met he gathered that the elections had set the whole country in a ferment, and that opinion in the big cities, par­ticularly Marseilles and Lyons, was running nearly as strongly in favour of forcing some definite concession from die King as it was in Paris; but a tour of the provincial cities to verify these possibly biased state­ments would have been a lengthy undertaking, and he had felt that in any case feeling in them could have little influence on events during the opening sessions of the States. On the other hand the much abused Court might yet have some strong cards up its sleeve to play in an emergency, so he had decided that his next step must be an attempt to ascertain its real strength and disposition.

He needed no telling that it was one thing to lounge about Paris listening to any idler who cared to air his views and quite another to be­come acquainted with those of the King and his advisers; so on his arrival at Fontainebleau, five nights before, he had been very conscious that only then had his real mission begun, and from the first he had been extremely perplexed how to set about it.

Short of some unforeseen stroke of fortune, or the exercise of an ingenuity which seemed to have entirely deserted him in these past few days, the only means of securing the entree to the royal circle was the normal one of being formally presented at the French Court; and during his previous stay in France his only visits to Versailles had been in the guise of a confidential secretary bringing papers to his master, the Marquis de Rochambeau, when that nobleman occupied his apartment in the Palace overnight.

Any travelling Englishman of good family could easily arrange for the British Ambassador to present him, but it was obviously impossible for Roger to do so and at the same time preserve his incognito. To abandon it would, he felt, be to throw away his best card for finding out the true situation at the very opening of the game; although to maintain it at Court would entail a certain risk, as the de Rochambeau family knew him to be English.

However, he had made careful enquiries before leaving Paris and learned that the old Marquis had for the past year or more retired to his estates in Brittany, his son, Count Lucien, was with his regiment in Artois, and the beautiful Athenais, whom he had loved so desperately, was also living in Brittany with her husband, the Vicomte de la Tour d'Auvergne. There remained the factor that a number of the Marquis's friends would also almost certainly remember him, but he doubted if any of them had chapter and verse about his antecedents and felt reasonably confident that he would be able to fob off any inconvenient questions concerning his past with a convincing story.

So, having weighed the pros and cons of the matter, he had decided to continue using his soubriquet of M. le Chevalier de Breuc, thus allowing everyone to assume that he was a Frenchman, but to leave himself an open door in case of trouble by refraining from any definite statement that he was one. He was still far from happy in his mind about this uneasy compromise, but felt that it was the best at which he could arrive for the moment, and that it would be time enough to develop a more definite policy, according to events, if, and when, he could devise a way to be received behind those golden doors.

To walk in to a reception without knowing anyone there to whom he could address a single word would be to invite discovery and expulsion— if not actual arrest. So he had felt that his best hope lay in making the acquaintance at his fashionable inn of some well-placed courtier who would in due course invite his company to a levee or entertainment, on the assumption that he had already been presented; for, once inside, it was a hundred to one against the King remembering if he was one of the thousands of young nobles who had been presented to him in their teens or not.

But the trouble was that he had found no stool-pigeon suitable for such a manoeuvre staying at the inn; neither had one appeared since his arrival, and it looked as if he might kick his heels there for weeks before one did. Moreover, frequent walks in the grounds of the Chateau and many .hours spent lounging about its long, lofty corridors had equally failed to produce the type of chance acquaintance that he was seeking.

The factor that he had failed to take into his calculations when making this somewhat vague plan on his way from Paris was the election of Deputies to the States General. It was not only the People who were electing candidates to represent them in the Third Estate, but the First and Second—clergy and nobles—were not to sit by right of their epis­copal ranks and hereditary titles; they too were to elect representatives from their own Orders. In consequence, for the first time in genera­tions, nearly the whole nobility of France had gone to the provinces, where they were either intriguing to get themselves sent to Versailles as Deputies or supporting the candidates they favoured in their districts; so the Court and Fontainebleau were practically deserted.

Roger had been riding for well over an hour and, cudgel his wits as he would, could still see no way out of his difficulty, when up the long ride through the greenwood he saw a horseman coming towards him at a gentle canter. As the approaching figure grew nearer he could see it to be that of a lanky gentleman with narrow shoulders and a long, lean face, who appeared to be in his middle thirties. He was well mounted on a powerful bay but his dress, although of rich materials, was too flashy to be in good taste.

As the two horsemen came abreast both gave the casual nod which is habitual to strangers passing one another in the country, and as they did so each looked straight into the other's eyes for a moment without either showing any sign of recognition. Roger was still deeply absorbed by his own problem, and it was only after the lanky man had cantered on for a hundred yards or so that he began to wonder vaguely where he had seen that lantern-jawed countenance before.

Having gazed at it only a few moments since from less than a dozen feet away it was easy to recall the man's quick, intelligent brown eyes, his full, sensual mouth, slightly receding chin, and the small scar on his left cheek that ran up to the corner of his eye, pulling the lower lid down a little and giving him a faintly humorous expression.

For a good five minutes Roger's mind, now fully distracted from its task, strove to link up those features with some memory of the past. His thoughts naturally reverted to the time when he had lived at the Hotel de Rochambeau in Paris, and the many nobles who used to throw him a nod or a smile when they came there to see his master; but he did not think, somehow, that the lean-faced man was a noble, in spite of his fine horse and expensive clothes. After a little he tried to thrust the matter from his mind as of no importance; but the lean face would per­sist in coming back, so he began to range over the public dance-places and the inns that he had frequented while in Paris.

Suddenly something clicked in Roger's brain. Upon the instant he tightened his rein, turned his surprised mount right about and set off up the glade at a furious gallop. The fellow's name was Etienne de Roubec and he styled himself M. le Chevalier, but Roger thought his right to the title extremely dubious. He had met de Roubec at an inn in Le Havre on the very first night he had spent in France; but that was now nearly six years ago, and the Chevalier had then been a seedy-looking, down-at-heel individual in a threadbare red velvet coat.

As Roger urged his mare on over the soft, spring turf he was cursing himself for the time he had taken to identify his old acquaintance. He had a score to settle with de Roubec and the angry determination to call the fellow to account that now surged up in him seemed to have lost nothing of its violence during the five years and nine months since they had last met. His only fear was that as they had passed one another going in opposite directions and de Roubec had been moving at a canter he might, in the past seven or eight minutes, have turned down a side glade and ridden along it so far that it would prove impossible to find and overtake him.

Breasting the slight rise with a spurt, Roger peered anxiously for­ward along the downward slope. It stretched for nearly a mile but de Roubec was not to be seen. He might easily have ridden that far in the time and passed out of sight round the distant bend, so Roger rode on at full tilt. On reaching the bend he found that the ride continued for only a short way then ended in a wide clearing where four other rides met. Hastily he cast about from one to another; of de Roubec there was no sign, but up one of the rides a carriage was approaching.

While he was still frantically wondering which ride de Roubec had taken the vehicle entered the clearing. It was a closed carriage drawn by four fine greys which were moving at a smart trot. Evidently it was the equipage of some wealthy person, but there was no coat of arms decorating the panels of its doors and the coachman, as well as the footman who stood on the boot clinging to straps at its back, were both dressed in plain, sober liveries.

As it passed Roger caught a brief glimpse of its interior through the open window. Two women were seated inside; both wore their hair dressed high in the fashion of the day and upon the coiffure of each reposed an absurd little beflowered straw hat tilted rakishly forward; and both of them were masked.

In Paris, or any other city, there was at that time nothing at all unusual about a lady unaccompanied by a cavalier wearing a black silk mask while she drove through the streets, either by night or day. The custom had originated as a form of protection for young and attractive gentlewomen from the unwelcome attentions of street gallants, but it had proved such a boon to ladies wishing to make their way unrecognized to secret rendezvous with their lovers that, in this century when illicit tove affairs were the fashion, the practice had continued to flourish. But it struck Roger as most surprising that two ladies should wear masks while taking a drive through the almost deserted forest of Fontainebleau in the middle of the afternoon.

As he stared after them with swiftly awakened curiosity, his glance fell upon some fresh hoof-marks plainly outlined on a muddy patch to one side of the track that the carriage had taken. Unless some other solitary horseman had recently passed that way they could only have been made by de Roubec's bay. With fresh hope of catching his quarry, Roger set spurs to his mount and cantered on in the wake of the mysterious ladies.

Some three hundred yards from the glade the ride curved sharply. The carriage was just about to round the bend as Roger came up behind it. Guiding his mare a little to the left, he made to pass. As he did so he saw that a quarter of a mile ahead there was apparently another clearing. A giant oak rose in solitary splendour from the place where the centre of the track would otherwise have been, and immediately beneath it, quietly sitting on his horse, was de Roubec.

The second Roger caught sight of the Chevalier he dropped back behind the carriage. The fact that de Roubec had halted under the giant oak suggested that he had come there to keep a secret rendezvous with the masked ladies. From the outset Roger had realized that de Roubec's mount was much faster than his own hired hack, and had feared that if the Chevalier thought himself pursued he might easily use the superior speed of his bay to escape an unwelcome encounter. Therefore it seemed to him now that his best hope of getting within speaking dis­tance of his quarry unseen lay in continuing on in the wake of the carriage.

As he trotted along, crouched low over his mare's neck so that his hat should not be visible to de Roubec above the line of the carriage roof, he feared every moment that the footman perched on the boot would turn and see him. But the hoof-beats of his mare were lost in those of the four greys, and, even when they pulled up under the great oak, the man did not glance behind him. Like a well-trained servant he instantly leapt from his stand and ran round to the side of the carriage to open its door for his mistress.

As he did so Roger slipped from his saddle to the ground. For a moment he stood there, holding his mare by the bridle; but she was a quiet old nag and, seeing that she at once started to nibble the grass of the track, he let her go, then stepped forward and peered cautiously from his hiding-place.

De Roubec, hat in hand, was bowing low over his horse's neck. One of the ladies was leaning out of the carriage door. In her hand she was holding out to him a fat packet. Roger had himself once entrusted a fat packet to de Roubec, with dire results. At the sight of the present scene the memory of all that he had suffered in consequence of placing his trust in the Chevalier smarted like an open wound. On the instant he decided that he would not stand by and see this unknown lady tricked as he had been. But if he was to prevent it immediate action was called for; the second de Roubec saw him he might snatch the packet, gallop off with it and be lost for good.

With one swift, well-practised movement Roger drew his long sword. At the same instant he sprang forward. De Roubec was just taking the packet from the masked lady and each still held a corner of it. Simultaneously both let out a gasp of amazement at Roger's totally unexpected appearance. As they stared at him, transfixed by surprise, his sword flashed in an unerring lunge and the tip of the bright blade passed through the centre of the flat parcel.

He gave one upward jerk of his strong wrist and the packet slipped from between their fingers. Holding it on high he cried to de Roubec: "You have forgotten me, Chevalier, but I have not forgotten you! And I mean to slice off your ears in payment for what you owe me."

‘Who ... who are you, Monsieur?" gasped de Roubec.

During their swift exchange the lady had emerged from the carriage. She was standing now upon the lowest of the folding steps that had been let down outside its doors. Roger saw at a glance that she was tallish with a mature but slim figure. As she drew herself up the additional height lent her by the step, coupled with her high headdress, gave her the appearance of towering over him. Next second he caught the angry flash of bright blue eyes through the slits in her mask, as she exclaimed impetuously:

"Monsieur! How dare you interfere in my affairs! And do you not know that it is a criminal offence to draw a sword in..."

She never finished her sentence, breaking it off abruptly as a quick, warning cry of "Madame I pray you have a care!" came in French, but with a strong foreign accent, from her companion who was still inside the vehicle.

But the lady on the step had already said too much to preserve her incognito. On several occasions in the past Roger had seen that deter­mined chin, slightly protruding lower lip, and delicate but imperial nose. Her uncompleted sentence, pronounced with such icy dignity, had given him the clue to her identity and he knew that she had meant to end it with the words "in my presence".

Within a second his stupefaction was overcome by a wave of glowing elation. Where his wits had failed him it seemed that the goddess For­tune had dealt him a hand of her highest cards, and that he had now only to play them properly to be received at Court on the most favourable terms.

By preventing the packet from being given to the scoundrelly de Roubec, he had every reason to believe that he had rendered a most valuable service to no less a person than Marie Antoinette, Queen of France.

CHAPTER TWO

THE MASKED LADIES

ROGER still held the packet high above his head spitted on the point of his sword, so he was in no situation to make a graceful obeisance; but he could, and did, sweep off his hat with his free hand, lower his sword to the ground and go down on one knee before the Queen.

"I see you know me, Monsieur," she said coldly. "That makes your conduct even more inexcusable."

"I did not recognize Your Majesty until you spoke," he replied in quick protest.

"Then I excuse your having drawn your sword, but not your interference." She spoke more calmly now. "Rise, Monsieur, and give that packet to the gentleman to whom I was handing it, instantly."

Roger stood up, removed the packet from the point of the sword, and sheathed his blade; but he made no movement to obey her last command. Instead, he said: "At the risk of incurring an even further degree of Your Majesty's displeasure I was about to add that had I recognized you when first I came up I would still have acted as I did."

"What mean you by this fresh impertinence, Monsieur?" Her voice was high and sharp again.

It was not the first time that Roger had been called upon to talk with royalty. In the preceding year he had held several long conversations with King Gustavus III of Sweden, and others of a far more intimate character with that bold, cultured, licentious woman Catherine the Great of Russia; so he knew very well that it was regarded as a most scandalous breach of etiquette to ask any sovereign a direct question. But his experience had taught him that, although crowned heads showed themselves to their subjects only as beings moving in an almost god-like aura of pomp and splendour, they were, behind it all, just as human as other people; and that provided they were treated with the respect which was their due, they responded much more readily when talked to naturally than with slavish obsequiousness. So with a wave of his hand towards de Roubec, who, still sitting his horse, was staring at him with an expression of puzzled anxiety, he said:

"Madame, I pray you pardon my temerity, but what do you know of this man? I'd take a big wager that you know little or nothing."

To put such a question to the Queen of France was a bold gamble, but it came off. She was so taken by surprise that she overlooked the impertinence and replied with her usual impetuosity: "Then you would win your wager, Monsieur; for I have never seen him before. I know only that he was recommended as a trustworthy courier to carry a letter of some importance for me."

"Then I beg Your Majesty to excuse me from obeying your last command," cried Roger, swiftly following up his advantage. "I know the fellow for a rogue. He is unfitted to be entrusted with the scrapings of a poor-box, let alone a weighty despatch from your own august hand. Though, when I first came on the scene, I thought 'twas a package of jewels that you were handing him."

"Why so?" asked the Queen, in fresh astonishment.

"Madame, in your own interests I crave your indulgence to relate an episode from my past, which is highly relevant to this present matter."

"Do so, Monsieur. But be brief."

Roger bowed. "I thank Your Majesty, and in advance swear to the truth of what I am about to say. I am of noble birth upon my mother's side, but when I was a lad I decided to go out into the world and pick up a living as best I could, rather than be sent to sea. When I ran away from home my purse was lined with near twenty . . ." He had been about to say guineas, but swiftly substituted the word "Louis” and con­tinued: "But various expenses had reduced that sum to no more than a handful of silver by the time I entered the city of Le Havre."

At the naming of the city de Roubec started so violently that he unintentionally rowelled his horse. Throwing up its head the mettlesome bay started to stamp its hoofs in a restless dance, and for the next few moments its rider had all he could do to control it.

Roger had been watching for the effect of his words and now pointed an accusing finger at him, exclaiming: "See, Madame. He has recog­nized me at last, though 'tis small wonder that he took so long to do so after all these years; or that I, after passing him a mile back in the forest this afternoon, took several minutes to identify the ill-favoured coun­tenance of this gaudily clad popinjay, for those of the out-at-elbows rogue who cheated me so long ago."

"Keep to your story, Monsieur," interjected the Queen.

Again Roger bowed. "On arriving in Le Havre, Your Majesty, I went to a poor inn on the quays. There, this Chevalier de Roubec scraped acquaintance with me. He accounted for the shoddiness of his attire by telling me that he had had his pocket picked of a considerable sum, and that the landlord of the inn had seized his wardrobe as security for the payment of his reckoning; but that he was the son of a Marquis who had great estates in Languedoc and a position of importance near the person of the King, so he would soon be in funds again. But that is by the way. Suffice it that, being but a boy and entirely lacking in experience of the ways of such rogues, I believed him and thought him my friend."

"He lies!" broke in de Roubec hotly. He had now quieted his horse, and leaning forward across its neck was glaring down with mingled fear and anger at Roger. "I give Your Majesty my word that 'tis all a tissue of falsehoods. He has mistaken me for some other."

"Be silent!" Marie Antoinette rebuked the interruption sharply, and signed to Roger to continue.

Obediently he took up his tale. "I have told you, Madame, that I was by then near out of funds myself, but I had an asset which I counted on to protect me from the pinch of poverty for a year at least. Before I left home a dear friend—one in fact whom I looked on as closer than a sister—knowing my intention, forced upon me a collection of gold trinkets. They were old-fashioned things and she had better jewels; but they were of considerable value and would, I think, have fetched some four hundred louis. This villain took advantage of my trust in him to persuade me to let him help me dispose of them. Then, Madame, he disappeared with the entire collection, leaving me, a boy of fifteen and a half, near destitute in a strange city where I knew not a soul."

" 'Tis a lie! A vile calumny!" de Roubec broke out again.

"It is the truth!" snapped Roger. "And I thank God that seeing you again today enabled me to come on the scene in time to prevent Her Majesty from placing her faith in so treacherous a viper. I doubt not that you meant to ride to Paris and sell her letter for the highest price you could get for it from her enemies."

The Queen paled under her rouge, but her voice was firm as she addressed de Roubec. "Old as the charge is that is brought against you, Monsieur, it still calls for full investigation. If in due course 'tis proven, 'twas a most despicable act to so despoil a child, leaving him a prey to every ill that infests the gutters of our great cities; and for it I promise that you shall see the inside of a prison for longer than you have en­joyed your ill-gotten gains. But His Majesty is the best judge of all such matters and he shall hear the case. I am now about to return to the Chateau. 'Tis my will that you should follow behind my carriage."

She then turned to Roger, and asked:

"What is your name, Monsieur?"

"De Breuc, may it please Your Majesty," he replied with a bow. "Then you, too, Monsieur de Breuc, will follow us back to Fontainebleau. If your story proves false you will have cause to rue it, but if it is true you will not find me ungrateful for the service you have rendered me. In the meantime I charge you to say naught of the encounter to anyone."

Marie Antoinette had scarcely finished speaking when de Roubec's horse threw up its head with a whinny and began to prance again. Roger guessed immediately that this time the false Chevalier had spurred his mount with deliberate intent, and he sprang forward to catch the bridle. But he was a second too late. De Roubec swung the bay round and let it have its head. In an instant it was thundering away across the turf.

"Stop!" cried the Queen. "Stop! If you disobey me it will be at your peril !" But de Roubec only waved his left arm in a vague gesture, which might have signified that he had lost control of his animal, and galloped away down one of the rides.

With a swift movement the Queen thrust a little silver whistle between her lips and blew a high, piercing blast upon it.

Roger, meanwhile, had run to his mare and thrown himself into the saddle; but, even as he did so, he knew perfectly well that she had no chance of overtaking de Roubec's powerful bay. Nevertheless, he was just about to set spurs to her when the Queen motioned to him to desist, and said: "Remain here, Monsieur. I have better mounts than yours to send in pursuit of that rogue."

Her words gave Roger the clue to her use of the whistle. She must, he now guessed, have had an escort following her carriage at a distance. The next moment his guess was confirmed; as he dismounted from his horse, and the footman took it from him, two gentlemen came galloping into the clearing.

"Messieurs !" the Queen hailed them, pointing in the direction de Roubec had taken: "I pray you pursue and bring back to me the man in a coat of purple satin who has just disappeared down yonder ride."

As they dashed after the fugitive she turned back to Roger. For the first time since they had met her voice was gracious and she smiled, as she said:

"Monsieur de Breuc, the flight of him you accused is a sure sign of guilt. In my youth I was a passable horsewoman myself, although my preceptress, Madame de Noailles, would not allow me to ride as much as I wished from the absurd notion that it would make me fat. Yet I know enough of the art to be certain that the rascal incited his mount to bolt and even then could have checked it had he so wished."

Roger gave her smile for smile and seized upon the personal note. "I have heard it said that Your Majesty nicknamed that old lady Madame L'Etiquette; and that once when you had a fall from a donkey you declared laughingly to your companions that you would not rise from the ground until Madame de Noailles could be brought to demon­strate the correct procedure for assisting a Dauphine of France to her feet."

Marie Antoinette gave a little laugh, then the smile faded from her lips; but she regarded Roger kindly as she shook her head. "I know not where you heard the story, but in the main 'tis true, Monsieur; and it recalls memories of happier times than these. I was then but the carefree girl-wife of the heir to France, whereas I am now its Queen, with many troubles. By your knowing that man for a rogue today, and acting as you did, it seems that you have saved me from yet another matter for grievous worry. In what way can I reward you ?"

Taking his three-cornered hat from under his arm Roger swept it almost to the ground; then, drawing himself up, he replied: "This meeting with your gracious Majesty is in itself reward enough, and if I have been of some small service I count that an additional privilege. But if, Madame, your generosity prompts you to honour me further, then 'tis simply done."

"Tell me your wish, Monsieur."

"It is to have some further opportunity of distracting Your Majesty's mind for a little from these troubles of which you speak. You listened with sympathy and interest to my tale of being robbed and left near penniless in Le Havre as a boy. Since then I have travelled in England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Russia, and in those countries it has been my lot to meet with many adventures both grave and gay. I am of independent means and crave no pension; but if you would grant me the privilege of unobtrusive attendance at your Court, and send for me from time to time when affairs of State weigh heavily upon your mind, I believe that I could dispel your gloom and make you laugh again as I did just now by mentioning the episode of the donkey. And if I could do that I should count myself happy indeed."

"Oh, please, Madame!" The soft foreign voice came again from inside the carriage. "I pray you accede to his request. I am agog to know how he fared after he had been robbed of the jewels which were his only fortune."

The Queen half turned towards her lady-in-waiting as she said: "And so you shall, child." Then she smiled again at Roger, and added: "Monsieur, your request is truly a modest and unselfish one. I grant it willingly.

As Roger bowed his thanks he felt that he had every reason to congratulate himself, for his quick wits had enabled him to turn his stroke of luck to the best possible advantage. More, it seemed that Fortune had granted him yet another favour in his tale having caught the interest of the still barely glimpsed lady inside the carriage; so that not only had he secured the permission to present himself at Court, but had also secured an unknown ally who would remind the Queen about him, and ensure his being sent for in order to hear more of his story.

His only serious concern now was as to what lies he might be forced to tell if he meant to keep up the pretence of being a Frenchman, as he knew only too well that one lie had a horrid way of leading to another until one found oneself enmeshed in a highly dangerous net of false­hood. Loath as he was to disclose the fact that he was a foreigner, he was beginning to wonder if the game of continuing in his incognito would, in the long run, prove worth the candle.

After a brief silence the Queen remarked: "My gentlemen seem a long time in bringing back that rogue."

"He was exceptionally well mounted, Madame." Roger gave a little shrug. "And he had several minutes start. So I fear it might well be an hour before they succeed in riding him down."

"In that case, since the afternoon is fine, and it is pleasant here, let us sit for a little on the grass."

As the Queen stepped down on to the ground her footman sprang to life, and running round to the boot got from it some thick rugs which he spread out at the foot of the giant oak. While he was doing so the lady-in-waiting descended from the carriage and, seeing her mistress now remove her mask, followed suit.

She proved to be a young woman of about twenty-two with lustrous black hair and an olive complexion. Her eyes were a velvety brown, her nose aquiline, her cheeks thin and her chin long. Her arms were well modelled and her hands were small with sensitive, tapering fingers. She was medium tall but on the thin side for her height. So considered on all counts by the standards of the day she would have been con­sidered passably good-looking, but no great beauty. She had, however, one feature which made her face, once seen, unforgettable. To either side of the space above her arched nose dark eyebrows grew to nearly half-an-inch in depth, then gradually turning upward they tapered away to vanishing points at her temples.

Roger put her down at once as of Latin blood, and thought that he had never before seen hair of such exceptional blackness. But perhaps that was partly to be accounted for by its intense contrast with that of the Queen; for when Marie Antoinette first came to Court her hair had been so like spun gold that, long after her death, silks of an exquisite golden hue were still described as cheveux de la Reine.

As the olive-skinned young woman removed her mask, the Queen said to Roger: "Monsieur de Breuc, I present you to the Senorita d'Aranda. When the Senorita's father was recalled to Madrid after having represented his country for many years at our Court, he was kind enough to let me retain her among my Ladies for a while. It is not the least of my sorrows that she too will now soon be leaving me."

"You are indeed unfortunate, Madame, to lose so charming a com­panion," Roger murmured, making a gallant leg in response to the Senorita's grave curtsy. As he did so he wondered if she had inherited the intelligence and temper of her celebrated father. Don Pedro d'Aranda had been a brilliantly successful General and the Prime Minister of his country for seven years before being sent as Ambassador to France, and no one would have denied his great abilities; but he had the reputation of being extremely haughty and violently intolerant.

While the two younger people were exchanging courtesies, the Queen called out to her coachman in German: "Weber! You had better walk the horses, as we may remain here for some time." Then she seated herself on a cushion that had been placed for her and, as the carriage moved off, motioned to Roger and the Spanish girl to sit down one on either side.

This was the first opportunity Roger had had to see her at close quarters without her mask, and he thought that apart from some tiny wrinkles round her tender blue eyes and a slight darkening of her golden hair she showed few signs of approaching middle-age. She was, at that time, thirty-three years old and had had four children. It was common knowledge that for the first eight years of her wedded life she had, to her bitter grief, remained childless, because her husband had proved in­capable of consummating the marriage; but her daughter, Madame Royale, was now ten years old; the Dauphin, a child whose sickliness gave her much anxiety, seven; her second son, the little Due de Normandie, a lusty boy of four; and there had been a second daughter, who had died at the age of eleven months. Yet, despite the strain and cares of motherhood, she had retained her beautiful figure. She had exquisite hands and arms; and her oval face, with its delicately arched nose and noble forehead, was so splendidly set on her fine shoulders that no woman could have better looked, as she was, a true daughter of the Caesars.

Roger had seen her in the past only from a distance, but even so he had been struck by her resemblance to his lovely Athenais, and now, at close quarters, he thought her far more beautiful than her dark-browed young companion. But he was not left in silent contemplation of their respective attractions for long, as the Queen said to him:

"Monsieur; the Senorita d'Aranda is, I know, positively dying to hear what befell you after you were robbed of your jewels in Le Havre, and I too have a great love for listening to such stories; pray continue your adventures."

So, much sooner than he had expected, Roger found himself launched in his self-sought role of troubadour; and, as his blessings included ample self-confidence, coupled with the ability to express himself easily, the task presented no difficulties. Fortunately, too, he had abundant material in the months that he had spent with old Dr. Aristotle Fenelon peddling quack medicines, so he was not called on to invent any particulars that he might have later regretted, and for over half an hour he kept the Queen and her lady pleasantly amused.

From their comments and laughter he had good reason to suppose that they would have been quite content to listen to him much longer; but at the end of that time the sound of approaching hoof-beats inter­rupted his discourse, bringing them all to their feet, and next moment the Queen's two gentlemen cantered into the clearing.

"I feared as much," murmured Roger. "That fine bay de Roubec was riding enabled him to get clean away." But, even as he spoke, he had good cause to forget the pseudo-Chevalier in swift concern for a new development which threatened to jeopardize the favour he had so skilfully acquired with the Queen. As the two richly clad riders pulled up their foam-flecked mounts he recognized them both as friends of the Marquis de Rochambeau.

One was the handsome Due de Coigny, whose name malignant slander had coupled with that of the Queen on the birth of her first child, and the other was the Comte de Vaudreuil, whom the scurrilous pamphlets of the day had also accused her of having taken for her lover.

Roger did not believe a word of such stories, as everyone at all well informed knew that, at the time of the Queen's first pregnancy, the one had been the lover of the Princess de Guemenee and the other of the Duchess de Polignac, and that Marie Antoinette herself was a model of wifely fidelity. The two noblemen were, however, her old and cherished friends, and were so devoted to her that when two years earlier the King had abolished the Due's post as First Equerry and the Comte's as Grand Falconer, on grounds of economy, both had remained on at Court for the pleasure of serving her.

Seeing that she had gone out that afternoon to despatch a letter at a secret rendezvous, it was not the least surprising that she should have chosen two such trusted friends to act as her escort; but their arrival on the scene brought Roger face to face with a situation which he had hoped would not arise until he had had a chance to secure a firm footing at Fontainebleau.

"Alas, Madame," cried de Coigny, on pulling up. "We lost our man some two miles distant heading in the direction of Courances."

"We kept him in sight that far," added de Vaudreuil, "but had gained little on him. I fear he used his lead to double back on reaching a point where several rides converge. After casting about for quite a while and finding no trace of him, we thought it best to return and confess our discomfiture to Your Majesty."

" 'Tis a pity," the Queen shrugged, "but of no vital import. And as we can give a good description of the fellow, the police may yet lay him by the heels for us. I thank you, gentlemen, for your exertions."

Turning to Roger, she said: "Monsieur, 'tis my wish that Monsieur le Due de Coigny and Monsieur le Comte de Vaudreuil should number you among their acquaintances." Then to them she added: "My friends, this gentleman has today rendered me a considerable service. His name is de Breuc, and I recommend him to you."

The three men exchanged polite bows. Then de Vaudreuil said with a little frown: "De Breuc? Your name is familiar to me, Monsieur, but I cannot recall where I have heard it before."

"I remember not only this gentleman's name, but also his face," put in de Coigny. "Surely, Monsieur, we have met upon some previous occasion?"

Roger saw that there was nothing for it but to take the plunge, so he bowed again, and said: "Messieurs. In any other circumstances I would not have had the forwardness to claim the honour of your previous acquaintance. But in the past both of you have spoken to me with some kindness on numerous occasions. I was for some time confidential secretary to Monsieur de Rochambeau."

"Mort Dieu!" exclaimed de Vaudreuil, so far forgetting himself as to swear in front of the Queen. "I know you now! You are that young devil of an Englishman."

"Monsieur!" cried the Queen in sharp reprimand.

"'Tis true that I was born in England," Roger admitted; then added with a smooth disregard for the strict truth: "But as I was educated in France I have long regarded myself as more than half a Frenchman."

De Vaudreuil ignored the skilful evasion, which Roger had pre­pared in advance in case he should find himself in just such a situation, and hastily excused himself to the Queen.

"Your pardon, Madame. In my amazement at finding such a person in your company my tongue ran away with me."

Marie Antoinette's blue eyes widened. "I fail to see, Monsieur, why you should be so shocked. What matters it where Monsieur de Breuc was born ? I have always had a liking for the English, and count many of them among my friends."

De Coigny came to his companion's rescue, and said quickly: "I too recognize him now, and know what Monsieur le Comte had in mind. We can scarce believe Your Majesty to be aware that this fellow is he who seduced Mademoiselle de Rochambeau."

It had never occurred to Roger that such a charge would be brought against him. His deep-blue eyes suddenly began to smoulder beneath their dark lashes, and before the Queen could reply he burst out:

"Monsieur le Due! Were it not for Her Majesty's presence I would call you out for that. I know not what vile slanders were invented about me after I left France; but 'tis a lie. I was no more than Mademoiselle de Rochambeau's devoted servant, and aided her to escape an unwelcome marriage, in order that she might wed Monsieur de la Tour d'Auvergne, with whom she was in love."

The Queen gave a little gasp and turned to stare at him. "Enough, Monsieur!" she exclaimed imperiously. "The whole of that horrid scandal now comes back to me. And on your own confession you must be the villain who murdered M. le Comte de Caylus."

"Nay, Madame! I protest!"cried Roger firmly. "I killed Monsieur de Caylus in fair fight. M. l'Abbé de Perigord witnessed the affair and can vouch for the truth of what I say."

"That unworthy priest!" exclaimed the Queen. "I would not credit one word his purjured mouth could utter. 'Twas reported on incontest­able evidence that you ambushed Monsieur de Caylus in the forest of Melun, and there did him to death."

"Madame; 'tis true that I waylaid him, for in my situation it was the only way to make him fight. But I gave him ample opportunity to defend himself, and he proved no mean antagonist."

"At the least then you admit to having challenged him to fight, and having forced a duel upon him ?"

"I do, Your Majesty."

"Yet you must have been aware that there are edicts forbidding duelling, and that the breaking of them makes the offender liable to punishment by death?"

"I was, Your Majesty; but..."

"Silence, Monsieur!" The Queen cut him short. "I was too easily taken in by your fair appearance and glib tongue; but now you are unmasked I have heard enough! Madamoiselle de Rochambeau's father chose Monsieur de Caylus for her. What others thought of that choice is neither here nor there; for in such a matter the right of the head of a family is sacred. Yet you, while acting as a servant in the house, took it on yourself to overrule his judgment, and decided to assassinate the Count. Since you have had the temerity to return to France I should be failing in my duty were I not to ensure that justice takes its course, and that you pay the penalty for your abominable crime."

She then turned to her gentlemen. "Monsieur le Due, be pleased to call my horses, for I would now return to Fontainebleau. And you, Monsieur le Comte, I charge with the arrest and escorting back to the Chateau of Monsieur de Breuc."

De Vaudreuil dismounted, and a moment later Roger was sur­rendering his long sword. Less than five minutes before he had been in a fair way to being accepted into Madame Marie Antoinette's intimate circle; now he was to be taken to Fontainebleau as a dangerous criminal charged with murder.

CHAPTER THREE

THE FAMILY COMPACT

As Roger climbed into his saddle the thought of attempting to escape entered his mind, but he dismissed it almost at once. His hired hack was good enough for an afternoon's ride but possessed of little stamina; whereas the mounts of de Vaudreuil and de Coigny were both fine animals and still comparatively fresh, in spite of their recent gallop. His mare might have kept the lead for some distance, but he felt certain that his pursuers would ultimately wear her down and that, with no initial start, he would never be able to get far enough ahead to conceal himself among the trees and rocks while the others passed, as de Roubec had evidently done.

If anything could have added to his bitter sense of grievance at the scurvy trick Fate had played him, it was that had the Queen's two gentle­men not chanced to be close friends of Monsieur de Rochambeau, and had they been a little nearer to hand when she summoned them, it would have been de Roubec who would have ridden back to Fontainebleau as a prisoner, instead of himself.

That he was a prisoner was brought home to him in no uncertain manner by the way in which the two nobles closed in on either side of him immediately the carriage set off. His temper had subsided as quickly as it had arisen, and he was not normally given to fits of de­pression, but with every yard they covered in the wake of the carriage he became more fully conscious of the seriousness of his plight.

He had had perfectly adequate reasons for believing the affair of de Caylus to be done with and forgotten; yet it seemed that the dead Count's hand was now stretching up out of the grave to draw him down into it, and that even evasion of the grisly clutch might be bought only at the price of a long term of imprisonment.

It was not until they had covered over half a mile that Roger's gloomy thoughts were broken in upon by de Coigny saying:

"Monsieur; the fact that Her Majesty has placed you under arrest does not obliterate the memory of a certain exchange that recently passed between us. I refer to your threat to call me out."

"Indeed it does not, Monsieur le Duc," Roger replied icily. He was far from pleased that in addition to his other troubles he had brought a duel upon himself, but it did not even occur to him that there was any alternative to going through with it, so he added:

"When last our paths crossed I was employed by Monsieur de Rochambeau as a secretary, so it may be that you do not consider me as of sufficient rank to meet you; but let me at least assure you that I am fully entitled to that of Chevalier, as my grandfather was the Earl of Kildonan, and my uncle is the present holder of that title. So, if and when I become free of my present embarrassment, I shall be happy to give Your Grace satisfaction with such weapons and at any time and place you may choose."

"In view of what you tell me of your birth I, too, should be willing to meet you, if it is your wish to press the matter," said the Duke quite mildly. "But I am prepared to admit that I spoke without due thought. As you escaped to England shortly after you killed de Caylus, you are doubtless unaware that your duel, and the elopement of Mademoiselle de Rochambeau which immediately succeeded it, caused a positive furore. All Paris was buzzing with accounts of the matter. And as you clearly fought on the young lady's behalf the most generally accepted version of it was that you had abused your position as secretary to her father to become her lover. Like many other people I accepted the ont dit of the day and on such few occasions as I have thought of you since it has always been as her seducer. But I have no evidence that it was so; and had I not been surprised out of my sense of fitness by your sudden reappearance in the company of Her Majesty, I should certainly not have accused you of it."

Roger looked at the handsome middle-aged man at his side with new respect. For nearly two centuries the Kings of France had issued edict after edict threatening increasingly severe punishments in their efforts to suppress duelling, but that had had little effect on their nobility's attitude towards affairs of honour. No gentleman could afford to be subjected to a public slight and fail to demand satisfaction for it, for to do so was to invite certain ostracization by his fellows. Moreover, whenever such affairs took place with adequate reason and according to the established rules even the King's Ministers entered into a silent conspiracy to hush them up, and save the participants from the penalties of the law. It therefore required much more courage to apologize than to fight, and Roger rightly regarded M. le Coigny's retraction a most handsome one.

“Monseigneur," he said. "The honesty of your admission touches me deeply, and nothing would please me better than to forget the passage between us that gave occasion for it. May I add that I am all the more sensible of the generosity of your conduct from the sad plight in which I find myself; for 'tis when in such straits as I am at this moment that a chivalrous gesture from another is most warming to the heart."

He paused for a moment, then went on: "For my part, I can well appreciate that an evil construction could have been put upon my championship of Mademoiselle de Rochambeau. But, if you recall the facts, Monsieur de la Tour d'Auvergne had already challenged de Caylus, fought and been wounded by him; so naught but my sword stood between her and the hateful marriage that had been arranged by her father without her consent. Monsieur de la Tour d'Auvergne was at that time my closest friend, and it was on his account that, rather than see the lady he loved given to another, I fought and killed de Caylus."

"If that is so, your conduct appears to have been most honourable, Monsieur," remarked de Vaudreuil politely. "And had the affair been conducted according to the accepted code you would be in danger now of no more than a severe reprimand from His Majesty coupled with a period of banishment to some country estate. But since you waylaid de Caylus, forced a duel on him and fought without the presence of seconds to bear witness to fair play, that is accounted assassination, and I fear it may go hard with you."

"Monsieur le Comte, I give you my word that I took no unfair advantage of my adversary, and that I was, in fact, several times in acute danger of receiving a mortal wound from him myself."

"And we accept it, Monsieur," put in de Coigny. "De Caylus had fought at least a score of times before and was accounted one of the finest swordsmen in all France. It was a remarkable feat to slay so notable a duellist, and if you will indulge us we should find it mightily interesting to hear what actually took place at the encounter."

For all his natural self-confidence Roger was by habit diffident when speaking of his own abilities and achievements; so, while he willingly did as he had been requested, he confined himself mainly to the technicalities of the fight and made his final victory appear more a stroke of fortune than a brilliantly delivered coup de grace. His modesty won him the respect of the two older men, and for the last few miles of their ride all three of them talked in the most friendly fashion of sword-play as an art, with its innumerable varieties of tierce, feint and thrust.

It was not until the small cortege was trotting down the cobbled main street of Fontainebleau that de Vaudreuil said with some hesi­tation to Roger: "I pray you forgive me, Monsieur, but one thing has been troubling me for some moments past. When you fled after the duel I recall that a big reward was offered for your capture. In it I seem to remember some mention of a State paper with which you had made off. Was there any truth in that?"

It was the one accusation that Roger had been dreading for the past hour or more; but the form in which the question was put reassured him for the moment. Evidently the Marquis de Rochambeau had not disclosed to his friends the nature of the document of which he had been robbed, or its importance. In the circumstances Roger felt considerable repugnance to telling a lie, but there was clearly no alternative if he was to stand any chance at all of saving his neck; and when a lie was neces­sary few people could tell one more convincingly than Roger. Without hesitation he replied:

" Tis true, Monsieur le Comte, that in the hurry of my departure I inadvertently took one of Monsieur de Rochambeau's documents with me. I came upon it many days later in one of my pockets. As I con­sidered it of a highly confidential nature I did not like to risk returning it through the post, so I destroyed it."

To Roger's relief de Vaudreuil seemed perfectly satisfied with this explanation and a moment later, as they turned into the broad carriage­way between the Cour Henri Quatre and the Cour des Princes, the Count addressed him again.

"Monsieur de Breuc, after having enjoyed the pleasure of your conversation, I now find the duty with which I have been charged by Her Majesty a most distasteful one; but I can at least offer you a choice of prisons. Normally you would be conducted to the dungeon and placed under guard there, but if you prefer to give me your parole d'honneur that you will not attempt to escape, I should be happy to offer you a room in my apartment."

Roger barely hesitated. Apart from the discomfort that would certainly be his lot if he elected to be confined in a cell his chances of escaping from it would be obviously small; and even if he succeeded, that would put a definite end to all prospect of his succeeding in his mission, for he could never hope afterwards to be received at Court. Whereas the friendliness and sympathy displayed by his two companions during their long ride had buoyed him up afresh, and encouraged him to believe that he might yet make his peace with the Queen if only she could be induced to give him a fair hearing. With a bow he replied:

"I am indeed grateful to you, Monsieur le Comte. I willingly give you my parole for the privilege of accepting your hospitality."

They had now turned right, through the Porte Davphine into the Cour Ovale, and the carriage drew up at an entrance to the right just inside it. De Coigny handed the Queen out and escorted her up to her apartments; de Vaudreuil followed them into the entrance with Roger but conducted him along a ground-floor corridor and up a staircase at its far end in the oldest, central block of the Palace, where, just round the corner from the Galerie Francois I, he had his own quarters.

Having shown Roger the small but pleasant bedroom he was to occupy the Count told him that dinner would shortly be served for him in the sitting-room next door, and that in the meantime he would send someone to take his horse back to the inn and fetch his clothes. Then he left him.

As Roger gazed out of the tall window, which overlooked the Cour de la Fontaine with its statue of Ulysses and the carp pond beyond it, he began to wonder again how he could possibly bluff his way out of the mess he was in. But he was not given long to brood over his ill-fortune as the Count's servant came in to lay the table, and he proved to be an extremely garrulous Bordelaise who seemed to consider it part of his duty to entertain his master's guest with an endless flow of small-talk.

Neither was Roger given any opportunity to grow gloomy over his prospects that evening, for he had scarcely finished his dinner when de Vaudreuil returned, bringing with him a number of other gentlemen. It transpired that Her Majesty had a slight migraine, so had decided against holding a small musical which had been planned for that night, and it being de Coigny's turn to remain in immediate attendance on her, he was the only member of her intimate circle not left free by her decision.

Among the newcomers to whom Roger was presented were the Due de Polignac, the husband of the beautiful Gabrielle who was the Queen's closest friend and the governess of the royal children, the Due de Biron and the Baron de Breteuil, all of whom recalled having at times trans­acted business with him when he was M. de Rochambeau's secretary; while several of the others were known to him by sight and reputation. They included the Prince de Ligne, a soldier-poet and renowned horticulturist, whose talents and charm had made him persona grata at half the Courts in Europe; the Comte Valentin d'Esterhazy, a wealthy Hungarian noble who had been specially recommended to the Queen by her mother, the Empress Maria Theresa; the Baron de Besenval, an elderly but robust Swiss who commanded the King's Swiss Guards; and Auguste-Marie, Prince d'Arenberg, who was known in France as the Comte de la Marck, and was the son of Maria Theresa's most brilliant general.

They were a gallant and handsome company, fully representative of the gay and intelligent men whom Madame Marie Antoinette had delighted to gather about her in her happier days; and now as her old and best friends, having only the true interests of the monarchy at heart, they remained at her side, while the hundreds of time-serving courtiers who usually frequented the Palace had gone off to the provinces for the elections.

All of them remembered the affair of de Caylus's death and Athenais de Rochambeau's run-away marriage, and were eager to hear a first­hand account of it; so while the daylight died the curtains were drawn, candles lit, fresh bottles of wine uncorked, and as they settled down round the big table Roger found himself called on to tell again the story of his famous duel.

Again he endeavoured to belittle the part he had played, but when he had done the whole company was both loud in its praise of his conduct and most sympathetic about his present position; so he was still further heartened in his hope that the Queen's friends would use their influence to secure her clemency on his behalf.

The talk then became general and naturally many references were made to the unsettled state of France; thus Roger was provided with the opportunity, which had seemed so distant that morning, of hearing the views of these very men who stood so near the throne.

Somewhat to his surprise, he did not find them in the least reaction­ary; on the contrary, most of them appeared very liberal-minded. De Ligne and de Vaudreuil were particularly so, and the latter, after inveighing against the artificiality of life at Court, declared that he would have long since left it had it not been for his attachment to the Queen.

As they talked the wine was kept in constant circulation. It was not the habit to drink so heavily in France as in England, and the wine, although a rich Anjou, was considerably lighter than the Port to which Roger was accustomed. Nevertheless, by the time de Vaudreuil's friends retired, Roger was carrying a good load, so on going to bed he thought no more of his worries and, within a few minutes of his head touching the pillow, was sound asleep.

However, when he awoke in the morning, the danger in which he lay recurred to him with full force, and over a breakfast of chocolate and crisp rolls, which was brought to him in bed, he tried to assess his chances of escaping the Queen's anger.

He felt now that he had been extremely rash to return to France without having made quite certain that the old charges against him in connection with de Caylus's death had been quashed, as he had believed them to be. Soon after his escape to England, in the late summer of '87, his dear friend, the Lady Georgina Etheridge, had offered to arrange the matter. The ravishing Georgina had, at that time, numbered amongst her beaux the recently appointed French Ambassador, Monsieur le Comte d'Adhemar; and she had said that, having regard to the true facts, it should be easy for her to get the murder charge withdrawn, which would then reduce the affair to the much less heinous one of duelling.

Roger had gladly accepted her offer, and written out a long state­ment for her to hand to the Ambassador. As he knew that such personal matters were always subject to long delays before being dealt with, he had not pressed for an answer. He had been content to accept, via

Georgina, d'Adhemar's assurance after reading the statement that, if it was substantially true, the King would inflict on the culprit no more than a sentence of a year's banishment; and as nearly two years had elapsed since his deed he had had good reason to suppose that he need fear no repercussion from it.

On thinking matters over, he assumed that the Queen would now have him handed over to the police for indictment before a magistrate. If that occurred he could demand that the papers revelant to the original affair should be produced, and with any luck d'Adhemar's recom­mendation would be found among them, or, if Fortune really decided to smile on him again, a pardon by the King might come to light. On the other hand there was the unpleasant possibility that the Ambassa­dor's report had never got as far as His Majesty, and in that case only the Queen's clemency could save him from being tried for murder.

His thoughts shifted to a murder trial that was still vivid in his memory. Barely six weeks before he and Georgina had been very near paying for their year-old love affair by finding nooses round their necks. The odious publicity of the trial had sent her hastily abroad, and she was now with her clever, indulgent father in Vienna.

He wondered how she was faring there, but had little doubt her splendid health and amazing vitality were carrying her triumphantly through an endless succession of parties. He felt certain, too, that being the wanton hussy that her hot half-gypsy blood had made her, she would have added another lover to the long list of handsome gallants she had taken since she had first been seduced by a good-looking highway­man. Whoever she was allowing to caress her dark beauty in the city on the Danube now—be he Austrian, German, Hungarian or Czech— Roger had good cause to think him a monstrous lucky fellow, for he had laid siege to and won quite a number of lovely ladies himself, yet not one of them could offer Georgina's rare and varied attractions as a mistress.

But she meant far more to him than that. They were both only children, and it was she who had filled the place of almost a brother, as well as a sister, to him in their early teens. Then, in a moment when he needed self-confidence above all else, she had led him to think that he was initiating her into the mysteries of love, although in reality she was initiating him, for he was the younger, and not yet sixteen. It was she who had given him the jewels that de Roubec had stolen, and whatever love affairs they might have when apart they always returned to one another as confidants and friends.

Again his thoughts shifted, this time to his last interview with Mr. Pitt, and in his mind he began to live through the scene once more.

As on two previous occasions the Prime Minister had asked him down to Holwood, his country residence near Bromley, for a Sunday, in order to give him his instructions at leisure and in private. Two old patrons of Roger had been there, whom he had first known as Sir James Harris and the Marquis of Carmarthen; but the former had been raised to the peerage the preceding year as Baron Malmesbury, and the latter—from whom, as Foreign Secretary, Roger always received the funds for his secret activities—had, only that week, succeeded his father as Duke of Leeds. Pitt's shadow, the cold, unbending but up­right and indefatigable William Grenville, had also been there, providing by his unapproachable hauteur a strong contrast to the gracious charm of the new Duke and jovial warmth of the recently created peer.

Mr. Pitt never concealed from such close friends as these the object of the missions upon which he sent Roger, so after they had dined the talk turned to the state of France, and European affairs in general.

All of those present felt convinced that in its absolute form the French monarchy could not survive much longer, but not one of them believed that the political unrest in France would culminate in the type of Great Rebellion that had cost King Charles I his head, and led a hundred and forty years earlier to Britain for a time becoming a Republic.

They argued that whereas in England the commercial classes had been supported by a large section of a free and powerful nobility against the King, the nobility of France had become too decadent to weigh the scales either way; that even the bourgeoisie, although determined to insist on political representation, were monarchist at heart, and would never take up arms against their Sovereign; and that the peasantry were so lacking in unity and leadership, that they were capable of little more than the local jacqueries which had been agitating certain parts of the country for some time past on account of the corn shortage.

The general opinion, too, was that France must continue to be . regarded as a menace to Britain. They had all lived through the Seven Years' War, in which Pitt's father, the great Chatham, had led Britain from victory to victory, so that at its end France lay beaten and humbled, her hopes of Empire in Canada and India forever shattered, her fleets destroyed and her commerce ruined. But they had also witnessed her remarkable recovery, and lived through the desperate years in which, while Britain was endeavouring to suppress the risings of her rebellious Colonists in the Americas, she had been threatened with a French invasion at home, and had stood alone against a world in arms under French leadership.

They were all Englishmen who had been brought up in the hard, practical school that had been forced to regard the interests of other nations as of secondary importance provided that their country could continue to hold her own. Pitt alone among them had the vision to see that a new age was dawning in which the prosperity of Britain would depend on the welfare of her neighbours across the narrow seas.

As they talked of those grim days when half Britain's immensely valuable possessions in the West Indies were lost to France, and the long-drawn-out siege of Gibraltar had been raised only at the price of withdrawing the main Fleet from American waters, so that from lack of supplies and reinforcements a British army had been compelled to surrender at York Town, Grenville said:

"Whatever the late war with France may have cost us it cost her more; for 'twas finding so many millions to support the Americans which has resulted in her present state of near bankruptcy."

"I have always heard, sir," put in Roger with some diffidence, "that her embarrassment is due to the vast sums spent on building by King Louis XIV and the almost equally great treasure that King Louis XV squandered on his mistresses, the Pompadour and the du Barri."

"Nay," Grenville replied ponderously, with a shake of his heavy head. "You are wrong there, Mr. Brook. 'Tis true that for generations the ICings of France have dissipated a great part of the nation's income on their own pleasures or aggrandizement; but none the less the financial situation was by no means beyond repair when Louis XVI ascended the throne, some quarter of a century ago."

" 'Tis true," Pitt agreed, "and although the King is in many ways a weakling, he has ever displayed a most earnest desire to economize. His progressive cutting down of his Household, and the disbandment of two entire regiments of Royal Guards, are ample evidence of that. I judge Mr. Grenville right in his contention that the Royal Treasury might again be in ample funds, were it not that it has never had a chance to recover from the huge drain upon it caused by France going to the assistance of the Americans."

"Their interference in our business cost us dear at the time," remarked the Duke of Leeds smoothly, "but now we should benefit from their folly; for whatever changes they may bring about in their system of government, poverty will continue to reduce their ability to challenge us again for a considerable time to come."

Malmesbury had spent half a lifetime as a British diplomat in Madrid, Berlin, St. Petersburg and The Hague, often unsupported from home, yet by his skill, forcefulness and personal popularity at foreign Courts again and again thwarting French designs. He saw France as Britain's only serious rival to world power, and did not believe that his country could enjoy permanent safety until her great rival had been entirely isolated and reduced to impotence. Roger remembered this, as the diplomat said quickly:

"Your Grace's wishes are the father to your thoughts. The emptiness of the French treasury does not affect the fact that the population of France is more than twice our own, or that the pride of the whole nation is involved in regaining its lost hold on India and North America. King Louis having been fool enough to disband his Musketeers is no evi­dence whatsoever of his pacific intentions. He still retains the biggest standing army in Europe, builds men-of-war with every sou that he can raise by depriving his nobles of their pensions—yes, even to denying his wife a diamond necklace so that he might build another—and he has spent a greater sum than his father squandered on the du Barri in creating a vast new naval base at Cherbourg, which can have no other purpose than the domination of the Channel and our shores. I would stake my last farthing on it that whatever new form of government may emerge in France out of her present troubles she will find the money somehow, whenever the opportunity seems favourable, to launch another attempt to destroy us root and branch."

The Duke laughed lightly. "You overstress the danger, my lord. But should you prove correct we are, largely thanks to your own efforts, now far better situated than we were a few years back to put a check upon any new French aggression. When we emerged from the last conflict in '83 it was only by skilful diplomacy at the Peace of Paris that we saved the shirts on our backs, and after it we were still left entirely friendless. Whereas now that we have formed the Triple Alliance, should we be compelled to march again against the French, Prussia and the Dutch Netherlands will march with us."

Malmesbury thrust his leonine head forward, his fine blue eyes flashed and he banged his clenched fist on the table. " 'Tis not enough, Your Grace! Britain can never enjoy full and permanent security until the Family Compact has been broken."

"In that I think your lordship right," Pitt agreed. "All of you know that I have no animus against France. On the contrary, one of my dearest ambitions was achieved when we succeeded in negotiating our Commercial Treaty with the French two autumns back; for 'tis working most satisfactorily and may well bear out my hopes of forming a bridge over which the centuries-old enmity of the two countries may be for­gotten. Again, you know that I am averse to the formation of new military alliances except when they are necessary for our own pro­tection. Had I my way I would see us friends with all but committed to none; but that is impossible as long as there exist foreign combinations which may take up arms against us."

He paused to pour himself another glass of port, then went on: "It is just such alliances that breed wars, and no better example of their potentialities in that direction could be cited than the Family Compact just mentioned by my lord Malmesbury. Our recent treaties with the Prussians and the Dutch will secure us their aid in the event of direct aggression by France, and that being so, coupled with her present internal difficulties, I do not believe that we have anything to fear from a renewal of her desire for aggrandizement at our expense. But, un­fortunately, the Bourbon Family Compact still ties her to Spain.

"For a long time past our relations with that country have been far from good, and I do not see how they can be permanently bettered as long as present conditions maintain in South American waters. Spain has ever sought to keep her rich possessions overseas as a closed province from all other nations, whereas being ourselves a race of traders we have striven by fair means and foul to get a footing on the southern continent. Despite numerous formal prohibitions we have winked the eye at many illegal acts by enterprising ship-owners in the West Indies. The smug­gling carried on from the Spanish main to our islands there has assumed enormous proportions, and skirmishes between our people and the Spanish guarda costa vessels have long occurred with considerable frequency. That naturally gives great cause for offence to the haughty Dons, and scarcely a month passes without our receiving heated remonstrances from Madrid, or bitter complaints from the governors of our islands that British seamen have been seized, maltreated and falsely imprisoned while going about their lawful business."

The handsome Duke of Leeds made a wry grimace. "I know it well, and have an entire drawer stuffed with such papers at the Foreign Office. But Spain will never bring herself to the point of fighting on that account."

"I would not wager upon it," contended Pitt. "There is always the last straw that breaks the camel's back."

"Nay. The Dons may bluster, but the days of Spain's greatness are gone; and without the succour that she draws from her Empire in the Americas she would face total ruin. Did she declare openly against Britain our fleets would swiftly cut her off from that Eldorado, and she would even risk its permanent loss."

"There I agree, should she have the temerity to challenge us alone," Pitt replied. "But Your Grace has left out of your calculations the Family Compact. In '79, when we were fully engaged against France, the Court of Versailles called upon the Court of Madrid to honour that treaty and King Carlos III entered the war against us. What guarantee have we that his successor, should he consider himself provoked beyond endurance, Will not also invoke the treaty, and King Louis, however reluctantly, in turn feel obliged to abide by his obligations? I regard all wars as regrettable, and although we could look to the outcome of one against Spain alone with reasonable equanimity, if we were called on again to face France and Spain in combination it might well go exceeding hard with Britain."

The Duke shrugged. "I regard the chances of Spain pushing her grievances about the depredations of our privateers to the point of war as exceeding slender; so I think such a situation most unlikely to arise."

‘Yet, should it do so," Malmesbury put in persistently, "Your Grace must admit that we would find ourselves in a pretty pickle; for it should not be forgotten that the French Queen is a Habsburg. The influence she exerts has enabled her to draw the Courts of Versailles and Vienna much closer together than they were formerly, and in the event of war she might well succeed in inducing her brothers to come to the assistance of France. Then we would find Spain, France, Austria, Tuscany and the Two Sicilies all leagued in arms simultaneously for the purpose of our destruction."

"Indeed, my lord Malmesbury is right," declared Pitt. "The nightmare spectacle he calls up could only too easily become a terrible reality did Spain ever invoke that damnable Family Compact. The danger at the moment fortunately appears remote; but it is the one possibility that above all others we should spare no pains to render still more unlikely, or, far better, impossible."

He had turned, then, to Roger, and said: "I trust you will bear this conversation in mind, Mr. Brook. Previous to it your new mission called for no more than that you should act as a general observer; but in addition I now request that, should you succeed in becoming persona grata at the French Court, you will pay special regard to all that concerns Franco-Spanish relations; and, should opportunity offer, use your utmost exertions to weaken the goodwill that at present exists between the two nations. 'Tis too much to expect that any personal endeavour on your part could lead to the annulling of this long-standing treaty, but you have shown considerable shrewdness in the past, and you could render no greater service to your country than by suggesting to me some line of policy that would later enable me to bring about the breaking of it."

That night, when Roger had got back to Amesbury House, in Arlington Street—where he had a standing invitation to stay when in London with the Marquess of Amesbury's younger son, Lord Edward Fitz-Deverel—he and his tall, foppish friend, who, from his perpetual stoop, was known to his intimates as "Droopy Ned", had spent an hour in the fine library, delving into a score of leather-bound volumes to find out all they could about the Family Compact.

Both of them knew well that it was one of the major instruments that had governed European relations for several generations, but Roger was anxious to secure details of its origin and Droopy, being a born bookworm, was the very man to help him. In due course their researches produced the following information.

King Carlos II of Spain, who had died in the year 1700, was the last male descendant in the direct line of the Houses of Castile and Aragon; so the succession had reverted to the descendants of his eldest aunt.

This princess—known to the world owing to her Imperial descent as Anne of Austria, but nevertheless of Spanish blood—had married the head of the House of Bourbon, Louis XIII of France. In con­sequence, theoretically, the Spanish throne devolved upon her son Louis XIV. But as the two countries were not prepared to unite and the Spaniards were determined to have a King of their own, the immediate heirs to France were ruled out, and Louis XTV's second grandson, the Duke of Anjou, had been selected. The choice had been strongly opposed by the late King Carlos's close relatives in Bavaria and Austria, which had resulted in the War of the Spanish Succession, but France had emerged triumphant and the Duke D'Anjou had ascended the Spanish throne as Philip V. Since then a branch of the Bourbon family had ruled in Spain; and more recently relatives of the Spanish Kings had also reigned in both Naples and Parma.

In 1733 the first Family Compact had been signed at the Escurial; and it was shortly after this that Don Carlos, Philip V's son by his second marriage, had conquered Naples from the Austrians. Thereafter the interests of France and Spain had tended to diverge somewhat, but in 1743 they had renewed the treaty at Fontainebleau and, moreover, entered into a secret agreement to use their best endeavours to restore the Stuart Pretender lo the British throne. Having failed in this their friendship cooled a little, but Don Carlos was fervidly pro-French, and soon after coming to the Spanish throne as King Carlos III he engaged his country, in 1761, in a third treaty which committed its signatories more deeply than ever before. This last Family Compact had been confirmed in 1765, had been put into active operation by Spain coming to the assistance of France in her war against Britain, in 1779, and was still valid.

The earlier treaties had contained the statement in their preambles that the alliance was "eternal and irrevocable" and the last, in addition, declared specifically that "any country that should become the enemy of the one or the other of the two Crowns would be regarded as the enemy of both". It further contained a clause that the two contracting parties should also afford full protection to the dominions of the two Bourbon princes who ruled the Two Sicilies and the Duchy of Parma, who were at that date Carlos III's.younger son, as King of Naples, and his younger brother.

Having got so far Roger and Droopy looked up the House of Habsburg-Lorraine to find out the ramifications of Madame Marie Antoinette's family. It emerged that she had been one of the sixteen children of the Empress-Queen Maria Theresa, and that her surviving brothers and sisters included Joseph H, Emperor of Austria, the Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany, the Elector of Cologne and the Queen of Naples. It was therefore clear that Lord Malmesbury had not been overstating the case when he had said that if the powers concerned in the Family Compact together with Marie Antoinette's relatives com­bined against Britain she would be in "a pretty pickle".

As Roger recalled these scenes he felt that there was now very little hope of his being allowed to remain at Court, and so having even a chance of being able to furnish Mr. Pitt with data which might help him to put a spoke in the wheel of the Family Compact. But he did feel that owing to his having had the luck to meet so many of the Queen's gentlemen the previous evening, he could count on several of them speaking to her on his behalf; so there was a fair prospect that instead of sending him for trial she might give him his freedom, and that would at least allow him to continue with the less intricate part of his general mission.

It would be bitterly disappointing to have got so near the Queen only to be banished from her presence, but he could make a tour of the provincial cities or develop the acquaintance of men such as the Comte de Mirabeau, M. Mounier, the Abb6 Sieves and the Comte de Lally-Tollendal, who were in the forefront of the agitation for reform, and thus still procure a certain amount of quite useful information for his Government. The thing that mattered above all else was to regain his freedom; with some anxiety, but a reasonable hope of doing so, he got up and dressed.

Finding that M. de Vaudreuil had already gone out, he spent the morning browsing through his host's books until, shortly after midday, the Count returned. As soon as they had exchanged greetings Roger said:

"Comfortable as you have made me here, Monsieur le Comte, I must confess to being on tenterhooks to learn my fate. If you have seen Her Majesty this morning, pray tell me if aught was said about my affair and if she persists in her determination to send me before a magistrate."

"Why do you suppose she ever intended to do that, Monsieur?" asked the Count in some surprise.

Roger's face showed even greater astonishment. "But you were present, Monsieur le Comte, when she declared her intention in no uncertain terms of seeing to it that justice took its course."

"I was indeed, but that did not imply that the services of a magis­trate are called for."

"Sacre nom!" Roger exclaimed in swift dismay. "Surely you do not infer that I am to be condemned without a trial?"

De Vaudreuil shrugged. "Her Majesty will no doubt discuss your affair with the King, and His Majesty being the chief magistrate in France, no other is required. A lettre de cachet will be issued and His

Majesty's Lieutenant General of Police will carry out whatever order it may contain."

Roger endeavoured to hide his sudden panic. It had never occurred to him that he might be thrown into prison for an unspecified period and perhaps forgotten there, or even executed, without a trial; although he was well aware that judicial procedure was very different in France from what it was in England.

In France there had never been any equivalent of Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights. There was no law of Habeas Corpus to protect people from being detained in prison without ever having been brought before a court; and even in the courts there was no such thing as trial by jury. The old feudal system of dispensing justice remained unaltered. The nobles still possessed powers little short of life and death over the peasants on their estates, and had the right of appointing anyone they chose to act for them in their absence.

In the towns, courts of all kinds had grown up in higgledy-piggledy confusion. There were those of the King's Intendants in the provincial capitals and of the Sub-Intendants in lesser places; those of the clergy, who had special jurisdiction over certain matters; those for cases in which the nobility were concerned; those of the merchants, who could be tried by their own Guilds; and others which dealt with petty crime and the litigation of the common people. In addition there were the Parliaments which still functioned in some of the great cities, dealing with appeals and matters of outstanding moment, such as accusations against highly placed persons that the King might choose to refer to them. And above all these there remained the absolute power of the King to pronounce sentences of death, imprisonment, mutilation and banishment by lettres de cachet, against which there was no appeal

During the past century the lettre de cachet had become mainly an instrument for disciplining the younger nobility. If a young man defied the parental will and was on the point of making an unsatisfactory marriage, got heavily in debt, or was leading a glaringly immoral life, it had become customary for his father to apply to the King for a lettre de cachet and get the recalcitrant youth sent to cool his heels in prison until he thought better of his insubordination. Lettres de cachet were also used quite arbitrarily by the greater nobility to imprison servants who they believed had robbed them and writers who had libelled them by publishing accounts of their extravagances and follies. So widespread had this practice become under Louis XV that his mistresses and Ministers regularly secured from him sheaves of signed blanks, which they gave to any of their friends who asked for them, so that the King no longer had the faintest idea who or for what people were being imprisoned in his name.

The mild and conscientious Louis XVI had endeavoured to check this glaring abuse, and it was no longer easy to secure a lettre de cachet without providing a good reason for its use; but the King continued to use them freely himself in his capacity of Supreme Magistrate, and Roger had good cause to feel extremely perturbed by de Vaudreuil's pronouncement.

"Monsieur le Comte," he said hurriedly, "if I am to have no opportunity of defending myself, I beg you most earnestly to entreat Her Majesty to grant me an audience before she speaks to the King. Or at least that you and your friends will take the first possible opportunity of recounting my story to heir as I told it to you last night, and beseeching her clemency towards me."

"Alas, my poor Chevalier," replied de Vaudreuil, with a sad shake of his head. "De Coigny, de Ligne and myself have already done our best for you with Her Majesty this morning; but she would not listen to us. Indeed, she berated us soundly on the score that we were seeking to protect you because, contrary to the King's will, we nobles continue to regard duelling as the only recourse of a man of honour who con­siders himself aggrieved. I am distressed beyond words to dash your hopes, but she proved unshakable in her opinion that you had committed a very serious crime and must be suitably punished for it.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE LADY FROM SPAIN

Asa further means of showing sympathy for his prisoner, de Vaudreuil suggested that a little fresh air and exercise might serve to distract Roger's thoughts; and told him that, since he had his parole, he had no objection to his going out unaccompanied, provided that he remained within the precincts of the Palace. Then he picked up a riding-crop he had come to fetch and went out himself.

Roger, now as pessimistic about his prospects as he had previously been sanguine, felt no inclination for a walk, so remained where he was, plunged in gloomy speculations.

If he were not to be given any form of trial it now seemed im­probable that the original documents referring to the case would be produced; and if they were not the recommendation to mercy that the Comte d'Adhemar had promised to send in would never come to light. Presumably the Queen regarded his own confession, that he had been the man who had forced a duel without provocation on the Count de Caylus, and killed him, amply sufficient for the King to sentence him to anything that, in their mood of the moment, they considered to be his deserts. He thought it very unlikely that they would impose the death sentence, but in his vivid imagination he already saw the black bulk of the Bastille yawning to engulf him; and once inside that vast stone fortress it would prove exceedingly difficult to get out again.

The only line of escape which now seemed to offer was an appeal to the British Ambassador, the Duke of Dorset. It was part of His Grace's function to protect the interests of all British subjects resident or travelling in France. He could take the matter up with the King, through his Foreign Minister, soliciting a cancellation of the lettre de cachet, or at least a further investigation of the case, if there were reason­able grounds for supposing that there had been a miscarriage of justice.

But Roger realized with most distressing clarity that although he might plead a miscarriage of justice in the event of his being condemned for murder, he certainly could not do so if he were imprisoned for duelling; and it was entirely outside any Ambassador's sphere to seek to protect any of his nationals who had admittedly broken the laws of the country to which he was accredited.

There was still one way out. Via the Ambassador, he could send a letter to Mr. Pitt, begging his intervention. If the Prime Minister chose to do so he could instruct the Ambassador to use his own discretion as to the means he should employ to secure the prisoner's release. The Duke of Dorset, and his extremely able First Secretary, Mr. Daniel Hailes, both knew that Roger was a secret agent, and they would then resort to extreme measures. Dorset could declare that Roger was a new member of his staff who had just been sent out to him, and had not yet been officially presented owing to his recent arrival in France. He would then claim for him diplomatic status with its accompanying immunities. These did not cover arrest for felony, but duelling had never been re­garded in the same light as other crimes. There was little doubt that the King would surrender Roger to the Ambassador rather than give umbrage to the Court of St. James; but at the same time it was certain that Dorset would be informed that this new member of his staff was non persona grata at Versailles and must be sent back to England forthwith.

The thought of the humiliation entailed made Roger's bronzed face flush. How would he ever be able to face Mr. Pitt after having bungled matters so badly ? That his arrest was not altogether his own fault would prove no excuse, for he had laid himself open to it originally; and the Prime Minister had every right to expect that any agent he employed should have wit enough to get out of trouble without raising an annoying diplomatic issue. He would be sent on no more missions, never again be let into the fascinating secrets of high policy, or enjoy the travelling as a rich English milor' that he had so come to love. Instead he would be, as his father, Admiral Brook, would have put it, "on the beach" at twenty-one, with an income quite inadequate to support the habits he had acquired and entirely untrained for any profession or profitable occu­pation.

Promptly he resolved that nothing short of actually finding his life in jeopardy would induce him to squeal to Mr. Pitt for help. If there was no escape it would be better to endure a spell of prison, and leave it to Dorset or Hailes to ask for his release when they felt that sufficient time had elapsed for King Louis to be mollified enough to grant him a pardon on normal grounds. But the thought that it was unlikely that the King would be inclined to do so for at least a year was anything but a rosy one.

For the better part of two hours Roger strove to interest himself again in de Vaudreuil's books, but he found that his mind was not registering the words he read, and that on their pages "horrid visions of thick stone walls with iron grilles set high in them kept intruding themselves, so he decided that he would take advantage of the Count's permission to go out.

First he wandered disconsolately for a little while through some of the lofty public rooms and corridors, but their rich furnishings and intri­cately woven tapestries made no appeal to him today; and he did not even raise or lower his eyes as he passed through the Galerie Henri II, to admire again the exquisite workmanship by which long-dead crafts­men had mirrored the elaborate design of the ceiling—the royal arms of France entwined with the moon-centred cipher of the King's mistress, the beautiful Diane de Poitiers—by an inlay of rare, richly coloured woods which formed the parquet of the floor.

After a while he turned back, stood gloomily for a few minutes on the balcony where Madame de Maintenon had induced Louis XIV to sign the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which had outlawed all the Protestants in France, then went down the main staircase and out into the garden.

Still unheeding his surroundings his footsteps carried him round to the Fountain Court, and he noticed idly that a group of ladies at its open end were gathered at the edge of the pond amusing themselves feeding the carp. As he approached one of them turned, caught sight of him and, leaving her companions, began to walk in his direction. Even at that distance he needed no second glance to recognize the lady's intensely black hair and striking eyebrows as those of the Senorita d'Aranda.

When they arrived within a few yards of one another she rippled her full skirts of lilac silk in a graceful curtsy and he swept his tricorn hat past the ground in an arc that paralleled his forward-thrust leg. From the instant he had recognized her his quick brain had been speculating on whether she might have good or ill news for him, and how he might gain some advantage from this chance meeting in view of her closeness to the Queen; so it was only on lifting his head from his bow that he noticed a strange little figure that had come to a halt a few feet in her rear.

It was a boy of about ten, but a boy the like of which Roger had never seen. The child's eyes and hair were as black as those of the Senorita, his nose was considerably more hooked, and they both had high cheek­bones ; but there the resemblance ended; his lips were thick and his skin a deep red-brown. He was clad in a kilt and mantle beautifully embroid­ered with an assortment of strange intricate symbols in rich colours, wore ahead-dress of bright feathers and carried a thin-bladed, dangerous-looking little hatchet stuck in his gilded leather girdle. Although Roger had never set eyes on one before he knew from pictures he had seen that the little fellow must be some kind of Indian from the Americas.

"Good day, Monsieur de Breuc," said the Senorita, regarding him with an amused smile. "You seem quite taken aback at the sight of my page. Do you not think him a handsome poppet ?"

It was true enough that the boy had distinction in every line of his thin, eagle-beaked face and proud bearing. Quickly recovering his manners, Roger replied hastily: "Indeed he is, Senorita. I trust you will forgive me for having stared at him, but 'tis the first time I have ever seen one of his race, and it took me by surprise to see a lady like yourself accompanied by such an unusual attendant."

She shrugged. "Madame du Barri had her Blackamoor, so why should I not have my Indian ? Though fittingly, I feel, her Zamore was a vulgar little imp, whereas my Quetzal is an admirably behaved child and the son of an Aztec Prince." Turning, she spoke in Spanish to the boy, telling him to make his bow to the handsome gentleman.

Instead of returning the bow Roger held out his hand English fashion. After a slight hesitation Quetzal placed his small red hand in Roger's long one, and said something in Spanish to his mistress.

"What did he say ?" Roger asked.

The Spanish girl gave a low, rich laugh. "He says that he admires your blue eyes, Monsieur, and wishes he had jewels of their colour to put into his head-dress."

"Tell him then, please, that I find, the velvet blackness of his own surpassed only by your brown ones, Senorita."

Her olive complexion coloured a little as she translated. Then she said to Roger: "Our meeting is a happy chance, Monsieur, for but ten minutes back I asked Monsieur de Vaudreuil to seek you out and bring you to me."

Roger caught his breath. "Senorita. Spare my suspense, I beg. Can it be that Her Majesty has relented towards me, and that you are the bearer of these happy tidings?"

She shook her head. "I am sorry to disappoint you, Monsieur; but I bear no message from Her Majesty. I wished to see you again only from the interest that you inspired in me yesterday."

To cover his disappointment he bowed; but he had difficulty in keeping it out of his voice as he replied. "I am fortunate indeed, Senorita, in having aroused the interest of a lady so charming as yourself."

Fluttering her lace fan to hide another blush, she said with slight hauteur: "I fear that my command of the French language is still far from perfect, and that I expressed myself badly. I refer to my interest in your story, Monsieur."

He suppressed a smile, for experience had taught him that where women were concerned interest in such stories of his past as he chose to tell, and in himself, amounted to much the same thing. Again, with a critic's eye, he took in her features and decided that she was by no means beautiful. Her soft, dark eyes were as large as, but lacked the sparkle of, Georgina's; her hair was no more lustrous, and in all other points she was by a long way inferior. The malicious might have described her complexion as sallow; her mouth, though full, was not a very good shape, her teeth were slightly uneven and the heavy brows were a mixed blessing, for though they gave her face great character they were some­what overawing when seen close to.

"I had not flattered myself that your interest was in any way per­sonal," Roger declared, to spare her further embarrassment, "but I am entirely at your disposal, Senorita." Then, offering his arm, he added: "While we converse shall we promenade for a little?"

She laid her fingers lightly on it and allowed him to lead her away from the group of other young women—who, since their meeting, had covertly been taking more interest in them than in the carp—and round the corner of the Palace theatre into the parterre designed for Louis XIV by his famous gardener, Le Notre.

After a short silence she said: "The principal reason that the story of your running away from home intrigued me so much, Monsieur, is because it would be quite impossible for such a thing to occur in Spain. I mean, of course, for a boy of good family to do such a thing. There children are made much more of by their parents than they are in France, but all the same they are brought up very strictly, and kept under constant supervision until the young men are of an age to go out into the world, and the girls to marry. I think things must be very different in England, but I know little of your customs there. Pray tell me of them."

It was a subject that presented no pitfalls, so Roger willingly launched out on an account of the Public School system and the type of life led by boys of the upper classes when they were living at their homes during the holidays.

The Senorita showed the most intelligent interest in all he had to say and led him on to speak of his own home and his family; then, when she learned that he had an allowance of only £300 a year from his father, she enquired why he had not entered the service of his King to carve out a career for himself.

Not wishing to give the impression that he was altogether an idle good-for-nothing or, worse, an adventurer, he said that he had a passion for seeing new places and new faces, so travelled for the love of it as far as his means permitted; but that to eke them out and at the same time indulge his taste he had, on occasion, acted for his Government as a special courier, carrying despatches to the Baltic countries and Russia.

At that her interest quickened still further and she asked if his coming to France had arisen from some commission of that kind.

He told her that it had not, and that but for his arrest he would have remained entirely his own master for some time; adding the easy lie that, an aunt having left him a nice legacy, he had decided to spend some months making a leisurely tour of the great cities of France with the object of inspecting the historic monuments they contained.

They had, by this time, walked right round the eastern end of the great Palace and entered the Garden of Diana to its north. Roger knew that the Queen's apartments looked out on it and the little town that lay immediately beyond its wall. He had wondered at her choice until he had been told that all the apartments facing south and west had at one time or another been lived in by the mistresses of past Kings, and that she was so proud that she preferred the comparatively sunless aspect to making use of rooms in which immoral women had received their royal lovers. Now, Roger glanced up at the first-floor windows and added bitterly:

"However, it seems that Her Majesty has other plans for me."

His companion slightly increased the light pressure of her fingers on his arm. "Be not too despondent, Monsieur. Did I believe that you had committed the heinous crime of which you were at first accused, you may be sure that I would not be talking to you now; and I can vouch for it that, although Madame Marie Antoinette allows her impulses to make her appear harsh at times, she is in reality one of the tenderest-hearted women alive. When she has had time for reflection I cannot think she will prove over-severe towards you."

"I pray you may be right," Roger said somewhat doubtfully. "Yet I understand that several of her gentlemen approached her on my behalf this morning, and she refused to listen to them."

" 'Tis true, and I was the witness of it. But at the time she was much occupied with other matters; for tomorrow the Court leaves Fontaine­bleau to return to Versailles. On that account, too, I fear I must leave you now, as I still have many matters to attend to."

Roger accompanied her to the staircase leading to the Queen's apartments, thanked her for having distracted him from his anxieties for a while, received her good wishes for a better turn in his fortunes, and then made his way back to de Vaudreuil's rooms.

This unsought interview had put him in a slightly more cheerful frame of mind. He felt that he had gained another friend near the Queen, who would do what she could on his behalf; but he now feared that the imminent departure of the Court might prejudice the issue against him. In the bustle preparatory to the move the Queen would have little time for quiet consideration of his case, and her impulsive nature might easily lead her to not even discuss it with the King, but simply scribble a line to the Lieutenant of Police, instructing him to fill in a blank lettre de cachet to the effect that M. de Breuc was to be imprisoned during His Majesty's pleasure.

Such a procedure was often adopted instead of ordering imprison­ment for a definite period, and it was one of the bitterest complaints of the bourgeoisie that such sentences sometimes led to people who had been incarcerated for quite minor misdemeanours, and had no influence at Court, being forgotten and left for years to rot in a dungeon.

The later afternoon was rendered no more pleasant for Roger from the fact that de Vaudreuil's garrulous servant was dismantling the sitting-room and packing up his master's things; then, after dinner, instead of enjoying again the gay society that had borne him company the evening before, he found himself left alone with his worries, owing to it being the night of the Queen's weekly card-party.

The jeu de la Reine had long been an institution at the Court of France, and the Queens were provided with a special allowance to support it. In addition to play the occasion was used by them to show special favour to distinguished visitors, one or more of the Ambassadors, or others that they wished to honour, by inviting them to sit near them. Maria Leczinska, the Queen of Louis XV, had always insisted on keeping the games down to modest stakes in order to protect the players from heavy losses; but a few years after Louis XVI ascended the throne Marie Antoinette had developed a taste for gambling, partly perhaps to distract her mind from her unhappiness at being unable to produce an heir for France.

Once bitten with the fever she had played nightly and for increasingly high stakes, so that at the end of 1777 she had lost £21,000 in excess of her income, and had been obliged to ask her husband to pay her debts. The sum was insignificant compared with those that the royal mis­tresses had thrown away at the tables in the past; but her gambling losses had been made much of by her enemies. It was this which, when the French Treasury had become near bankrupt, had caused the people to accuse her of having emptied it and christen her with the opprobrious name of "Madame Deficit".

Since the birth of her children her character had changed. She had longed for them for so many years in vain that when at last they came they absorbed her interest to the exclusion of all other pleasures. She had given up frequenting the gay entertainments given by the younger set at her Court, reduced her lavish expenditure on clothes, and both her stakes at the gambling tables and the frequency with which she played.

But she still enjoyed a game and naturally continued to hold her official card-parties as a part of the Court ceremonial; so that on this evening Roger, finding himself deserted and knowing that her reception was unlikely to be over before ten o'clock, decided to go early to bed.

He hoped that sleep would soon banish his anxieties, but in that he was disappointed, and he found his wakeful mind playing round the Spanish girl with whom he had talked that afternoon. Although she was not strictly beautiful he admitted to himself that she possessed a certain subtle attraction, and after some thought he decided that it lay largely in her voice. It was peculiarly soft and melodious, and her slightly broken French with its Spanish accent added to its fascination. Perhaps too her nationality played a part, for Spain, shut away as it was from the rest of Europe by the barrier of the Pyrenees, was still almost unknown territory, which endowed it with a glamour all its own. Very few foreigners ever visited it, but travellers' tales described it as a land of dazzling sunshine where great sterile deserts were interspersed with areas of vines, olives and orange blossom, and in which the most degrading poverty existed cheek by jowl with fabulous riches. He hoped that one day his travels would take him there, so that he would be able to witness the fiestas and bullfights for which the country was renowned.

Having got so far in his musings, he made another effort to get to sleep, but again it was not to be. A heavy knocking came on the sitting-room door. It was followed by footsteps inside the room, then a sharp knock on the door of his bedroom. He had hardly called out "Entrez" when it was opened, and by the fight from outside he recognized one of his previous night's visitors. It was M. de Besenval, the Commander of the King's Swiss Guards.

"I regret to disturb you, Chevalier," said de Besenval, in his heavy Germanic voice, "but I bear orders from Her Majesty. I must ask you to get up, dress, and accompany me."

The fact that it was de Besenval who had come to fetch him immedi­ately confirmed Roger's fears that he might be condemned unheard and sent to eat his heart out in a fortress. He felt certain that had the Queen decided to give him a chance to justify himself she would not have used the Colonel of the Guards, but de Vaudreuil, or some other of her gentlemen, to bring him to her.

With a low-voiced assent he got out of bed; and, as he began to dress, determined to put as good face as he could on his misfortune.

De Besenval went back into the sitting-room and Roger rejoined him there some seven minutes later. On entering the room he saw that the Colonel was accompanied by two stolid-looking German-Swiss privates, who were standing rigidly to attention, facing inwards on either side of the door. At the sight of them Roger's last faint hope vanished, but he smiled at de Besenval and made him a graceful bow before placing himself between the two soldiers.

The Colonel gave an order, on which the little party left the room and began to march with measured tread down the corridor. De Besenval brought up the rear, and he had evidently given his men their instructions beforehand, as they continued on in silence past the first stairway, round the inner curve of the Oval court and along a gallery that gave on to the royal reception-rooms.

As the Queen's card-party was just breaking up a number of ladies and gentlemen were leaving them to return to their own apartments. All of them looked at Roger as he passed with sympathy, and here and there among them one of the men he had met bowed to him with respect.

Having been brought round to this side of the Palace gave Roger a sudden flicker of new hope that he was, after all, to be taken before the Queen; but almost as soon as it had arisen it was quenched. His escort turned away from the tall gilded double doors and led him down the staircase opposite to them. Outside the entrance a two-horse carriage stood waiting; one of the soldiers got on the box beside the coachman, the other scrambled on to the boot; de Besenval ushered Roger into the carriage, got in beside him and pulled down the blinds. Then they set off.

After they had proceeded for a few minutes in silence, Roger said: "Is it permitted to ask, Monsieur le Baron, whither you are conducting me?"

"I regret, Monsieur," the elderly Swiss replied, "but except in so far as my duty requires I am under orders not to talk with you."

Left to his own speculations Roger considered all the odds were that he was being taken to Paris, and that as prisoners of gentle birth there were nearly always confined in the Bastille, that was his most probable destination. If so, they had a journey of some forty miles before them, so would not arrive in the capital until the small hours of the morning.

Now that he was under guard again the parole he had given to de Vaudreuil was no longer valid, so he took swift stock of his chances of escape. His only opportunity would be when they changed horses, as it was certain they would do a number of times on the road. Since de Besenval had not locked either of the carriage doors, should he get out of one to stretch his legs when they halted, there would be nothing to stop his prisoner slipping out of the other. But from the second the prisoner put his foot to the ground he would be in acute danger—as the two Swiss on the box and the boot were both armed with muskets, and it was a hundred to one that they would shoot if he attempted to make a bolt for it.

Having weighed the pros and cons Roger decided that, even if the opportunity occurred, to present himself as a target for two musket-balls fired at close range was too great a risk to take, so he had better resign himself to captivity, at least for the time being.

After he had settled himself more comfortably in his corner of the carriage the rhythm of its wheels and the horses' hoofs began to make him drowsy. For the better part of two days he had been subject to acute anxiety and the sudden, if temporary, cessation of wondering what was about to happen to himself had its reaction. The sleep that he had sought in vain an hour before now kindly enveloped him.

He awoke with a start. The carriage had stopped and he felt certain that he had not been asleep for long. De Besenval was getting out and said over his shoulder: "Be pleased to follow me, Monsieur."

As Roger stumbled from the carriage he saw they had not drawn up before a post-house; and no ostler was at work unbuckling the traces of the horses. The carriage had halted in a broad, tree-lined avenue and, to Roger's amazement, to one end of it he caught a glimpse of the south facade of the Palace of Fontainebleau outlined by the rising moon. Suddenly it impinged upon his still drowsy brain that for the past half-hour they must have been driving away from the Palace only to return to its immediate vicinity in secret by a circuitous route.

To one side of the avenue the trees opened to disclose a path and at its entrance stood the cloaked and hooded figure of a woman. De Besenval saluted her and, beckoning Roger forward, said gutturally: "Chevalier, my instructions carry me no further than this point. Here I hand you over into the keeping of this lady. My compliments to you."

Roger returned his bow and stepped forward. The female figure stretched out a hand and took one of his. Then she said in a low, melodious voice, which he recognized as that of the Senorita d'Aranda: "You are late, Monsieur; please to come with me and quickly."

For a moment, as Roger hurried with her along a narrow, twisting path bordered on both sides by thick shrubberies, he thought that she must have engineered his escape; but he could scarcely believe that the Colonel of the Swiss Guards would have lent himself to such a plot.

Before he had time for further speculation they emerged into a clearing, in the centre of which stood a small pavilion. Chinks of light between its drawn curtain showed that it was lit within. Ascending the three steps that led up to its verandah the Senorita drew him after her, knocked on the door and, opening it, pushed him inside.

Momentarily he was dazzled by the light; then, almost overcome with stupefaction, he realized that he was standing within a few paces of the Queen. She was wearing an ermine cape over her dicoUeti and diamonds sparkled in her high-dressed, powdered hair. Beside her on a small table lay a sword, and he recognized it as his own.

As he sank upon one knee before her she took up the sword; and, still bewildered by this swift, unexpected turn of events, he heard her say:

"Chevalier, I have ever been most adverse to duelling, and I cannot find it in myself to condone that method of settling differences as a general principle. Yet I now know that in your affair with the Count de Caylus you were inspired by no base motive but a selfless devotion which does you honour. I therefore return to you your sword."

"Madame, Madame I I..." stammered Roger.

The Queen went on evenly: "On the evening of your arrest I sent to Paris for your papers. They arrived this morning and soon after midday I found an opportunity to look through them. Among them I found a recommendation for the reconsideration of your case from my good friend M. le Comte d'Adhemar. That alone would not have been sufficient to exculpate you, but I also found a statement made by M. le Vicomte de la Tour d'Auvergne. After his flight to Brittany His Majesty despatched an order requiring him to justify himself for his part in the affair. In doing so he takes the blame upon himself for your meeting with de Caylus; and Monsieur le Vicomte is one of our nobles whose word everyone must respect. In the circumstances, I would think myself ungenerous were I to condemn you for the part you played."

As she finished speaking Roger took back his sword and murmured: "It has ever been my desire to be of service to Your Majesty, and I am now so overcome by your clemency that there is naught I would not do to prove my gratitude."

Her blue eyes regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, then she said: "Do you really mean that, Monsieur, or is it just one more of the empty phrases that I hear only too often at my Court? Seeing the treat­ment you have received at my hands, it would be more natural in you did you bear me a grudge; and I now found that my impulse to see justice done had earned me yet one more enemy."

"Indeed, Madame!" he protested, his overwhelming relief at having escaped scot free filling his mind to the exclusion of all else. "Your enemy I could never be. I pray you only to command me and I will prove my words; even if it means the risking of my life—'tis little less that I owe you."

A faint smile came to her pale lips. "Then if you have spoken rashly the fault is yours; for I have a mind to seize this opportunity and request a service of you."

"Speak, Madame. I am all attention."

She hesitated a second, before saying: "This afternoon I sent the Senorita d'Aranda to find out what she could about you. She reported to me that you have a great love of travel and no commitments for the next six months. Is that correct?"

"It is, Your Majesty."

"The Senorita also repeated to me all that you had told her of your youth and upbringing in England. What you said confirmed the statement of M. de la Tour d'Auvergne, that you are no common adventurer but an honourable gentleman in whom trust can be placed without fear of betrayal. At this moment I am in urgent need of such a friend."

At the inference that she was now prepared to regard him as a trusted friend Roger could hardly believe his ears, but he said boldly:

"Madame. I cannot credit that Your Majesty has not about your person a score of gentlemen who would willingly sacrifice their lives rather than betray you; but if you need another I am your man."

"I like your forthrightness, Monsieur," she remarked, now smiling full upon him, "and you are right; but I will make myself more plain. I am indeed fortunate in having a number of gentlemen who, I feel confident, would serve me to the peril of their lives, but every one of them is known by my enemies to be my friend. They are marked men, Monsieur, whereas you are not."

Roger now saw the way her mind had been running, and the intuition which had often served him so well on previous occasions told him in advance what was coming next.

From the drawer of the table she drew the thick packet that he had spitted on his sword-point as she was handing it to de Roubec two afternoons before, and said:

"You will recognize this packet with which I propose to entrust you, but first I request you to listen carefully to what I am about to say; for I do not wish to engage you in this matter without informing you of its importance to me and possible danger to yourself."

She went on with the frankness that characterized her when speaking to people that she liked, and which was only too often abused. "You cannot fail to be aware of the present troubled state of France. Many of the ills of which the people complain are, alas, attributed to myself. It is true that in my early years as Queen I was sometimes thoughtless and extravagant, but I cannot believe that I ever did any great harm to anyone; and in more recent years I have done everything in my power to atone, and to help the King in his projects to economize. Yet the people hate me and call me 'the Austrian woman'. And a certain section of the nobility bear me a hatred yet greater still."

The tears came to her blue eyes, but she brushed them aside and continued: "These last would stop at nothing to bring about my ruin, and even in the Palace I know there to be spies who endeavour to report my every action. That is why I dare not send this packet by the hand of anyone who is known to be my friend. Should its contents be suspected they would be set upon and robbed of it before they had traversed a score of miles.

"It was in this dilemma that I thought to send it by a stranger, the man de Roubec. He was recommended to me by the Marquis de St. Huruge, whom I now judge to be one of the many traitors that infest the Court. It is yourself I have to thank for having saved me from that, and I now feel that I should have sent last night to let you know that I had not forgotten it. For I do assure you, Monsieur, that even had I not learned the truth I should have counted your service to me as going a long way to mitigate any sentence that His Majesty proposed to inflict upon you."

Roger smiled. "I thank you, Madame; although, knowing de Roubec, it was an act I would have performed to protect the interests of any lady."

"Nevertheless, Monsieur, I happened to be that lady, and you served me well. But now about yourself. I sent Monsieur de Besenval for you with his guards deliberately tonight, and gave him orders to march you through die gallery outside my ante-room, then downstairs to a closed carriage, just as my reception was breaking up. Having witnessed your departure in such circumstances the whole Court will now believe you to be in the Bastille, and even if you are seen at liberty later my enemies will never believe you to be any friend of mine. In this way I have sought to give you immunity from their attentions, and I trust you will be able to convey this despatch to its destination without encountering any opposition."

As she handed the packet to him he saw that it bore no super­scription, so he asked: "To whom am I to bear it, Madame ?"

"To my younger brother, the Grand Duke of Tuscany," she replied. "For some time past reports from Vienna have informed me that my elder brother, the Emperor, has been seriously ill, so he has no longer been in a state to take his former interest in my affairs. It is on that account that the Grand Duke Leopold is showing additional concern for me. He wrote recently asking that I should furnish him with full particulars of the crisis with which we are faced, and my own personal views as to what course events are likely to take. This despatch contains all the information he has requested of me, including my private opinions of Monsieur Necker and the other Ministers in whose hands His Majesty has now placed himself. Some of those opinions are by no means favourable, so I need hardly stress how vital it is that this document should not fall into the hands of my enemies. If it did it would certainly prove my ruin."

"Have no fear, Madame," Roger said firmly. "No one shall take it from me while I live, and His Highness the Grand Duke shall know your views as swiftly as strong horses can carry me to Florence."

"I thank you from my heart, Monsieur," sighed the Queen, and once more there were tears in her eyes. Then she drew a fine diamond ring from her finger and added: "Take this and sell it to cover the expenses of your journey; or, if you prefer, keep it as a souvenir of an unhappy woman."

Roger took the ring and, kneeling, kissed the beautiful white hand that she extended to him.

As he rose and backed towards the door, she raised her voice and called: "Isabella! Isabella, my child! Pray conduct Monsieur le Chevalier back to the carriage."

At her call the Senorita opened the door behind him and led the way out down the steps of the little pavilion into the semi-darkness of the shrubbery.

“You have accepted Her Majesty's mission, Monsieur?" she asked in her soft voice.

“Willingly, Senorita," he replied. "And it would not surprise me overmuch if it was yourself who proposed me for this honour."

"Her Majesty was at her wits' end for a messenger who would not be suspected by her enemies," murmured the Senorita, "and I had the happy thought that you did not seem the type of man to bear a grudge, so might be willing to serve her in this emergency." Then she added quickly:

"The carriage will take you the first stage of your journey south during the night. In it you will find your valise with all your things. Monsieur de Vaudreuil packed them for you and brought them here himself. It remains, Monsieur, only for me to wish you a safe and pleasant journey."

They had traversed the short path while they were speaking, and already come out into the open, where the carriage waited some ten yards away. As they halted he turned to face her for a moment in the moonlight. In it her olive complexion no longer looked near-sallow, and her black eyebrows no longer seemed to overpower her long oval face. It suddenly came to Roger that in her own strange way she wasbeautiful.

He said in a low voice: "Directly my mission is accomplished I shall return to Versailles. May I hope, Senorita, that you will permit me to wait upon you there; for I should much like to develop our acquaintance."

She shook her head. "I fear that is not to be, Monsieur; and that our . . . yes, let us say friendship, in view of the secret that we share, must end here. When the Court moves tomorrow I leave it to quit France and return to my parents, so 'tis most unlikely that we shall ever meet again."

But the Fates had interwoven the destinies of these two, and while they thought they were making a final parting it was decreed that they were to cross one another's paths again quite soon. And, by the weaving of those same Fates, Queen Marie Antoinette, who be­lieved that she might yet enjoy many happy years with her husband and children, was never to witness the setting of another sun at Fontainebleau.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE UNWORTHY PRIEST

ROGER'S tentative bid to start an affaire with the Senorita d'Aranda was no more than a momentary impulse, brought about through the addi­tional attraction lent her by the moonlight. No sooner was the carriage bowling down the avenue than she had passed entirely from his thoughts and his whole mind became occupied with the Queen.

He was already aware that during the past twenty minutes he had been very far from his normal self. That was partly due to the stunning suddenness with which his despair of escaping a long spell of imprison­ment had been dissipated. But he felt that it must be something more than that which had caused him to use expressions of such extravagant devotion to Madame Marie Antoinette, and declare himself so instantly ready to undertake a mission for her.

He had got only so far in his musings when the carriage, having reached the entrance of the park, drew to a halt. The coachman lifted the little panel in its roof and, out of the darkness, his voice came down to Roger:

"Where do you wish me to drive you, Monsieur?"

It was a pleasant surprise that the man had no definite instructions; as Roger had vaguely anticipated being set down some ten miles south of Fontainebleau, then, for his own purposes, having to drive all the way back to Paris the following day.

"Can you take me as for as Paris?" he asked.

"Certainly, Monsieur," replied the coachman. The little trap flipped to and they set off again.

Roger's mind at once reverted to Madame Marie Antoinette; and, while he admitted to himself that the extraordinary fascination she exerted had been the cause of his pledging himself so wholeheartedly, he was relieved to think that he had nevertheless kept his head suffi­ciently well not to forget the interests of Mr. Pitt.

The Prime Minister was not dependent on him for information as to what happened when the States General met, the issue of fresh edicts by the Court, a change of Ministers or renewed resistance by the parliaments to the Royal Authority. All that, and much more, he would learn from the official despatches that the Duke of Dorset sent at least once a week to the Duke of Leeds at the Foreign Office. Roger's province was to collect special information, particularly about the private lives and intentions of the principal protagonists in the coming struggle. Of these the King and Queen were clearly by far the most important; so if by undertaking a secret journey for the latter he could return from it with the prospect of being given her full confidence, his absence for some weeks from the storm-centre should more than repay him later for the loss of any smaller fish that might have swum into his net had he remained in Paris.

All the same, he wondered now if he would have been able to resist acceding to her request had it involved him in doing something contrary to the interests of his own mission. He thought he would, but was by no means certain; for he was conscious that he had been near bewitched while in her presence. Her beauty was incontestable; and, from the time of his first sight of her at quite a distance several years before, he had always thought of her as one of the most beautiful women he had ever set eyes on. But it was not that alone. He recalled an occasion when Mr. Horace Walpole had dined at Amesbury House, and how he had raved about her, saying that she had the power of inspiring passionate and almost uncontrollable adoration. Roger understood now what the .distinguished wit and man of letters had meant; for he too had come under her spell and experienced the strange, effortless way in which she could move and trouble a man's spirit.

In view of her extraordinary charm, integrity and kindness, it seemed difficult to understand how it was that she had become so hated by her people. On her arrival in France, in 1770, as a young girl of fourteen to marry the Dauphin, who was some fifteen months older than herself, the populace had gone wild with excitement and admiration of her beauty. Cities and towns had rivalled each other in sending her rich gifts, and at every public appearance she made she received the most enthusiastic ovations. Yet gradually her popularity had waned until she had now become the most hated woman in all Europe.

Such youthful follies and extravagances as those of which she had been guilty had not cost the country one hundredth part of the sums Louis XV had squandered on his mistresses; and it was not until quite

recently, when the dilatoriness and indecision of her husband had threatened to bring ruin to the State, that she had played any part in politics. Nevertheless, all classes, with the exception of her little circle of friends, held her responsible for the evil condition into which France had fallen.

Roger could put it down only to deliberate misrepresentation of her character and acts by those secret enemies of whom she had spoken, and he knew that they were no figment of her imagination. During his stay in Paris he had traced numerous vile calumnies against her back to the Due d'Orleans, and he felt certain that this cousin of the King would stop at nothing to bring about her ruin.

It occurred to him then that the Duke probably knew that the Queen had written the highly confidential letter he was carrying to her brother. She had said that the Marquis de St. Huruge had recommended de Roubec to her as a messenger, and it seemed unlikely that he would have set about finding one for her without first ascertaining where she wished the man to go. So the odds were that de St. Huruge had known de Roubec's destination to be Florence, and that would be quite enough for him to make a shrewd guess at the general contents of the despatch. It was just possible that he had not been aware of de Roubec's true character, but Roger doubted that; and, if the Marquis had known, it proved him to be a traitor. Knowledge of what the Queen had written to her brother could be of no value to an ordinary nobleman, but in the hands of His Highness of Orleans it might prove a trump card for her undoing.; so if de St. Huruge had planned to secure the despatch it could only be because he intended to pass it on to someone else, and, in the circumstances, everything pointed to that person being His Highness.

Assuming that there had been a plot to get hold of the letter, Roger argued, as it had miscarried, by this time de Roubec would have reported his discomfiture to de St. Huruge, and the Marquis would have told the Duke; but there was no reason to suppose that they would be prepared to accept their failure as final, any more than that the Queen should have abandoned her intention of sending her despatch. She had said that she was surrounded by spies, so although she might no longer trust de St. Huruge, others about her person who were secretly in the pay of d'Orleans might have been primed to do all in their power to find out whom she would next select as her courier to Tuscany. Evidently she feared something of the kind or she would not have taken such elaborate precautions to conceal her choice of a new messenger, and his departure.

Roger felt that in that she had shown considerable skill; for after having seen him marched away between guards it was highly unlikely that any member of her Court would suspect her of having entrusted him with anything. Nevertheless, to give him the letter she had had to slip out of the Palace late at night; and, if there was an Orleanist spy among her women, it was quite possible that she had been followed. If so he might have been seen leaving or entering the carriage when it was drawn up near the little pavilion, and recognized; in which case her stratagem had by now been rendered entirely worthless, as news of the matter would soon reach the Duke.

Even if such were the case, and the Queen's enemies knew the direction he had taken, it seemed unlikely that they would have time to arrange to lay an ambush for him before he reached Paris, but he felt that from then on he ought to regard himself as in constant danger from attack, and take every precaution against being caught by surprise.

Had he been entirely his own master, he would not have returned to Paris at all, but there were several matters in connection with his work for Mr. Pitt that required his attention in the capital before he could take the road to Italy with a clear conscience. All the same, he decided that he would lie very low while in Paris, both to prevent as far as possible such people as believed him to be in the Bastille becoming disabused about that, and in case the Orleanists were on his track.

It was with this in mind that, soon after four in the morning, when the carriage reached the village of Villejuif, just outside Paris, Roger told the coachman not to drive right into the city but to take him to some quiet, respectable inn in its south-western suburbs.

Although dawn had not yet come, and only a faint greyness in the eastern sky heralded its approach, the barrier was already open to let through a string of carts and waggons carrying produce to the markets. The coachman was evidently familiar with the quarter, as, having passed the gate, he drove without hesitation through several streets into the Faubourg St. Marcel and there set Roger down at a hostelry opposite the royal factory where the Gobelins tapestries were made. Having thanked the man Roger knocked up the innkeeper, had himself shown to a room and went straight to bed.

When he awoke it was nearly midday. His first act was to take the packet entrusted to him by the Queen from beneath his pillow and stare at it. Already, the night before, he had been considerably worried on the score of a fine point of ethics in which the possession of it involved him, but he had put off taking any decision until he had slept upon the matter. Now, sleep on it he had, and he knew that he must delay no longer in facing up to this very unpleasant dilemma.

As an agent of the British Government who had been specially charged, among other matters, to endeavour to ascertain the Queen's views on the course that events might take and the personalities most likely to influence that course, it was clearly his duty to open the despatch and make himself acquainted with, its contents. In fact, had he prayed for a miracle to aid him in that respect, and his prayer had been granted,

Heaven could hardly have done more than cast the packet down with a bump at his feet.

On the other hand he felt the strongest possible repugnance to opening the packet, in view of the fact that the Queen herself had given it into his hands, believing him to be entirely worthy of her trust.

For over a quarter-of-an-hour he turned the packet this way and that, agonizingly torn between two loyalties; then, at length, his ideas began to clarify. His paramount loyalty was to his own country, and had this beautiful foreign Queen asked him to do anything to the prejudice of Britain he knew that he would have refused her. More, in undertaking to act as her messenger he had been influenced, at least to some extent, by the thought that by doing so he would win her confidence. But why did he wish to win her confidence? Solely that he might report how her mind was working to Mr. Pitt. And here, in the letter he held, he had, not just stray thoughts that she might later have confided to him, but her carefully considered opinion, under his hand already. Surely it was to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, to deliver the letter unopened then return to Versailles with the deliberate intention of spying on her afterwards.

There remained the fact that he had given her his word that he would protect the letter with his life from falling into the hands of her enemies. But Mr. Pitt was excellently disposed towards her and would certainly not allow the contents of her letter to be known to anyone who wished her harm. As an additional safeguard he could write to Mr. Pitt, relating the circumstances in which the letter had come into his possession, and requesting that the copy of it should be for his eye alone. The Prime Minister was too honourable a man not to appreciate the delicacy of the matter and strictly observe such a request.

Getting out of bed Roger took his travelling knife from his breeches pocket, lit the bedside candle with his tinder box, and, having heated the blade of the knife in the flame, began gently to prise up one of the heavy seals on the letter. After twenty minutes' cautious work he had raised three of the seals without breaking any of them, so was able to lift the flap of the envelope and draw out the twenty or more sheets covered with writing that it contained. One glance at the document was enough to show him that it was in code.

He was not at all surprised at that, and had half expected it, as he knew that the members of all royal families habitually conducted their private correspondence with one another in cipher. But such ciphers could be broken with comparative ease, and although the circumstances deprived him of learning the Queen's outlook he knew that it would not long prevent Mr. Pitt from doing so.

Returning the papers to their envelope, he put the whole in a deep pocket in the lining of his coat, then he proceeded to dress, and go down­stairs to the coffee-room. There he ordered an extremely hearty breakfast, which he ate with scarcely a thought as to its constituents but considerable relish. Having done he informed the landlord that he would be requiring his room for at least one, and perhaps two, nights, after which he went out and, knowing that he would have difficulty in finding a hackney-coach in that unfashionable district, took the first omnibus he saw that was going in the direction of central Paris.

At the Pont Neuf he got out, walked across the point of the Isle de la Citi and on reaching the north bank of the Seine turned left along it, all the while keeping a sharp look-out to avoid any chance encounter with some acquaintance who might recognize him. Having passed under the southern facade of the Louvre he entered the gardens of the Palais des Tuileries. There, he picked eleven leaves and a single twig from a low branch of one of the plane trees and inserted them in an envelope he had brought for the purpose.

Continuing his walk he traversed the gardens, came out in the Rue St. Honore and turned west along it. He had not proceeded far when he encountered a mob of some thirty rough-looking men who formed a ragged little procession, moving in the opposite direction. A foxy-faced fellow somewhat better dressed than the others led the group, carrying a placard on which had been scrawled: "Help us to choke him with his fifteen sous. Down with the oppressors of the poor." Beside him a woman with matted black hair was beating a tattoo on a small drum, and several of their comrades were calling on the passers-by to join them.

Throughout most of the country the elections had now been com­pleted but Paris was far behind and the contests were still being fought with considerable high feeling; so Roger assumed that the little band of roughs were on their way to a political meeting. Soon after passing them he went into a barber's shop and asked for Monsieur Aubert.

The proprietor came out of a back room and greeted Roger civilly as an old acquaintance; upon which he produced the envelope containing the eleven leaves and the single twig from his pocket and said:

"I pray you, Monsieur Aubert, to give this to you-know-who, when he comes in tomorrow morning."

The barber gave him an understanding smile, pocketed the envelope and bowed him out of the shop.

Having no desire to linger in a quarter where he might run into other people whom he knew, Roger hailed a passing hackney-coach, and told the driver to take him out to Passy, but to stop on the way at the first stationer's they passed.

At the stationer's he purchased some sheets of fine parchment, some tracing paper, and several quill pens, all of which had been sharpened to very fine points; then he continued on his way.

The coach took him along the north bank of the Seine and round its great bend to the south-west, where the narrow streets gave way to houses standing in their own gardens and then the open country. After proceeding some way through fields it entered the pleasant village of Passy, where Roger directed the coachman to a charming little house. Getting out he told the man that he might be there only a few minutes or for a couple of hours but in the latter case he would pay him well for waiting; then he walked up the neat garden path and pulled the bell.

The door was opened by a man-servant in dark livery, of whom Roger enquired if his master had yet returned from the country. To his great satisfaction the answer was in the affirmative and the owner of the house at home; so he gave his name to the servant, and was shown into a handsomely furnished parlour on the ground floor, that he had come to know well when he had been living in Paris two years earlier.

While he waited there for a few moments he congratulated himself on having run his old friend to earth. He had been bitterly disappointed at his failure to do so a fortnight before, owing to his belief that the man he had come to see could, if he would, give him a shrewder forecast of what was likely to happen when the States General met than anyone else in the whole of France. Had it not been for that he would never have come out to Passy today; but he had felt that he must make a final effort to secure this interview, even at the price of the news getting about that he was again a free man; as before leaving for Italy he had to make out a final report for Mr. Pitt.

The door opened to disclose a slim, youngish man of middle height, richly dressed in violet silk and leaning on a malacca cane. His face was thin and aristocratic, its haughty expression being redeemed by a dryly humorous mouth, lively blue eyes and a slightly retrouss6 nose. He had, until quite recently, been known as Monsieur l'Abbé de Pejrigord, he was now Bishop of Autun, and in time to come was to bear the titles of Due de Benevent, Prince de Talleyrand, Arch-Chancellor of Europe.

Roger's engaging smile lit up his bronzed face, as he bowed. "I trust that you have not forgotten me, Monseigneur L’Eveque?’

"Mon ami; how could I ever do that?" replied the Bishop with his accustomed charm. Then limping into the room he waved Roger to a chair, sat down himself, and added in his unusually deep and sonorous voice: "But tell me, where have you sprung from? Have you but just crossed from England, or have you been for some time in France?"

"I have only this morning been let out of the Bastille," lied Roger glibly.

"Ho! Ho!" exclaimed the prelate. "And in what way did you incur His Majesty's displeasure to the point of his affording you such un­welcome hospitality?"

" 'Twas that old affair of de Caylus. I thought the charges against me long-since withdrawn and the whole matter forgotten; but I proved mistaken. On going for a change of air to Fontainebleau I was recognized by some members of the Court and found myself clapped into prison."

"Were you there long?"

"Nay; though I experienced all the distress of mind occasioned by believing that I might be. Evidently it was felt that after such a lapse of time a single night's imprisonment would be sufficient to impress upon me how unpleasant a much longer stay would be should I err again. When I had breakfasted the Governor came to tell me that simultan­eously with receiving the order for my incarceration he had had in­structions to let me out in the morning."

"You were lucky to get off so lightly; and most ill-advised to return to France without first making certain that the order for your arrest had been cancelled. Monsieur de Crosne's people have a long memory for cases such as yours."

Roger made a wry grimace. "I did not find it in the least light to spend a night in a cell imagining that I was to be kept there, perhaps for years. And 'twas not the Lieutenant of Police sent me there. The people I saw at Fontainebleau, with one exception, proved most sympathetic; so I would, I think, have escaped this extremely unpleasant experience had it not been for the malice of the Queen."

"Ah!" murmured de Perigord with a sudden frown. "So you fell foul of that interfering woman, eh?"

Roger was well aware of the strong animosity that his host, not altogether without cause, bore the Queen, and he had deliberately played upon it. Only three days before, too, he had had ample confirma­tion that the dislike was mutual from the Queen stigmatizing his friend as "that unworthy priest". With a cynical little smile he remarked:

"I well remember you telling me how Her Majesty intervened to prevent your receiving the Cardinal's Hat that His Holiness had promised you on the recommendation of King Gustavus of Sweden; but I had thought your animus against her might have softened somewhat since they have given you a Bishopric."

"Given!" echoed de Perigord, with a sneer. "Save the mark! And what a miserable Bishopric at that! I wot not if Their Majesties resented most having to appoint me to it or myself receiving such a mess of pottage. They did so only because my father when on his death-bed eighteen months ago made it a last request, so it was one which they could scarce refuse. As for myself, I am now thirty-four, and have had better claims than most to a mitre for these ten years past. On the King belatedly agreeing to my preferment he might at least have given me the Archbishopric of Bourges, which was vacant at the time. But no, he fobs me off with Autun, a see that brings me in only a beggarly twenty-two thousand livres a year."

At that moment the man-servant entered carrying a tray with a bottle in an ice-bucket and two tall glasses.

"You will join me in a glass of wine, will you not?" said the Bishop. "At this hour one's palate is still fresh enough to appreciate une tete de cuvee, and I believe you will find this quite passable."

It was in fact a Grand Montrachet of the year '72, and in its golden depths lay all the garnered sunshine of a long-past summer. Having sipped it, Roger thanked his host for the joy of sharing such a bottle. Then, when the servant had withdrawn, he reverted to their previous conversation by remarking with a smile:

" 'Tis indeed sad that Their Majesties' narrow-mindedness should have deprived Your Grace of enjoying the best of both worlds." It was as tactful a reference as could be made to the fact that de Perigord had only himself to blame for being passed over, since, even in this age of profligacy, his immoralities had scandalized all Paris, whereas the King and Queen were notoriously devout. But the Bishop took him seriously, and protested.

"Mon ami, to mix up one world with the other is to ignore reality. Like hundreds of other ordained priests—yes, and many of them high dignatories like myself—I was not consulted when put into the Church, and felt no calling whatever for it. Women, scripture tells us, were created for the joy of man, and to deny us our right to the enjoyment of them is, therefore, clearly against the will of God, let alone Nature. Since we are forbidden to marry we resort to other measures, and where is the harm in that? From time immemorial the Kings of France have known and condoned it. And I count it most unfair that the fact that I have been more fortunate than many in securing those enjoyments should be held against me.

"On the other hand, in my role of Agent General to the Clergy of the Province of Tours I was zealous in my duties and proved myself a capable administrator. So much so that when the subject of my nomi­nation to a see came before the King I had the full support of the leading Churchmen in France, who made strong representations to His Majesty in my favour, and urged that my love affairs should be overlooked as no more than youthful peccadilloes."

"Am I to take it, then, that you have now become a model of recti­tude?" Roger grinned.

De Perigord grinned back. "Far from it, I fear. And I have no more liking for playing the Churchman than I had of old. But you may have noticed the suit I am wearing. I found the violet robes of a Bishop most becoming to me, so as a graceful concession to the Church I had some lay garments made of the same colour."

"How did your flock take that?" asked Roger. "For I sought you out when I first arrived in Paris, some three weeks back, only to learn that you were absent on a visit to your see."

"Ah," sighed the Bishop. "That was a serious business, and I could afford to take no chances of giving offence by my preference for lay attire. Believe it or not, for a whole month I played the dignified Churchman. But unfortunately I was so out of practice that at one High Mass I forgot the ritual." He laughed, and went on: "I had never visited my see before, feeling that it was quite sufficient to send them from time to time a pastoral letter that positively stank of piety; and I pray God that I may never have to go there again. But this visit was essential, as I wished to get myself elected to represent the clergy of the diocese at the forthcoming meeting of the States General."

"From the news-sheets I gather that you succeeded, and I offer Your Grace my felicitations."

"A thousand thanks." De Perigord gracefully inclined his head. "The result, though, was a foregone conclusion. I gave the poor wretches of clergy dinners the like of which they had never seen, and flattered every woman of influence into the belief that I wanted to sleep with her. But once elected I cared not a fig for what any of them thought of me. In fact, so little did I care that, being near desperate to get back to the civilized air of Paris, I shook the dust of Autun off my feet and drove off in my coach at nine o'clock on the morning of Easter Sunday."

The conversation having got round to the States General, Roger had no intention of letting it wander away again, so he said:

"There have been so many postponements of the meeting of the States, that one begins to doubt if it will ever assemble."

"You need have no fear on that score," De P6rigord assured him quickly, "and the postponements were quite unavoidable. As an Englishman you can have little idea of what this meeting means to France, and the innumerable questions which have had to be decided before it could be brought about at all. Not only have the States not been convened for seven generations, but when last called together they were by no means representative of the nation; and in the present crisis to summon any assembly that was not would have been completely futile. In consequence nearly all ancient precedent was found to be worse than useless. It is in fact die first general election that France has ever had, so we had to work out the principles upon which it was to be held from the very beginning. I spent several months last year assisting Monsieur Necker to do so, and the problem positively bristled with difficulties."

"What is your opinion of Monsieur Necker ?" interjected Roger.

"He is an extremely capable financier but a most incapable states­man," replied de P6rigord succinctly. "No one short of a financial genius could have kept the Treasury solvent during these many months it has taken to arrange the elections; but in all other respects he is a mediocre man. His mind is not big enough to grasp the magnitude of the issues at stake, and his Liberal leanings are inspired by sentiment rather than any true understanding of the needs of the nation. A year ago I placed considerable hopes in him; but I have come to know him better since, and soon perceived that vanity governs nine-tenths of his actions. Were it not that when faced with a crisis he often takes the shrewd advice of his daughter I am convinced that long before this the public would have recognized him for what he is—a man of straw."

"By 'his daughter' I take it you refer to Madame de Stael?"

"Yes. He has but one; and I count her far his superior in intelligence. She is a brilliant woman and should have done better for herself than to marry the Swedish Minister here. 'Tis a thousand pities that matters between her and your Mr. Pitt came to naught."

"Mr. Pitt!" exclaimed Roger. "I had never thought of him as a marrying man."

"No doubt he has found himself too fully occupied in recent years to concern himself with matrimony. But when he paid his only visit to this country, in '83, I can assure you that the project of his espousing Madamoiselle Necker was broached, for he told me so himself. Monsieur Necker, although very rich, was no more than Sub-Controller of the Finances at the time, and an alliance with Lord Chatham's brilliant younger son would have been a strong card for his advancement; so both he and his wife were eager for the match. Mr. Pitt, too, was by no means disinclined to it. But I believe the young lady had other views, and it was on that account that matters got no further."

"You amaze me. But please continue with what you were telling me of Monsieur Necker's character. It seems from what you say that there is little likelihood of his being able to dominate the States General."

De Perigord shook his head. "Far from it. And his task will be rendered no more easy from the fact that both the King and the Queen distrust him. In that, for once, they are right. His popularity with the masses has gone to his head, and to retain the favour of the mob himself he is capable of advising them to commit any folly."

"Then unless the King makes a change of Ministers it looks as if the deputies will be given free rein. Which among them do you consider are likely to prove the leading spirits ?"

"It is impossible to say. 'Tis clear too that you do not yet appreciate the complete novelty of the situation. As I was remarking a while back, no election even remotely similar to this has ever been held in France before. Only the very poorest persons, who pay no taxes at all, have been excluded from the franchise, so the total number of voters is near six million. But they do not vote directly for the deputies who will repre­sent them in the States. The electoral machinery is of an incredible complexity, and final agreement on it was reached only after months of bitter wrangling. Many cities stood out for making their own arrange­ments and the system in some provinces differs from that in others. But, in the main, groups of people, varying widely in numbers, vote for somebody to represent them in a local assembly, and it is these assemblies which in turn elect the deputies.

"Such a loose arrangement means that all sorts of strange characters will arrive at Versailles next month. One thing is certain: not even the names of most of them will be known to any of the others. Yet any one of them may prove a man of destiny whose name will soon be known throughout all Europe."

Roger nodded. "You are, of course, speaking of the Third Estate; but what of the first two Orders ? Surely they will also include many able men, and men of far wider experience; so is it not highly probable that some among them are likely to become the new leaders of the nation?"

"Their assemblies will prove almost as chaotic. It is estimated that there are some one hundred and fifty thousand clergy in France, and that the nobles total about the same number; for the latter include all the lesser nobility, which in England you term your gentry. Yet each of these great bodies of electors will be represented by only three hundred-odd deputies. In the elections of the clergy many high dignitaries have been passed over and a considerable number of cures who have never before left their villages have been returned. The same applies to the nobles. More than half of those so far elected are poor country dwellers whose fortune consists of little but a few acres of land and a coat of arms. And the Nobility of the Robe, which you might term the law-lords, who are undoubtedly the class most fitted to give an opinion on the matters we shall be called on to consider, are hardly represented at all."

The Bishop offered his snuff-box; took a pinch himself, held it for a moment under the slightly retrousse nose that gave his face such piquancy, made a graceful gesture of flicking away the grains with a lace handkerchief, then went on:

"Moreover, I greatly doubt if either of the first two Orders will be in any situation to influence the Third. On ancient precedent all three should have had an equal number of representatives; and had I been the King I would have stood out for that, even had it meant calling out my troops. But the weak fool gave way to popular clamour, as usual, and assented to the agitators' demands that the Third Estate should be allowed to send deputies to Versailles that equalled in numbers the other two together. Since it is certain that many of the poorer clergy and nobility will side with the Third Estate, and few, if any, of them with the other Orders, it seems to me inevitable that the natural defenders of the royal prerogative are doomed to defeat from the very outset."

"But I thought the three Orders were to deliberate separately," Roger demurred. "If so, you will still be two to one."

"That is the present arrangement; but how long will it hold good when put into practice ?" asked de Perigord darkly.

After a moment's silence, Roger said: "From what you tell me, when the States do meet they will add up to a fine penn'orth of all sorts, so out of it should come some original ideas of merit."

"Later, perhaps; but not to begin with, as all the deputies must, in theory, voice only the views expressed in their cahiers. The King has not convened the States to deliberate upon certain measures that his Ministers will put before them. He has been idiotic enough to ask everyone in the country to advise him how to get it out of the mess that it is in. So hundreds of thousands of know-alls have taken upon them­selves the role of acting as his Ministers-designate overnight. For the past six months every group of voters has become a heated debating society, and the most determined members of each have drawn up programmes which their elected representatives took with them to the local assemblies. In the assemblies, once more, each separate cahier has been the subject of violent dispute, and at length the salient points in all have been combined in still longer cahiers for each deputy. The deputies will bring these cahiers to Versailles as their instructions from their constituents, and they have no legal right to depart from them."

Roger nodded. "Of that I was aware; but surely the cahiers, being the consensus of opinion of every thinking man in France, must contain many new proposals of value ?"

"From those I have so far seen, they contain far fewer than one would expect. Most of the originals emanating from the peasantry were completely valueless. Naturally, such people are utterly lacking in every kind of knowledge outside their local affairs. Apart from the childish demand that all taxes should be abolished, and the two senior Orders deprived of their manorial rights, they contain little other than such requests as that His Majesty should be graciously pleased to order the cleaning out of the village ditch. As to the others, they are almost universally of a pattern, modelled upon prototypes which were widely circulated in pamphlet form, having first been drafted by men such as Monsieur l'Abbé Sieves."

"What think you of Sieyes ?" Roger enquired.

"I have no personal liking for him. He is a dry, withered little man to whom nature gave a cold, calculating brain instead of a heart. Beyond self-interest he has few passions, except for his bitter hatred of aristo­cracy in all its forms. As a Churchman he is no better than myself, and his own Order passed him over in the elections. But I understand that in view of his great services to the opponents of absolutism he is being permitted to offer himself for election as one of the deputies for Paris; so no doubt he will secure a seat in the Third Estate."

The Bishop paused to refill the wine-glasses, then went on. "As an Englishman you may not have seen his pamphlet which began: 'What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing. What does it ask? To be something’ Its circula­tion ran into many thousands and instantly placed him in the forefront of the struggle for reform. I would not trust him an inch, and do not believe that he has the courage required to become a great leader; but if we achieve a Constitution he may go far. His specimen cahier has cer­tainly exerted an immense influence on the drafting of a high proportion of those which will be brought to Versailles."

"And what of your own?" smiled Roger.

De Perigord laughed. "I have no worries on that score, for I drafted it myself."

"It would interest me greatly to hear its contents."

"Mon ami, I would not dream of boring you with it. 'Tis full of the the sort of clap-trap that fools swallow readily, and I have no intention of giving it another thought."

"Tell me what other men besides Monsieur L’Abbé Sieves you think likely to make their mark."

"Malouet should stand out from the integrity of his character, if men of moderate views are listened to. Mounier also, for he is the best-known politician in France, and esteemed an oracle on all questions of parliamentary procedure. Then there are Dupont de Nemours, the economist, Bailly, the much-respected astronomer, Louis de Narbonne and Clermont-Tonnerre, all of whom you will recall having met here when you used to frequent my breakfast parties, and all men of con­siderable ability. But, as I have already told you, the potentialities of the great majority of the deputies-elect are still entirely unknown to us here in Paris."

"You make no mention of the Comte de Mirabeau."

"I thought it unnecessary. Honore Gabriel Riquetti stands head and shoulders above all the others I have mentioned, not only physically but mentally. As his cantankerous old father, the Marquis, refused to give him even the small fief required for him to qualify for election to the Second Estate, he stood for the Third at both Marseilles and Aix. Both cities elected him and he has chosen to sit for the latter. "Whatever may be the fate of other deputies, in an assembly resembling the Tower of Babel from everyone wanting to air his opinions at once, you may be certain that de Mirabeau will not allow himself to be howled down."

"Think you he has the qualities to make himself a great leader?"

For once de Perigord hesitated, his smooth forehead wrinkling into a frown; then he said: " 'Tis difficult to say. All the world knows that he fellow is a born scamp. That he has spent several years of his life in a variety of prisons is not altogether his own fault, as his father pursued him with the utmost malice, and consigned him to them on a number of lettres de cachet. But whenever he was out of prison he lived in a most shady fashion, resorting to many a degrading shift in order to get money to gratify his passions. I doubt if his immoralities have actually been greater than my own but he has certainly conducted them with greater folly. He deserted his wife and abducted that of a Noble of the Robe. Then he deserted her and ran away with a young woman from a Convent who was near becoming a nun.

"I believe him to be honest and a true patriot. He is certainly a man of great intellectual gifts and fierce determination. I am sure that he would shrink from saying, writing or doing nothing which he believed to be in the interests of his cause. But the Riquetti are of Italian origin, and his hot southern blood goes to that great head of his at times, and I fear that the violence of his passions may prove his undoing."

"Great as is his popularity with the masses," Roger remarked, "one can hardly imagine that, should the King grant a Constitution, he would be inclined to entrust a man having such a history with the formation of a Government."

A cynical smile twitched the corners of the Bishop's lips, as he asked: "Who can tell, mon ami, how much say the King will be allowed in the choice of his future Ministers ?"

"You feel convinced then that the States will not only succeed in forcing him to grant a Constitution, but reduce him to a cipher into the bargain?"

De Perigord nodded. "I do. I think the monarchy, decadent as it has become, rests upon too secure a foundation to be overthrown, and none but a handful of extremists would wish it. But once the States meet you may be certain that they will not rest content with any half-measures."

"I agree with what you say about the monarchy, but what of the present occupant of the throne? Is there not a possibility that the Due d'Orleans may attempt to supplant him; or at least get himself made Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, with the powers of a Regent?"

The expressive eyes of the wily Churchman suddenly became quite vacant, then in a casual tone he replied: "His Highness of Orleans undoubtedly has ambitions to play a greater part in affairs of State, but I can scarce believe that he could carry them so far as to become guilty of treason to the King."

Roger felt certain that his clever friend was now lying, and so, almost certainly, involved to some extent in the Orleanist plot himself. He therefore refrained from pressing the point and asked:

"Do you perchance know Monsieur de St. Huruge ?"

"Not intimately. He frequents the royal circle, I believe, and for a long time past I have not been persona grata at Court. But why do you ask?"

"Because I was given a letter of introduction to him before I left England," Roger lied; "and I have so far failed to discover his present address."

"You might try the Palais Royal" suggested de P6rigord. "I do not go there often these days, but it chanced that I was there last week, and as I was on my way in to His Highness's cabinet I passed de St. Huruge on his way out. Possibly one of the secretaries may be able to tell you where he lives."

The fact that the villainous de Roubec's sponsor had been seen coming from an interview with the Due d'Orleans in his Paris home was no proof that he was necessarily an Orleanist himself; but it certainly lent considerable support to Roger's theory that he might be. And in view of de P&igord's evident reluctance to discuss d'Orleans he felt that he had been lucky to pick up this little piece of information. Having thanked the Bishop for his suggestion, he added:

"However, since I should still have to enquire of his whereabouts from a third party, I fear I shall not have time to find and wait upon him; as I am leaving Paris quite shortly."

"Indeed!" De Perigord raised his eyebrows. "I am most sorry to hear it. You have been absent from Paris for so long; I was particularly looking forward to the renewed enjoyment of your society."

As Roger bowed his acknowledgment of the graceful compliment, the Bishop went on: "Really; you should at least remain to witness the opening of the States. It will be vastly interesting; and I should be happy to introduce you to all the deputies of my acquaintance."

"I thank Your Grace for your kindness, and most tempting offer." Roger's voice held genuine regret. "But, alas, I must decline it. Her Majesty's disapproval of duelling did not manifest itself in my case only by her causing me to spend a night in the Bastille. When I was released this morning the Governor informed me of her further order, that within forty-eight hours I was to leave Paris."

"What childish tyranny!" exclaimed the Bishop with some petulance. "Whither are you going?"

"To Provence. I have never seen your great cities there or the Mediterranean; and I am told that the coast in those regions is par­ticularly lovely at this time of year."

De Perigord took snuff again. "You are no doubt wise to keep out of the way for the next few weeks. But I should not let any fear of that order deter you from returning by June if you wish to do so. The royal authority has already become so weakened that it has almost ceased to count. And once the States have been sitting for a little the Court will be plaguey careful not to irritate them unnecessarily by forcing the observance of such arbitrary commands."

"You feel confident, then, that the States will still be sitting; and that the King will not dismiss them after a few abortive sessions, as he did the Assembly of Notables ?"

"He dare not, if he wishes to keep his crown." A sudden note of hauteur had crept into the Bishop's deep voice. "At present the King is still respected by the whole nation, and even beloved by the greater part of it. But the States will represent the very blood, brains, bone and muscle of France; and if he attempted to dismiss them he would become the enemy of the whole kingdom overnight. By his decision to call the States he has delivered himself bound into the hands of his subjects; for once they are assembled they will never dissolve except by their own will. I am positive of that."

CHAPTER six

THE AFFAIRE REVEILLON

As Roger drove back to Paris he felt that he had good reason to be pleased with himself. Much that the Bishop of Autun had told him he had known before, but he had also learnt a lot, and on no previous-occasion had he heard a forecast of coming events from anyone approach­ing de Perigord for knowledge of affairs, political acumen and subtlety of mind. In addition, he had succeeded in putting over such a skilfully distorted account of the Queen's treatment of him, that it would be all to the good if it did get about; as it was likely to do, seeing that de Perigord was an inveterate gossip. No one but the Governor of the Bastille was in a position to deny that he had been imprisoned for most of the night there, and his imminent departure to Italy would confirm the story that he had been banished. In future, therefore, he would be counted among those who bore the Queen a grudge, but no one would be surprised to see him free again; and de Perigord had himself advised him to return to Paris in a few weeks' time.

Half an hour's amiable converse about mutual friends, and the general state of Europe, had succeeded Roger's political talk with the Bishop; and he had left the charming little house at Passy with the firm conviction that if there was one man in France who would succeed in fishing to his own benefit in the troubled waters of the States General, he was its wily owner.

On re-entering his hackney-coach Roger had told its driver to take him to the inn where he had slept and breakfasted, as it was then nearly five o'clock, and he had decided to sup there rather than at a restaurant in central Paris, where he might run into some acquaintance and feel obliged to give again his fictitious account of the outcome of his recent arrest. Moreover, he was still a little uneasy about the possibility of an Orleanist spy knowing that he had the Queen's letter; and he did not want to be recognized and followed.

He had much to do that night, and his thoughts were already occupied with his projected labours. By the time the coach reached the Tuileries Gardens he barely took in the fact that a column of infantry was issuing from them and heading east at an unusually rapid gait; and he gave little more attention to the sight of another regiment hastily forming up outside the Louvre. But when the coach turned south to cross the Seine the sound of distant shots, coming across the river from the eastern quarter of the city, suddenly impinged upon his consciousness. The shooting was mainly spasmodic, but now and then punctuated by fusillades of musketry, so it seemed evident that some­thing serious was afoot.

As the coach was temporarily brought to a halt by a block at the entrance of a narrow street on the far side of the river, Roger thrust his head out of the window and shouted to a group of loungers on the corner: "What is the cause of that shooting ? What is going on over there in the Faubourg St. Antoine?’

Seeing the gold lace on his hat most of the group gave him only dumb, surly looks; but a big fellow, bolder than the rest, shouted back: "They have unearthed an agent of the Queen—one of the pigs she pays to force down the workers' wages—and are burning his house about his ears. May the flames consume him!"

The suggestion that the Queen employed agents to force down wages was, to Roger, palpably absurd; but he felt quite sickened by the episode because the big fellow had an open, honest face, and obviously believed what he had said.

On arriving at his inn he enquired again what had caused the trouble, but could get no coherent account from anyone. Apparently it had started the previous night as a factory dispute and had flared up again early that afternoon into a major riot, to quell which it had proved necessary to call out the troops. None of the people he spoke to could tell him why the Queen should be involved in such a matter, but most of them were convinced that she was at the bottom of it.

Irritated and disgusted by their ready acceptance of these evil, unsupported rumours about her, he ordered supper, ate it in morose silence, then went up to his room.

Having unpacked the things that he had bought at the stationer's that afternoon, he spread them out on the table and sat down to it. Then he took the Queen's letter from the capacious pocket of his coat and got to work.

The task he had set himself was no easy one, as his object was to form a cypher within a cypher; so that should the despatch fall into the hands of anyone who already knew Madame Marie Antoinette's private code, or be given to someone as clever as Mr. Pitt's cypher expert, they would still not be able to decipher it in the first case, or break it without extreme difficulty in the other. Yet the process must be accomplished according to a set of rules simple enough for him to carry in his own mind; so that on delivering the re-coded copy to the Grand Duke he would be able to tell him how to turn it back into the Queen's cypher. A further complication was that he dared not make any drastic alteration in the symbols or formation of the letter, as if he did and the re-coded copy was stolen from him by someone who knew her cypher at sight, they would immediately recognize it as a fake.

For over an hour he tried out various transpositions, until he had formulated one which he felt was as good as any he could devise; then he began to write on his parchment, forming each letter with great care, so that when he had done the re-coded copy had a superficial resemblance to the original. Having finished, he uncorked a bottle of wine he had brought up with him, had a drink, and attended to certain other matters he had in mind; after which he inserted his copy in the thick envelope that had previously contained the Queen's letter, warmed the underside of the wax seals that he had lifted and carefully resealed it.

The job had taken him the best part of five hours, so it was now well after midnight; but he had no thought of bed. Instead, he sat down to the table again and commenced a letter to Mr. Pitt. He had already sent one despatch, before leaving Paris for Fontainebleau, making a general report on the situation as far as he could then assess it/But since that he had had his invaluable interview with de Perigord, spoken personally with the Queen, and spent a whole evening listening to the views of a group of noblemen who were among her most intimate friends; in addition he had to explain the reason why he was temporarily aban­doning the work he had been given to undertake a mission to Italy; so there was much to say.

Fortunately he possessed the gift of expressing himself as fluently on paper as in speech, so his pen moved without hesitation while filling page after page with fine writing; but, nevertheless, it was close on three in the morning before he finally rose from the table and began to undress.