The Rising Storm

Next morning his problem was solved quite simply for him. The good people of Paris had demanded a sight of their King, and however weak Louis XVI may have been as a Monarch, neither then nor during any of the terrible situations with which he was afterwards faced did he show the smallest lack of physical courage.

To those who sought to dissuade him from such rashness he replied: "No, no, I will go to Paris; numbers must not be sacrificed to the safety of one. I give myself up. I trust myself to my people and they can do what they like with me." And that he thought himself probably going to his death was shown by the fact that he made his will and took Holy Communion, before his departure under escort by the new troops of the Revolution.

The Electors had decreed an increase of the Civic Guard to 800 men per district, making a total of 48,000; and at the instance of the Marquis de Lafayette, whom they appointed to command it, this milice bourgeoise had been rechristened the Gardes de la Nation.

As a young man, fired by the thought of adventure, Lafayette had volunteered to go to America and fight for the rebellious Colonists against the British. Although only nineteen at the time, owing to his rank, wealth and connections it was agreed that he should be given the rank of Major-General. Actually he never had any great number of troops under his command, but he fought with gallantry, had received the thanks of Congress, the friendship of Washington, and returned to France a national hero. In the Assembly of Notables, held in '87, he alone had proposed and signed the demand that the King should convene the States General, so in a sense he was the Father of the Revolution. He was now thirty-one; a sharp-featured man with a pointed chin and receding forehead. He was vain, dictatorial and of no great brain, but honest, passionately sincere in his desire to bring a free democracy to his country and immensely popular with both the middle and lower classes.

On the morning of July 17th, therefore, it was into Lafayette's keeping that the King gave himself for his journey to Paris. Only four of his gentlemen and a dozen of his bodyguard accompanied him. Lafayette rode in front of his coach; the captured flag of the Bastille was carried before it and the captured cannon, with flowers stuffed in their muzzles, were dragged behind. The rest of the long procession consisted of the newly enrolled National Guard, which as yet had neither uniforms nor discipline, so presented the appearance of an armed mob. Thousands of women were mingled with them, and occasional horsemen rode alongside the throng, so it was simple for Roger to ride to Paris as one of the procession.

At the barrier the King was met by the honest and courageous Bailly, who, in addition to his herculean labours of endeavouring to direct the debates of the National Assembly, had suddenly had the office of Mayor of Paris thrust upon him. He handed the keys of the city to the King with the tactless but well-meant words: "These are the same that were presented to Henri IV. He had reconquered the people; now the people have reconquered their King."

Once inside the barrier Roger left the procession as soon as he could, so he learned only by hearsay what transpired later. The King was conducted to the Hotel de Ville, where Bailly delivered an address, then offered him the new tricolor cockade. Its adoption as the national colours was an inspiration of Lafayette's, as it combined the red and blue of Paris with the royal white. After a second's hesitation the King took it and put it in his hat; but the poor man was so embarrassed that he could find no words to reply to the address, except the muttered phrase: "My people can always count on my love." However, on leaving the building he received some reward for his humiliation.

Lafayette had that morning ordered that in future the people should greet the Monarch only with shouts of "Vive la Nation /" But on seeing that the King had donned the tricolor, the old shouts of "Vive le Roil" rang out; and he was escorted back to Versailles by a cheering multitude.

During the days that followed it soon became clear that, as was always the case when he gave way to the people, he had won a new lease of popularity; but this time, his surrender having been so complete, it looked as if he would retain the public favour longer than he had on former occasions.

The new National Guard had the Gardes Francais incorporated in it, and was taking its duties seriously. Most of the bad elements had been disarmed; and, although the ex-Minister Foulon, and de Sauvigny, the Intendant of Paris, were murdered, relative quiet had been restored in the city.

As Roger moved about it he now began to see the other side of the Revolution. The cut-throats and extremists formed only a small part of the population, and at times of general excitement coloured the picture more by their excesses than their numbers. The great majority of the Parisians were good, honest people, and they now went about their work again with a real happiness and pride in their new-won liberties. By comparison with the idle, arrogant, narrow-minded nobles and the fat, self-indulgent priests, Roger found them, on average, much more genuine and likeable; and he felt every sympathy for their ambition not only to make their country rich again but also to enjoy a fair share of its riches.

Like everyone else in Paris, he went to see the fallen Bastille. A start had already been made at pulling down this symbol of the old tyranny, and some 200 volunteer workmen were tackling the job with a will; but the fortress consisted of eight massive towers linked by high curtains, the whole being built of immensely heavy blocks of stone, so it looked as if a considerable time must elapse before these patriotic enthusiasts succeeded in levelling it to the ground. In spite of the excitement at the time, only eight people had lost their lives during its capture, and only seven prisoners were found in it. Of the latter, one, an Englishman name Major White, had been there for thirty years and when released had a beard a yard long; two others were lunatics and the remaining four convicted criminals.

Towards the end of the month it seemed to Roger that the Revolu­tion was virtually over. It still remained to be seen which men would emerge as the permanent leaders of the nation, and what their foreign policy would be; but his visit to the National Assembly had convinced him that, for some time to come, it would remain far too much of a melting-pot for any serious forecast to be made about the deputies who would rise to its surface. In consequence, he decided that, since he could now do little good by staying in Paris, he might as well take a few weeks' leave; and with this in view he set off for England on July 28th.

He slept that night at Amiens, and found the situation there typical of what he had heard reported of the other great cities in France. There had been many disturbances and the old municipal authorities had been overthrown; the most vigorous among the Electors had taken the running of the city on themselves and a local copy of the Parisian National Guard was now keeping the rougher elements in check.

Next morning, on riding through a village, he passed a meeting of yokels who were being brought up to a pitch of angry excitement by an agitator; but he took scant notice of them. However, on seeing a similar scene a few miles farther on, he began to wonder what was afoot. At Abbeville, where he meant to take his midday dinner, he realized that fresh trouble of a very serious nature had broken out.

The town was in an uproar. Armed bands were marching through the streets. In the square the National Guard had been drawn up, but apparently had no intention of interfering with the rioters. From three directions Roger could see columns of smoke swirling above the roof­tops, so it looked as if the mobs were already burning the houses of people known to be opposed to the new reign of liberty.

His enquiries elicited the most fantastic rumours. "The Queen had conspired with the nobles throughout the country to kidnap and kill the people's leaders. The royal troops had marched on Paris two days before and were now systematically levelling it to the ground. The Swiss Guards had been sent to massacre the National Assembly. The Comte d'Artois had gone to Germany for the purpose of raising an army there, and he had crossed the Rhine with 100,000 men to conquer France and re-enslave the people."

In vain Roger assured his informants that there was not one atom of truth in their wild stories; they would not believe him, and said that couriers had arrived from Paris the previous night bearing this terrible news. When he said that he had left Paris himself only the day before, they began to suspect that he was an agent of the Queen sent to lull them into a false sense of security.

Suddenly realizing that he had placed himself in imminent danger he admitted that all these things might have occurred after he had left; then, seeing that there was nothing he could do, he got out of the town as quickly as he could.

A few miles beyond it, he saw a chateau, some half mile from the road, roaring up in flames, and a little farther on a gibbet with a well-dressed man hanging from it and a crowd of villagers dancing round their victim in a circle. It was now clear that the whole countryside had risen and was exacting a centuries-old vengeance on its seigneurs for their past oppressions.

During the afternoon he saw several other burning chateaux in the distance and passed many bands of peasants armed with scythes, pitch­forks and old muskets. As far as he could he avoided them by cantering his horse across the fields, and when he had to reply to shouted questions he made it clear that he was an Englishman, speaking only a little bad French.

He was much relieved to reach Calais in safety, but found that, too, in a state of panic and wild disorder, with the same fantastic rumours flying about. Hungry as he now was he rode straight down to the quay, only to find that the packet-boat sailing that night was already crammed with well-dressed people flying from the Terror. But, luckily for him, the ship was an English one, and after two hours' wait among a crowd of several hundred would-be passengers who could not be taken, he managed to get hold of one of the ship's officers. Gold would not have done the trick, as it was being offered by the handful, but his nationality secured him three square feet of deck; and the following morning he landed at Dover.

Although he did not realize it at the time, he had witnessed the beginning of the "Great Fear", as it afterwards came to be known; for not only had the peasantry of the Pas de Calais risen on that and the following days; they had done so throughout the whole of France.

The fall of the Bastille on July 14th had unexpectedly precipitated the complete surrender of the King three days later. The Monarch's new-won popularity had upset the calculations of those who were conspiring to force his abdication. Like Roger they had come to the conclusion that the political revolution having been accomplished the country would now settle down; unless steps to create further anarchy were taken. Since they had little more to hope for in that direction from Paris they had turned their attention to the provinces.

On July 28th hundreds of couriers had been despatched in secret to all parts of France with instructions to disseminate false news of such an alarming nature that the whole country would be set ablaze. The fact that the risings took place simultaneously in every part of the Kingdom proved beyond question that this terrible nation-wide outrage was the result of deliberate organization. Moreover, the general accept­ance of these baseless and improbable rumours in every city and town could not possibly have been brought about by the work of a single courier arriving in each. So everyone who knew anything of the inner forces animating the political situation had little doubt that the "Great Fear" was the work of the unscrupulous Due d'Orleans, operating through the vast spider's web of Masonic Lodges that he controlled.

Its results were beyond belief appalling. Terrified that the hated Queen and arrogant nobles were about to wrest their newly won liberties from them, a madness seized upon the people. In the course of a few days hundreds of chateaux, great and small, were burnt. Thousands of gentry, their womenfolk and even little children, were murdered, in many cases being slowly tortured to death with the most hideous brutality. Many of these petit seigneurs had been bad landlords, but the great majority had already imbibed the new Liberal doctrines, were eager for a Constitution, and anxious to do what they could to improve the lot of their peasantry. Tens of thousands succeeded in escaping abroad, some with such few valuables as they had been able to collect in the haste of a flight for life, but most of the exiles arrived near penniless, so were compelled to live for many years in poverty. Thus in the course of one summer week France was decimated.

Roger had been so absorbed by his own affairs that it had not occurred to him that the London season would be over, but on his arrival he found the West End deserted and Amesbury House closed down, except for the skeleton staff always kept there. Droopy Ned had left a week before and was at his father's seat, Normanrood, in Wiltshire.

Finding his best friend absent was a sad blow to Roger, as his broken romance with Isabella still weighed heavily upon him and he badly wanted to unburden his heart to someone. So far he had said not a word of it to a soul and it gnawed at him so unremittingly that he had come to believe it would always do so until he could ease his pain by talking freely about her. But there were only two people to whom he would have been willing to do that, Droopy and his dear Georgina; and a letter awaiting him at Amesbury House informed him that the beautiful Lady Etheredge was now upon the Rhine.

In her bold, vigorous scrawl she wrote glowingly of Vienna; telling of balls and receptions at the Hofberg, drives in the Prater, picnics on the Kobentzel, and midnight water parties on the Danube; she declared Viennese music the most haunting, and Viennese society the most gallant, in all Europe. The Emperor Joseph's illness had caused some concern, as had also the unrest in his dominions brought about by the resentment of his subject peoples at the reforms he had endeavoured to force upon them. But his health had recently improved and it was still hoped that a settlement might be reached in both Brabant and Hungary without further bloodshed. Such matters had, however, in no way interfered with her own enjoyment, and she could have become an Austrian Countess six times over, had she had a mind to it.

At the invitation of Count Apponyi—a most dashing, handsome man—she and her father had removed for a while to Budapest, and also paid a visit to the Count's Castle, near Lake Balaton. Budapest had to be lived in to be believed; its nobility were graced with all the culture of the West, yet lived as though still in the Middle Ages, wore scimitars instead of swords, and clad themselves in all the rich, barbaric trappings of the East. While in the country she had attended a wedding. It had been kept up for three days, a dozen oxen had been roasted whole to feast the local peasantry, and they had danced every night till dawn to a gipsy band that distilled pure romance instead of music.

After a further sojourn in Vienna they were now about to remove to Salzburg, and thence to Munich. By August they hoped to reach the neighbourhood of the Rhine, as they had accepted an invitation to stay at Darmstadt; and another, later, for September, from Prince Metternich, to be present at the vintage on his estate at Schloss Johannisberg.

She ended by saying that since a contrary Nature had seemingly made it impossible for her to remain good for any length of time, she was at least trying to be careful; and urged on Roger the same sisterly precept.

He could not help laughing as he laid the letter down, but he wondered if Georgina's zest for enjoyment would ever fail her, as his own had done. He sincerely hoped not, as he already knew it to be a terrible thing to be still young yet unable to any longer take pleasure in anything. Moreover, he could not help contrasting her carefree existence with that which now confronted the scared, white-faced young French women who had crossed with him in the packet-boat from Calais. Even if none of them had been blessed with a combination of her abounding health, fine brain and dazzling beauty, many of them had been brought up in the same security and comfort that she had enjoyed as a young girl; and the thought of their uncertain future saddened him.

Next day he learned that the indefatigable Mr. Pitt was still in London, and managed to secure an interview with him. The tall, lean, young old-looking Prime Minister offered him a glass of Port as usual, and listened with interest to his first-hand account of the last days of the absolute monarchy at Versailles; but the news of the events that had followed was already stale.

Apart from securing the Queen's letter, which was now an old affair, Roger had brought off no considerable coup during his four months abroad; and the Prime Minister suggested, a little coldly, that he might have arranged for the safe delivery of the copy to the Grand Duke through British diplomatic channels, instead of wasting seven weeks in a journey to Italy and back.

Roger thought the comment unfair. He protested that if he had not delivered the letter personally he might have found it impossible to convince the Queen that he had carried out her mission, or she might later have learned from her brother that he had not done so, which would have proved equally disastrous.

Mr. Pitt admitted that there was something to be said for the points Roger had made, and let him go on to give his impressions of Leopold of Tuscany; but the truth was that he was giving his visitor only half his attention. Had Roger's business been urgent or important he would have got a fair and full hearing, but, as it was neither, the Prime Minister was allowing his mind to roam on a subject that was then giving him much concern.

That summer, inspired by his closest friend, the great humanitarian William Wilberforce, and supported by many Members on both sides of the House, including even his normally most bitter opponent, Charles James Fox, he had made a determined attempt to abolish the Slave Trade. But the vested interests that would have suffered from abolition, particularly in Liverpool, Manchester and Bristol, were enormous, and the anti-abolitionists had enlisted in their aid the crafty and powerful Lord Chancellor Thurlow. It now looked almost certain that the Chancellor would succeed in wrecking the measure, and Mr. Pitt was wondering if he could possibly devise some means of saving it.

However, his brilliant memory had not deserted him, and as Roger was about to take his leave, he said: "When last we met we talked of the Bourbon Family Compact. Have you, perchance, Mr. Brook, happened upon any circumstances which might be developed as a lever for the breaking of it?"

In spite of his grande affaire de coeur with a beautiful lady of Spain,

Roger knew little more of that .country's present political relations with France than he had when he left England; and he had to confess as much.

The Prime Minister shrugged his narrow shoulders. "Ah, well, There is no great urgency about the matter, but I should be glad if you would bear it in mind. I judge you right that the National Assembly will take a month or two to settle down; so you had best enjoy what is left of the summer here, then return to France in the autumn and endeavour to find out what you can of the new Government's intentions."

After his visit to Mr. Pitt, Roger tried to make up his mind what to do with himself. He did not want to go to his home at Lymington just yet, because he felt certain that his mother would remark upon his moodiness, and, dearly as he loved her, he was averse to giving her a true explanation. Now that he had discharged his responsibilities to the Prime Minister, the impulse came to him again to get drunk and beat up the town. But for that one needed suitable companions, either male or female. During most of the year he could have found some young sparks at his Club with whom to drink and gamble; but it was closed for its August cleaning. He knew a gay and pretty trollop of the more superior kind who was kept by an elderly nobleman in a comfortable apartment off Jermyn Street. It was most unlikely that her Earl would be visiting her at such a season, and he wondered if a week or so spent in her hilarious company would dispel his misery; but he decided that feminine endearments would only repel him at the moment.

He had had to abandon his horse at Calais, not having had time to sell it, but he had returned from the Continent with more money than he had ever possessed before. Isabella had refused to allow him to pay for anything on their journey south to Italy, which had meant a con­siderable saving of his own funds, and the string of animals he had bought in Florence had cost less than an eighth of the hundred pieces of Spanish gold she had given him; so he had on him nearly £600 in bills of exchange on London, and it seemed absurd that with such a sum at his disposal he could not find some means of buying himself distraction.

For an hour or two he mooned about the art dealers' in the West End, but saw nothing that he really liked in the way of pictures, and even looking at them made him feel the loss of Isabella more poignantly. Suddenly it occurred to him that it would be intriguing to lay in a stock of wine; and the idea had to some degree the merit of unselfishness, as he knew that a good addition to the cellar at home would please his father.

Accordingly, having long recognized the wise principle that the best is always the cheapest in the long run, he took a sedan chair along to the King's wine-merchants, Messrs. Justerini and Johnson, at No. 2, Pall Mall.

A scene of desolation met him in the neighbourhood, as on July 17th the Royal Opera House in the Haymarket, upon which the wine-merchants' shop backed, had been burnt to the ground. But the southern frontage of Sir John Vanbrugh's fine edifice had been saved, and Messrs. Justerini were still carrying on their business among the surrounding debris.

Mr. Augustus Johnson the younger, a pleasant young man of about Roger's own age, received him and pressed upon him a glass of excellent French cognac for the good of his health; then spoke with quiet con­fidence of his wares. They had just received a particularly good ship­ment of Constantia from the Cape, and some Canary Sack that would be much improved from having been sent on a voyage round the world. Roger bought some of each, some Port that had been shipped to Newfoundland and back, some Madeira, Coti-Roti, Alicante Rhenish, Bordeaux and sparkling Sillery. To these he added a number of liqueurs in which the firm specialized, many of which were strange to him.

It was this purchase of good liquor that suddenly decided him to go home after all, as he would then have the fun of binning the stuff away himself and trying each of the items out at his leisure. Mr. Johnson agreed that there would be no difficulty about having them packed in wicker hampers to go on a conveyance the following morning; so Roger hired a private coach and set out next day. He spent the night at Basingstoke and on the afternoon of the 3rd of August arrived at Lymington.

He found that his father was at sea as a Rear-Admiral with the Mediterranean Squadron, but his mother was there, and her surprise at his unannounced return added to the joy of her welcome. On their first evening together he gave her Madame Marie Antoinette's handker­chief, and on Lady Marie Brook learning how it had come into his possession her tears fell upon the little square of cambric that only eighteen days before had been wet with those of the unhappy Queen.

In making the present to his mother Roger wrought better than he knew, for she at once accepted his sadness as the result of the harrowing scenes through which he had passed, so he was spared any necessity to either tell her about Isabella or invent some excuse for his acute de­pression. Yet, after a few days, seeing that he showed no signs of cheering up and did not even go out to see his old friends in the neighbourhood, she became worried about him, and with the object of taking him out of himself decided to give a small dance.

From fear that Roger might oppose the idea she told him nothing about it until the servants began to prepare the house on the morning of the party; then she announced with a laugh that it had been planned as a surprise for him, and swiftly began to reel off the names of the twenty-odd young people she had invited. Casually, towards the end of the list, she put in that of Amanda Godfrey, adding that Amanda was staying again for a while with her uncle at Walhampton. Although Lady Marie was not supposed to be aware of the fact, she knew quite well that Roger had had a somewhat hectic flirtation with Amanda the preceding Christmas, and she had been greatly disappointed that nothing had come of it.

Lady Marie had little hope that Roger would really settle down, even if he did marry. She had only the vaguest ideas about his work—having been led to believe that he carried information that was considered too confidential to entrust to paper from Mr. Pitt to the British Ambas­sadors in various capitals, then acted as a liaison officer, as required, between them—but she knew that foreign travel had become the breath of his life, so it was most unlikely that he would be prepared to give it up. She did not even think that it would be a good thing for him to do so. He was much too imaginative and highly strung to be happy with the humdrum pursuits of a country squire. She supposed that part of his character came from her own West Highland folk, as they had always been mercurial in temper, and better at thinking out a skilful plan for raiding their neighbours' cattle than sticking to the unexciting business of rearing their own. It was just as well that the boy had also inherited some of his father's practical good sense and tenacity of purpose.

Lady Marie herself had plenty of good sense and knew that it was useless to try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Her son's interests were not in country things. They were in books, pictures, ancient cities and strange foreign customs; so it was right for him that he should spend a large part of his life in places where he could enjoy such things.

But she did not see that as any bar to Roger marrying. As a sailor, her own husband had often been separated from her for years at a stretch by his duties, and that had not prevented them from being very happy. Such absences often had the effect of making the spiritual tie much deeper; and she felt that the time had come when Roger should get married. His first love, for Athenais de Rochambeau, had kept him out of serious trouble as a youth; but last year there had been that unfortunate episode with the Russian woman; and now it was possible that he might get himself tied up at any time with some other foreigner. Lady Marie felt very strongly that only marriage with the right type of English girl could give him the solid background that he lacked.

Amanda's uncle was Sir Harry Burrard; he was the richest man, and his estate of Walhampton the finest property, in the district. But, far more important in Lady Marie's eyes, she thought Amanda just the sort of daughter she herself would have liked to have. It was not that Amanda was especially beautiful, or good or intelligent; but she had a certain something that made women her friends as well as men. She was at times an absurdly vague creature, and often said the most outrageously silly things, but always with such airiness and charm that people loved her for it. When she spoke to anyone she always looked them straight in the eyes and her mouth, which was one of her best features, was always a trifle open, ready to break into laughter. She always behaved with naturalness, and she could afford to, as no one had ever known her to express a mean thought or do an unkind action. But perhaps the real secret of the fascination that she exercised over both sexes was that, although she was so vague about mundane matters, she possessed the tolerance and understanding of human frailties which goes only with real wisdom.

One thing Lady Marie had omitted to mention to Roger was that Amanda, having no male relative of an age suitable to escort her avail­able at Walhampton, had asked if she might bring a beau of hers who was a Captain of Dragoons. Naturally Lady Marie had assented, and she had been delighted, as she felt that nothing could be better calcu­lated to arouse Roger from his torpor than the sight of the young woman for whom he had shown an inclination hotly pursued by another admirer.

This time it was Lady Marie who had wrought better than she knew, for had she had the choice of all the men in England she could not have provided Amanda with an escort more certain to electrify her son. As they stood together that evening just inside the drawing-room, receiving their guests, old Ben, the houseman, now raised to the rank of butler by the donning of his black coat, announced: "Miss Amanda Godfrey. Captain George Gunston."

Roger stiffened and the blood drained from his face. Gunston had been at Sherborne with him and had distinguished himself only as the bully of their year. Many a time he had taken an oafish delight in tor­menting young "Bookworm Brook", as he had dubbed Roger. Since, they had fought a duel with pistols, each wounding the other slightly and, at the insistence of their seconds, afterwards made up their quarrel. But although they had observed the formality of dining together when they had recovered from their wounds they had no single trait in com­mon, except courage, and Roger still regarded George with an almost passionate hatred. The very sight of him, therefore, was like that of a red rag to a bull.

Next moment Roger had completely recovered himself, and was welcoming the couple as a well-bred host. Once he had sustained the initial shock he gave Gunston the credit for being less prone to bear rancour than himself. It was, too, much easier to forget having been a bully than having been bullied; so it seemed only fair to assume that Gunston would never have come to the house had he not regarded the past as over and done with.

But as the party got under way Roger was quick to observe that Gunston adopted a possessive attitude towards Amanda, and, evidently having heard of her affair with his host, was deliberately flaunting her under his nose. The hearty soldier's by-play was of the clumsiest, so it was soon apparent that he had accepted the invitation for the fun of crowing over his old enemy; and that was more than Roger was prepared to stand.

It was not that he was in the least in love with Amanda. They had had only a brief holiday romance of the very lightest kind. He had scarcely given her a thought in the past six months, and now, his heart turned to stone by the loss of Isabella, seeing Amanda again in any normal circumstances would not have made the least impression on him. Had she produced any other man and introduced him as her fiance, Roger would have wished her joy with all possible sincerity. But he was certainly not going to let George Gunston pose as the beau of the most sought-after girl in the district. It seemed even possible that Amanda might be thinking of George seriously. That would never do. She was much too nice a person for a lout like that.

Roger let George have his fun for an hour or so, then took an oppor­tunity to go up and talk to him and Amanda just as they were moving off to the buffet after a dance. He could not help noticing that they made a striking couple. George was as tall as and broader than himself; a fine specimen of manhood; handsome in a florid way, with a crop of ginger curls, and he derived an added glamour from his scarlet uniform. Amanda was also red-headed, but her hair was of a much darker shade, which reminded Roger of the Titian locks of Donna Livia. But Donna Livia's hair had been only artificially curled, whereas Amanda's had a natural crinkle, which at times made it almost unruly. She was a little above medium height and had a fine figure; her skin was milk-white but inclined to freckle in the summer. Her features were strong rather than pretty, and it was her laughing mouth that gave her whole face such charm.

It soon emerged that George's regiment was now quartered in Lymington Barracks, for the purpose of readily supporting, whenever called upon, the operations of the Preventive Officers against smug­gling. Roger knew quite well that such arrangements were customary, but with an air of complete innocence he suggested that since George had become interested in the suppression of crime he ought to transfer to the Police.

The soldier flushed, and stuttered something to the effect that no gentleman would consider soiling his hands with such dirty work.

Upon which Roger blandly apologized for his ignorance and enquired the difference between catching smugglers and cut-purses.

Gunston had never been quick-witted or overburdened by intelli­gence. Moreover he had spent the past six years among the provincial society of garrison towns; whereas Roger had been born a man of parts, and since leaving school had walked in Courts and talked with Kings. He could tap his snuff-box with the air of a Prince of the Blood, and launch a sarcasm with the swift acidity of Mr. Pitt. Without ever overstepping the bounds of courtesy imposed upon him by the fact that he was in his own house, ten times in ten minutes, by some subtle inference, he made Gunston look cheap and foolish. Then, with a deli­cate flutter of his lace handkerchief as he bowed to Amanda, he excused himself to look after his other guests.

He danced with Amanda only once that evening, and afterwards they sat together on the curved staircase leading up to the first floor. When she charged him with having been unkind to George, he looked at her in feigned astonishment, and said:

"Unkind! My dear Amanda, why in the world should you think that? I regard him as a prodigious fine fellow. He is so undisputably right in his setting—and so very British."

"You cannot deceive me," she smiled. "You think him a bore; but he has many qualities that make him at this moment a better man than yourself. I would rather hear him blurt out his honest opinions than listen to you airing the shallow cynicisms you have learnt abroad."

Roger realized that he had overplayed his hand; but her remark did nothing to lessen his conviction that Gunston was a coarse-grained brute. On the contrary, it determined him to take up the implied chal­lenge, so he asked Amanda if she would go for a ride with him the following morning.

From mid-August they went for rides almost daily, and met at every party given in the neighbourhood. At Priestlands, Vicar's Hill and Buckland Manor they danced half the evening together. But Roger was vaguely conscious that he was not as popular among his old friends as he had been in the past. They could not complain of his manners, but sensed a hardness in him that had not been there before. His in­terests had grown away from theirs, and thinking he had become con­ceited they openly showed their preference for the simple, boisterous George, who, if he had never graced a Court, was "a darn' good man to hounds".

And George fought back. He was nothing if not persistent, and Amanda never failed in kindness to him; but Roger's goading at length provoked an open quarrel. When three parts drunk one night, early in September, after a ball at Highcliffe Castle, he challenged Roger to a duel.

It was against the canons for any two men who had already fought to fight a second time, except in very exceptional circumstances, and Roger knew that if the affair was noised abroad George would risk the loss of his commission. As Roger was the challenged party the choice of weapons and place lay with him, so next morning he sent two friends to tell Gunston's seconds that his choice was swords, but that unless George could obtain his Colonel's permission to fight with naked blades they would settle the matter with buttoned foils in the court­yard at Walhampton, under cover of a fencing tournament, which could easily be arranged for the purpose.

George realized that he had no alternative but to accept these con­ditions, so a day was fixed and a dozen bouts arranged, with Roger and George as the concluding contest. A numerous company, including Amanda and two-score other ladies, assembled to see the sport, which was just what Roger wanted.

Everyone present was aware of the bitter animosity that lay be­tween the participants in the last bout, so as it began a hushed expect­ancy fell on the spectators. George was no bad swordsman, but Roger had learned the art in French schools as well as English, and was infinitely his superior. For the first few minutes he merely played with George to amuse the ladies, then he proceeded to whip him round the yard as though he was a novice being given a harsh lesson by a professional. In the bouts that followed Roger was an easy winner, and it was not until the final that he had to extend himself fully against a hard-bitten Major of Hussars, but he won the bout by five points to three.

George Gunston was not the type of man who gives way to tears, but afterwards, had he been able to, he would have done. Yet Roger gained no immediate benefit from his public triumph. Secretly he felt rather ashamed of himself for the way in which he had behaved; so he was not surprised when Amanda told him with, for her, quite unusual sharpness, that it had been ungenerous in him to humiliate his rival to such a degree, or that she had spent the evening consoling George for his defeat. Nevertheless, the affair took all the swagger out of George, and his mortification was so keen that two days later he left the field clear to Roger by going on leave.

When Roger first heard the news he was delighted; but very soon his victory turned to dust and ashes in his mouth. He realized only too clearly that for the past month his efforts had been directed to ousting George, not winning Amanda, and now he had her on his hands. He knew, too, that although he had been driven to it by his unhappiness, ever since the night of the dance his mother had given for him he had played a part quite unworthy of himself; and the thought that he might now cause Amanda pain by having led her on added further to his misery.

A week after the fencing tournament she brought matters to a head herself. She was an unconventionally minded young woman who cared little what servants, or anyone else, thought of her; so on several occa­sions in the previous winter she had slipped out of her uncle's house after everyone else was in bed to go with Roger for walks round the grounds in the frosty moonlight; and soon after his return they had resumed these clandestine meetings.

Now, on these warm summer nights, if they had not been out dancing, they usually went down to one of Walhampton's three lovely wood-fringed lakes and, getting out a punt from the Chinese pagoda boat-house, spent an hour or so on the water.

On this occasion they were drifting gently, looking up at the myriad stars, and had been silent for a few minutes when Amanda said quietly:

"Do you not think the time has come when you should ask my uncle for my hand in marriage ?"

Roger stiffened on the cushions where he lay. Subconsciously he had recently been dreading such a situation; and although he was extremely fond of Amanda as a companion he still felt that he would never love anyone, apart from Isabella, sufficiently to want to marry them.

After a moment she gave her low laugh. "Be not distressed, my dear, at the prospect of so awful a fate; for did you ask me I would not have you."

His relief was mingled with the most acute embarrassment. He could not be certain that she really meant what she had said, and was desperately anxious not to hurt her feelings. But before he could think of anything appropriate to say, she went on:

"You are in love with someone else, are you not?"

"I'll not deny it," he confessed. "And if I have led you to think otherwise my only excuse is a genuine fondness for you. Yet that is no real excuse and I feel so meanly about it now that I could throw myself in the lake from shame."

"Do nothing so desperate, I beg," she smiled; "for the resulting scandal would prove my utter ruin. But I knew it all along from your kisses. Your heart does not lie in them. Tell me about her."

Roger shrugged unhappily. "I will spare you the harrowing details. She is a Spanish lady that I met abroad. Although she is of the Popish faith we had plighted our troth; but her family intervened, and she is now married to another; so my case is hopeless."

"That accounts, then, for the new bitterness that all your friends have observed in you since your return. But it will pass. You must occupy your mind, Roger; and with something of more worth than making a fool out of a poor booby like George Gunston."

"You are right," he sighed, "and prodigious generous to me in taking my ill conduct to you so well."

"Think no more of that," she said after a moment. "I have derived much pleasure from your company, and shall ever think of you with kindness; though we can no longer continue as at present. As long as George was dancing attendance on me I could afford to let you do so too; for it was assumed that I was hesitating as to which of you I would take. But by driving him away you have put a period upon our intimacy. All south Hampshire will now expect to hear of our engagement, and if they do not, malicious tongues will begin to wag. That I may be spared such unpleasantness either you or I must shortly take coach and leave Lymington to think what it will."

Full of contrition at the awkward situation in which he had placed her, Roger immediately volunteered to leave the next day. But, on second thoughts, he suggested that, if it would not too seriously interfere with her plans, it would be better for her to leave first, as that would give the impression that it was she who had broken off their affair.

As it was now mid-September, and a few people would be drifting back to London, Amanda agreed that his idea was a sound one. Kissing him lightly on the cheek she declared that she would announce her departure for the end of the week. He, rather shamefacedly, returned her caress and said that until she went he would press his attentions more assiduously than ever, then shut himself up at home as though broken-hearted at losing her. A moment later they saw the funny side of the little comedy they proposed to play for the benefit of their acquaintances, and were laughing over it.

So Roger got out of the mess in which he had landed himself far easier than he deserved, and he was genuinely sorry when, with the longest face he could pull, he watched her coach drive away to London. Her going left him lonely once more and even his disappointed mother was taken in by the return of his moodiness. He had no need to act a part, as with lack of companionship his thoughts turned inwards again and with the loss of Amanda he felt more bitterly than ever the, to him, infinitely greater loss of Isabella.

In consequence, Lady Marie was not surprised when, three days after Amanda's departure, he announced that he would shortly be returning to France. The following Wednesday he took passage in a brig sailing with a cargo of salt from Lymington, and on the evening of Thursday September the 24th landed at Le Havre.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE ASSASSINS

THE upheavals that had shaken France only two months earlier were of such magnitude that Roger expected many signs of their repercussion to be visible in so large a city as Le Havre; so he was somewhat sur­prised to find that, apart from the new uniforms of the National Guard, there was little overt evidence to show that the Revolution had ever taken place. The town was orderly and people going about their business in a normal fashion.

There being nothing to detain him there, next morning he bought a bay mare with a white star on her forehead, and set out for Paris. Inland, just as in the Pas de Calais, here and there the blackened walls of roofless chateaux told their horrifying tale; but others that had escaped the holocaust still dignified the countryside, and within sight of them the peasants were placidly working in the fields as they had for generations.

Paris, too, showed little outward change, except that fewer private equipages with footmen in attendance were to be seen in the streets than formerly; so it seemed at first sight that France had come through the birth-pangs of her regeneration surprisingly quickly.

But Roger soon learned that all was far from well beneath the surface. At La Belle Etoile, his landlord answered an enquiry as to how he did with a glum shake of the head. Business had never been so bad as during the past month. Every man now considered himself as good as his master, which was foolish because the world could not go on that way; and what good did it do anyone to assume such superior airs if it brought no money into their pockets? The workpeople now had to be asked to do every little thing instead of accepting an order, and they did it or not as they felt inclined. Most of them idled away half the day, but they expected their wages just the same at the end of the week. In fact they were demanding more. In that Monsieur Blanchard would have sympathized with them, had they been willing to do an honest day's work; as corn was still terribly scarce and the cost of living higher than ever. But one could not pay people higher wages when one's own takings had fallen by more than 50 per cent. That stood to reason. Where all the money had gone he did not know. It was said that the thousands of aristocrats who had emigrated at the beginning of August had taken it all with them. There might be some truth in that. It was certainly no longer in Paris.

Wherever Roger went he heard the same gloomy story, and he soon became aware of the reason that lay behind it. On the 4th of August an extraordinary scene had taken place in the National Assembly. A report on the disorders in the Provinces had been presented the previous day and the deputies were considering how to produce some measure which would appease the fury of the peasants.

Two noblemen, the Vicomte de Noailles and the young Due d'Aiguillon, came forward and proposed that a solemn declaration should be made assuring future equality of taxation for all and the suppression of feudal burdens, except in certain cases where they should be redeem­able by long-term purchase. Others rose to support the motion and there followed a stampede of self-denial which afterwards earned the session the name of "The Night of Sacrifices".

The Bishop of Chartres proposed the abolition of the game laws; de Beauharnais that punishment for crime should be the same for all classes, and that all ranks in the Public Services should be thrown open to everyone; de la Rochefoucauld that the vote be given to all serfs remaining in the Kingdom. The Archbishop of Aix moved the abolition of the salt tax; the Due de Chatelet that tithes in kind should be commuted, and the Bishop of Uzes recognized the right of the nation to dispose of the property of the Church. The deputies of the Third Estate, not to be outdone, then tumbled over themselves in their eagerness to renounce the privileges of the Provinces and cities they represented.

The renowned economist, Dupont de Nemours, was one of the very few to throw some doubt on the wisdom of this wholesale wrecking of tike ancient order, and Count Lally-Tollendal, the foremost Liberal of all the nobles, the only man to keep his head. He sent a note up to the President that read "Nobody any longer has any self-control; break up the sitting." But a positive madness had seized upon the assembly. Before dawn it had passed every motion; and, since there was no Upper House to send back the bills for reconsideration, they became forthwith the law of France.

The result was catastrophic. In a single night the whole economy of the nation had been destroyed. Already, for a year past, or more, there had been increasing difficulty in collecting taxes; now the people refused to pay any at all. The old courts of justice had continued to function, although with decreasing efficiency; now all feudal courts and many superior ones were wiped out entirely. Overnight the Assembly had destroyed the very foundations of French society without any attempt to create even a vestige of a new system.

It was no wonder that money was scarce. Everyone who had any was now clinging to it from fear that once it was gone they would not be able to get any more. The treasury was empty, the Army and the public services unpaid. And the King could not help, as he had given all his gold plate to the nation as a means of reducing the national debt. What the colossal extravagance of Louis XIV and XV had failed to achieve the National Assembly had accomplished. France was bankrupt.

From Monsieur Aubert Roger learned that there had been changes at the British Embassy in recent months. His last contact with it had been soon after his return from Italy, so he was unaware that early in July Mr. Daniel Hailes had left on a visit to Berlin, as a prelude to becoming Minister Plenipotentiary in Warsaw, and that early in August the Duke of Dorset had gone on leave from which he would not be returning. Lord Robert Fitzgerald had joined the Embassy as First Secretary, in the spring, and was in charge pending the appointment of a new Ambassador. Roger could well understand that His Grace would have little taste for Paris now that so many of his friends there had gone into exile, and he was glad to hear of the worthy Mr. Hailes' promo­tion; but he did not feel that the departure of the latter would greatly affect him, as at their meetings he had generally been the giver, rather than the receiver, of information.

To acquaint oneself with the proceedings of the National Assembly it was no longer necessary to go there, or rely on the often garbled third- and fourth-hand accounts of others. After the July insurrections the Press was freed from all restraint and a number of newspapers, independent of the Government, were now appearing in Paris. They were small in size and more on the lines of political essays than news-sheets, but their circulation, particularly that of the more violent ones, soon became immense. Loustallot's The Revolutions of Paris reached a sale of 200,000 copies, and a paper called The Friend of the People, first issued in mid-September, bid fair to rival it as the organ of the extreme Left. The latter was the work of a doctor of forty-seven, named Marat, a man embittered by ill-success and diseased in body and mind, and his violent diatribes against the rich did more than any other single factor to inspire the bestial excesses later committed by the mobs.

But whatever their shade of opinion, these journals gave the gist of the problems with which the Assembly was concerning itself, so by obtaining a collection of back numbers Rogers quickly acquired a general view of the present situation.

Having done so he pondered the problem of whether he should go to Versailles and present himself to the Queen. Now that so many of her friends had gone into exile, and small fry like himself were no longer likely to incur danger from associating with her, he felt confident that she would be pleased to see him. But he decided against it. Power to govern future events did not lie in the royal circle any longer. It was now vested in the leaders of the National Assembly, and a few out­standing men in Paris. Therefore, he felt, little of advantage was to be gained by dancing attendance at the emasculated Court; and, more­over, his hopeless longing for Isabella still made him so misanthropic that he shunned the thought of engaging again in the light social life he would find there.

This time he had brought with him a few old suits. They were serviceable garments that he wore during the day when at home at Lymington, and in them he could pass easily as a small property owner or respectable business man. So, eschewing his silks and satins, he now went about in honest broadcloth, intent on finding out what His Highness of Orleans was up to, and what was likely to be the outcome of the near-desperate depression in Paris.

As everyone was now equal a man could walk into any public building he liked without let or hindrance, and every committee in the city had its daily crowd of idlers overseeing its proceedings; so Roger found no difficulty at all in penetrating to the committee-rooms of the Hotel de Ville.

There, he spent a morning watching the unfortunate Bailly grap­pling with the problems of feeding the capital. As Mayor it was his duty to ensure the daily bread of 700,000 people, and with commerce breaking down in all directions he could never be sure of more than a forty-eight hours' supply.

Roger left the harassed man with deep sympathy for his un­fortunate lot and a great admiration for the way in which he managed to keep a clear head during the often ill-informed digressions of his » colleagues, and the frequent interruptions of the still less well-informed onlookers.

Next morning he went to have a look at General Lafayette, and was by no means so impressed. Lafayette was now responsible for the safety of Paris, and the job was clearly beyond his capabilities. His task was, admittedly, a superhuman one, as his troops, apart from the old Gardes Francais, were all volunteers, and imbued with the new idea that the opinion of a private was as good as, or better than, that of a Colonel. But the orders he issued often appeared contradictory, and he showed great weakness in giving way to the wishes of deputations of the rank and file who presented themselves to him almost hour by hour, without any previous intimation of their coming.

It remained for Roger to see if he could get a dress-circle view of the Due d'Orleans, and that, too, proved easy, as the Prince, anxious to court the maximum possible popularity, had now opened practically every room in the Palais Royal to the public. That evening, Roger found him in one of the larger salons, surrounded by a crowd of syco­phants and being watched by groups of people, apparently composed of both obvious riot-raisers and casual spectators, who stood round the walls.

Louis-Philippe d'Orleans was then forty-two years old. He had the Bourbon cast of countenance, but his features were not so gross as those of the King, and his manner, in contrast to that of his awkward cousin, was gay, easy and affable. As Due de Chartres, before the death of his father, he had already acquired the reputation of a rather stupid and very dissipated young man. He was a close friend of the equally dissipated Prince of Wales, and often stayed with him in England.

D'Orleans was not distinguished for his courage. With the prospect of succeeding his father-in-law, the Due de Penthievre, as Grand Admiral of France, he had been sent to serve in the Navy during the late war; but in the only engagement at which he was present, although then a man of thirty-one, he had hidden himself in the hold of the Flagship. Madame Marie Antoinette had protested that, after dis­gracing himself in such a fashion, it was unthinkable to give him the post of Grand Admiral, so he had been made Colonel-General of the Hussars instead; and it was this, added to the fact that while still a young girl she had repulsed his amorous advances, that had resulted in the bitter hatred he bore the Queen.

Roger mingled with some of the groups by the wall and got in conversation with them. Among other things he learnt that the pretty woman seated next to the Duke was his English mistress, Mrs. Grace Dalrymple Elliott, who now shared his affections with the Comtesse de Buffon. At the moment, he gathered, Monsieur d'Orleans' prospects were temporarily under a cloud, as the King had lost his sovereign power without the Duke gaining anything thereby, and the hopes of the nation were becoming more and more centred in the National Assembly, to the detriment of any individual who might aspire to personal aggrandize­ment through the eclipse of the throne.

While standing near one group Roger caught the phrase: "It would be folly to give out the women's clothes until a really first-class oppor­tunity presents itself."

Greatly intrigued by this, he strained his ears to hear more; but, just at that second, he caught sight of a familiar figure hurrying past an open doorway on the far side of the big room. It was de Roubec.

Thrusting his way through the crowd Roger hastened in pursuit of his enemy. When he reached the door he found the corridor down which de Roubec had been passing to be empty; but there was a staircase at its far end. Running to the stairs Roger pelted down them, but de Roubec was nowhere to be seen. Turning, he dashed up them again, three at a time, and on up to the second floor. There was still no sign of the rogue whose ears and nose he had promised to cut off when next they met. Furious, and frantic now, he threw open door after door along the corridor, disturbing a score of people employed in either work or pleasure; and, without waiting to apologize, dashed on to invade other apartments. But his efforts were in vain. At length he was compelled to conclude that de Roubec must, after all, have gone down the stairs, and quickly enough to disappear among the crowd in the garden.

For the two days that followed, Roger haunted the Palais Royal. He did not care to risk enquiring for his enemy, in case his enquiry was reported and a description of himself given to de Roubec, which might put the villain on his guard. But he hoped that if he hung about long enough he would catch sight of him again and, with luck, be able to follow him unobserved to a quiet spot where vengeance could be exacted with small risk of interference.

His patience went unrewarded. For hours on end he scanned the faces in the Duke's salon, patrolled the corridors, and occasionally made a hurried round of the garden. Not once did he see, even in the distance, a figure remotely resembling de Roubec's. Neither did he overhear any further mention of the giving out of women's clothes, which had so puzzled him. This fruitless hunt occupied most of his time during the opening days of October, and it was not until the evening of the 2nd that he heard anything about the banquet at Versailles.

The facts were as follows. The Flanders Regiment had recently arrived to do a tour of duty in the royal town and, following an ancient custom, the Garde du Corps gave a dinner of welcome to the officers, to which they also invited the officers of the local National Guard. On the evening of October ist the dinner was held on the stage of the palace theatre. The orchestra was occupied by a military band, and the pit and boxes by numerous officials and servants of the palace.

Towards the end of the banquet the band played the air O Richard O mon Roi, and this was received with such thunderous applause that a deputation was sent to ask the Royal Family to honour the gathering with its presence.

The King had not yet returned from his day's hunting, and the Queen, fearing that a royal appearance at a military gathering of such a nature might be misconstrued, at first refused. But the King came in at that moment, and on somebody remarking that the sight would amuse the Dauphin, it was agreed that they should go.

Their appearance in the royal box was greeted with the wildest enthusiasm. O Richard O mon Roi was played again, the officers nearly raised the roof with their shouts of " Vive le Roi!" and " Vive la Reine!", then they begged the Queen to bring the Dauphin down so that they might see him at close quarters. Accompanied by the King still in his hunting-clothes, and her little daughter, Madame Royale, aged ten and a half, she did so.

The Dauphin, who, until his elder brother's recent death, had borne the title Due de Normandie, was a fine healthy child of four. He was set down on the table and walked fearlessly along it, the sight raising still further the pitch of excited loyalty. Oaths of undying devo­tion were freely sworn to him, the King, Queen and whole Royal Family. Amidst renewed acclamations of faith and love, such as they had not heard for many months, they at length withdrew.

The officers of the National Guard were so affected by the scene that they reversed the tricolor cockades they were wearing, so that the royal white of their linings should show instead; and the private soldiers assembled outside, catching the enthusiasm, gathered under the King and Queen's windows to sing loyal songs late into the night.

But the affair was very differently reported in Paris. It was said that the banquet had been deliberately planned to suborn the loyalty of the troops at Versailles from the Nation; that the Queen was plotting to use them to arrest the National Assembly, after which she meant to withdraw with the King to some strong place in the country from which the Army could be directed against Paris; and that the tricolor cockade had been trampled underfoot with the vilest insults.

On the 3rd and 4th of the month indignation meetings were held in many parts of the capital, and a renewed outbreak of bread riots added to the general unrest. The two issues—that Paris would not be safe from attack until the King came to live there, and that the city would be properly fed if only he were in it—coalesced in the minds of the agitated multitude. On the morning of the 5th a large crowd of fish­wives set out from the market to march to Versailles with the object of demanding bread. A little later a mob of roughs broke into the armoury at the Hotel de Villet and, having seized the weapons there, followed them, with an unproclaimed but more sinister purpose.

Lafayette was sent for, and called out the National Guard. Instead of giving orders at once for the closing of the roads to Versailles, he spent most of the day in the Place de Greve debating with the officers and men what action, if any, should be taken. It was not until late in the evening that he finally decided to intervene and set off with his troops for the royal town.

In the meantime thousands more Parisians had taken the road to Versailles, Roger amongst them. As he was mounted he outdistanced most of the marchers, but on his arrival he learned that the poissardes, as the fishwives were called, had already invaded the Assembly and were demanding bread from the deputies.

The weather was wet, cold and windy, so as Roger rode on with his head well down, towards the royal stables, he failed to notice another horseman who passed through its arched gateway a hundred yards ahead of him. It was only on having dismounted that they came face to face and recognized one another. The man who had arrived just before him was Auguste-Marie, Comte de la Marck, the son of the Empress Maria Theresa's great general, the Prince d'Arenberg. I/RS

"I thought you gone into exile, Mr. Brook," exclaimed the hand­some young Austrian.

"And I, that you had done so," Roger smiled. "I went to England for a while, but returned to Paris last week."

"I went no further than the capital, and have been living in the hotel of Monsieur de Mercy-Argenteau."

Roger raised an eyebrow at the name of the Austrian Ambassador. "Since His Excellency has long been accounted Her Majesty's closest adviser, I should have thought that far from wise."

"The Embassy is Austrian territory," shrugged de la Marck, "so it is probably as safe a place as any other in that now accursed city."

As they were speaking they had hurried inside, and the Comte added: "I take ft you, too, have come to warn Their Majesties of the dangerous mob advancing on Versailles?"

"They must be ill-served if they do not know of it already," replied Roger. "But since it looks as if there may be serious trouble, I felt an urge to place myself at their disposal."

De la Marck knew the ramifications of the vast palace, and its routine, much better than Roger, so he led the way to several places where it was likely the Queen might be at that hour of the afternoon; but she was in none of them, and after a wasted twenty minutes they learnt that, accompanied only by a single footman, she had gone for a walk in her garden at Trianon. With the King they were equally unlucky; he was out hunting. In the Council Chamber they found half a dozen gentlemen, apparently conversing idly, amongst whom there was only one Minister, the Comte de St. Priest.

But among them also, to Roger's surprise and delight, was de Vaudreuil; so, leaving de la Marck to talk to the Minister, he ran over and shook hands English fashion with his old friend.

De Vaudreuil said that after taking his family to Brussels, he had decided that as a Lieutenant-General of Marine it was his duty to return. He had done so three weeks earlier; the Queen had received him most graciously, and told him of Roger's generous but abortive attempt to clear up this misunderstanding on the night that she had sent so many of her best friends abroad.

De la Marck joined them at that moment. It appeared that the poissardes had left the Assembly and were now gathered outside the the palace demanding to see the King. The Comte de St. Priest had sent messengers to find His Majesty, the Queen and also Monsieur Necker; but he was not in the least perturbed, and insisted that the trouble amounted to nothing graver than a bread riot.

Roger joined de la Marck in protesting. Both averred that they had passed armed bands advancing on Versailles. The young Austrian went further and declared that his Embassy had received intelligence that there was a plot on foot to assassinate the Queen, as the only person who had the courage to order armed resistance to the extremists.

The Minister still refused to be convinced, and he was now sup­ported by his colleague the Comte de Montmorin, who had joined the party a few moments earlier.

With de la Marck, de Vaudreuil, the Marshal de Beauveau, the Due de Luxembourg and the Comte de la Tour du Pin, Roger withdrew to a corner of the room. There they remained for a few moments muttering angrily together. The Foreign Minister, Montmorin, was known to be a creature of the weak-kneed Necker, and St. Priest had also fallen and risen again with the Swiss, so the Queen's friends had good reason to suspect a policy of "better that the King should grovel than we should lose favour with the mob"; but they were powerless to take any steps for the defence of the palace without the Minister's authority.

At last the King arrived and the Queen appeared shortly after him. The Council chamber was cleared and he agreed to receive a deputation of poissardes. The deputy Mounier presented six women, and die King told them that if he had had any bread to give they would not have had to walk to Versailles to ask for it, for he would have sent it to Paris already. Much affected by his sincerity they rejoined their companions outside and endeavoured to pacify them; but they were mobbed and narrowly escaped being hanged from lamp-posts as a result of their sudden change of heart.

The original crowd of women had now been reinforced by hundreds of armed roughs; but the lattice gates in the iron railings that separated the Place d'Armes—as the great square of the town was called—from the courtyards of the palace had been closed against the first arrivals; and the courts were now manned by the Regiment de Flandres and the Garde du Corps. The Due de Luxembourg, fearing that the gates would be forced, and having standing orders that without the King's authority the people were never to be fired upon, went to the Monarch and asked for emergency orders.

"Orders !" laughed the King, who knew only what his Ministers had told him. "Orders for war against women I You must be joking, Monsieur de Luxembourg."

Darkness fell and several times the mob attacked the gates. A number of skirmishes occurred with the more audacious who scaled the railings, but the troops succeeded in repelling the assaults without firing on the crowd. It was still pouring with rain, but the angry multi­tude would not disperse, and continued to howl without while the King held a series of Councils within.

The deputy Mounier had remained, and he importuned the King to sign a carte-blanche approval of the new Constitution, as a means of pacifying the people. The King protested against giving his consent to a Constitution that had not yet been formulated, but Necker was now present and urged him to, so eventually he gave way. His complaisance effected nothing, as the mob booed Mounier when he announced this triumph for democracy snatched in an emergency, and roared at him that it was not interested in political rights for tomorrow; it wanted bread today.

The Queen paid several visits to the Council Chamber and at other times paced restlessly up and down the long gallery; but even in her extreme agitation she gave smiles and a few words of recognition to de la Marck, Roger, and a number of other gentlemen who had arrived from Paris to offer their services.

From the scraps about the Council's deliberations that leaked out, it appeared that Monsieur de St. Priest now, belatedly, realized that the lives of the Royal Family were actually in danger; so he and several other Ministers advised an immediate flight to Rambouillet and that the troops should be ordered into action against the insurgents. But the King's evil genius, Necker, and Montmorin, opposed the plan; and by insisting to the Monarch that it must lead to civil war persuaded him to reject it.

At eleven o'clock news came in that Lafayette was advancing from Paris with the National Guard, and that their intention was to take the King forcibly to Paris. Only then did the irresolute man give way to the prayers of those who were begging him to save himself while there was still time. Six carriages were ordered and the Queen, courageously endeavouring to prevent a panic, quietly told her ladies to pack their immediate requirements as they would be leaving in half an hour's time.

But, either through stupidity or treachery, the carriages were ordered round to the gate of the Orangerie, to reach which they had to cross the Place d'Armes. The crowd, determined to remain where they were until morning despite the rain and wind, had now lit bonfires in the square, and were erecting rough bivouacs under the trees for the night. On seeing the carriages they at once guessed the King's intention and rushed upon them. Four were instantly seized and stopped; the two leading ones, driven at greater speed, succeeded in reaching the Orangerie, but again, probably through treachery, the gates were found to be locked. The mob caught them up, cut the traces of the horses, and smashed the carriages to matchwood.

St. Priest and de la Tour du Pin then offered their carriages, which were round at a back entrance. In them the Royal Family might yet have escaped. The Queen urged the King to take this last chance; but once again the malignant Necker intervened, arguing that such an attempt was now too dangerous. The foolish King took the advice of the Minister who had done more to bring about his ruin than any other man, instead of that of his courageous wife. Again deferring to her husband's judgment Madame Marie Antoinette made no further protest, nor did she suggest that she should seek safety with her children. With tears streaming down her face she rejoined her ladies, saying simply: "All is over; we are staying."

At midnight Lafayette arrived. In one breath he assured the King that he would rather have died than appear before him in such circum­stances as the present; but he had been forced to it and had covered the last few miles only because his men were pushing their bayonets into his back. In the next he said that all his men wanted was to see the King, vouched for their complete loyalty, and offered to be personally responsible for the safety of the Royal Family and everyone within the palace.

The King listened without comment to these heroics,, and accepted the guarantee of protection for himself, his family and his servants. Others were not so sanguine. Their Majesties then retired. Lafayette posted detachments of his men round the palace; then went to bed and to sleep.

Meanwhile de Vaudreuil collected Monsieur de Beauveau, de la Marck, Monsieur de Chevenne, Roger, and several other gentlemen, and said to them that he believed the Queen's life to be in extreme danger. The Marquise de Tourzel, who had succeeded Madame de Polignac as governess to the royal children, had told him that during the course of the evening Her Majesty had received not one but several warnings.

One note, from a Minister of the Crown, had contained the words: "Madame, make your plans; or tomorrow morning at six o'clock you will be murdered."

A group of loyal deputies from the National Assembly had sought an audience, and assured her that she would be murdered during the night unless she saved herself by immediate flight. She had replied: "If the Parisians have come here to assassinate me it shall be at the feet of my husband. I will not fly."

They had then asked permission to remain with her; but she said that they needed rest more than she did, and giving them her hand to kiss, had bid them leave her.

As a last resort they had begged her to pass the night with the King; but, knowing that the plot was directed against herself, she refused, and ordered Madame de Tourzel, in the event of trouble, to take the children to the King, in order that she might face the danger alone, and keep it away from those she loved.

Finally, when her women besought her to take heed of these warnings, she had said: "I learned from my mother not to fear death. I shall await it with firmness."

When de Vaudreuil had finished telling of these sinister threats and superb courage, none of his hearers had a thought of sleep, in spite of the long day they had been through, and they arranged to post themselves in the various apartments which led to that of the Queen.

Roger was allotted the Oeil de Bceuf, one of the principal salons of the palace, so named from being lit by one large circular window. If the mob did break in it was most unlikely that they would come that way, as it did not contain any of the regularly used approaches to the Queen's apartments; but it was a good central post from which he could be called on for help from two directions.

It was now getting on for two o'clock in the morning. Most of the candles in the big room had been doused and the wood-fires flickered fitfully on the gilded carving of panel surrounds and door pediments. As Roger threw some more logs on one of the fires it flared up, fighting for a moment the pictures in the nearest panels, but the lights in the great crystal chandeliers had been put out and the painted ceiling was lost in shadow.

For a time he sat by the fire and idly followed the chain of events that had led to his being there. This was not his quarrel, and he wondered now at the impulse that had sent him galloping to Versailles in the middle of the day. In part it had been curiosity to see at first hand the outcome of this new crisis; but it had also been something more than that. He recognized that as a class the nobles and prelates-were now getting no more than they deserved as a result of generations of indolence and avarice, but many of the present generation were liberal-minded men and quite a number of them had shown him friendship. The cause of the people might be just, but the great bulk of them would also become sufferers in the long run unless order could be maintained; so it was fitting that every man,^ whatever his nationality, should lend his hand to resist violence.

Above all there was the Queen. As he thought of her innocence,, kind-heartedness and courage, he was glad to be sitting there; and knew that if the attack matured, and he lived through it, he would always feel proud and honoured at having drawn his sword in her defence.

Each time he found his thoughts drifting he stood up and walked about for a little to keep himself awake. An officer and two gentlemen of the bodyguard came through the apartment on their rounds every hour, otherwise the palace now seemed sunk in exhausted sleep. But it was not so with a large part of the 30,000 troops and 10,000 brigands massed outside. The drums beat all night and, sodden with the rain,, gave out a hollow menacing note.

It was half-past four in the morning when Roger started up from his reverie at the sound of a musket-shot. There followed a dull clamour pierced with yells and more firing, but muffled by the passages and walls. Roger had been asked to remain at his post, unless called on for help, so he eased his sword in its scabbard and with straining ears listened to the tumult that had broken out somewhere on the ground-floor of the palace.

After a few minutes there suddenly came a sharp rapping on the wall near which he stood, and a voice cried: "Open! Open! Let us through! Let us through!"

Moving quickly to the place from which the sounds were coming, he stared at it. Only then, in the dim light, did he perceive the crack of a small doorway, which had been skilfully concealed. It was barely five feet high and two and a half across; the upper part of it cut through the corner of a panel that contained a picture, and it followed so exactly the moulding of the wall as to be imperceptible to the casual glance. De Vaudreuii had not told him of its existence when posting him in the Oeil de Boeuf, and he had no idea where it led.

The banging and shouts on the far side of the door had now reached a crescendo. Roger thought that it was the mob who were trying to break through, and he hastily looked to either side along the dim passages for help to defend it when it gave way. But both the long corridors leading from the room were deserted. From the distance, shouts, shots, shrieks and the trampling of many feet could be heard.

Suddenly he realized that the voices beyond the panel held an imploring note and were those of women. It was possible that some of the inmates of the palace were endeavouring to escape that way from an attack on a range of apartments that lay beyond the door. Yet he could not be certain, and if he opened it he might be overwhelmed by the mob in a matter of seconds.

Still he stared at the door, desperately uncertain what to do; then he caught a cry above the rest: "Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Ouvre la porte ou nous sommes mortes!"

Hesitating no longer, he found the small catch lock and, inserting his finger in the shallow slot, pulled it back. The door burst open, and the Queen almost fell into his arms.

She was in her nightdress with only a petticoat pulled loosely over it, and clutched her stockings in her hand. Stumbling past him, and followed by two of her women, she ran across the wide parquet of the Oeil de Baeuf, wrenched open another low, concealed door on the far side of it and disappeared.

Later Roger learned that the door he had opened gave on to her dressing-room, and was used only as a private means of communication between her and the King, the similar door through which she had disappeared giving on to his apartments. And that normally the little door was kept locked only on her side of it, so that night some murderous hand must have locked it on the side of the Oeil de Boeuf to prevent her escaping that way from her assassins.

He learnt too that had it not been for the loyalty of her women she would certainly have been murdered. Madame Auguie1 and Madame Thibaut, with their two femmes de chambre, had ignored her orders to go to bed, and the four of them had sat up with their backs against her bedroom door. At the first sounds of commotion Madame Augui6 had run to the door of the ante-chamber and found one of the bodyguard, Monsieur de St. Marie, his face covered with blood, defending it against a horde of poissardes, who were screaming: "We have come in our white aprons to get the Queen's bowels, that we may make red cockades out of them!"

Slamming and relocking the door Madame Auguie had rushed back to the bedroom. Madame Thibaut had in those few seconds roused the Queen; and they had succeeded in getting her away before the doors of the ante-room were broken in.

The Queen had hardly entered the King's apartments when a dozen Garde du Corps and other gentlemen came running into the Oeil de Bceuf with drawn swords. Among them was Madame de Tourzel with the Royal children. When they had followed the Queen, their escort drew themselves up in front of the door, ready to defend it with their lives.

Pandemonium had now broken loose in the Queen's apartments. Drawing his sword Roger ran through the dressing-room. He found the bedroom empty, but in the ante-chamber beyond it a fierce struggle was taking place. Some of Lafayette's National Guard had arrived upon the scene and were fighting with the members of the bodyguard, whom they had been told were plotting to surprise and massacre them.

De Vaudreuil was there standing on a table, shouting that they had been told a pack of lies, and begging both sides to put up their weapons. His Liberal sentiments were known, so some notice was taken of him. Then Monsieur de Chevanne ran forward and, baring his breast, offered himself as a victim if the citizen soldiers demanded one. With the swift change of sentiment so typical of the French the attackers immediately acclaimed him a hero, embraced the members of the bodyguard and swore to defend them from their comrades.

But all was not yet over. The mob had fought its way up the great marble staircase and penetrated to the Oeil de Boeuf. By another entrance Lafayette had arrived and reached the King, whose only reproach to him was: "Monsieur, had I foreseen that you would be obliged to sleep, I should have remained awake."

Although belatedly, Lafayette now showed both loyalty and con­siderable courage. Out in the courtyard he saved the lives of ten body­guards by offering his life for theirs; then declared that he would no longer command cannibals, and would resign his post unless his men would accept his orders. This turned the tide and his troops began to clear the palace of the sans-culottes.

They were assisted in their task by the bodyguards and courtiers. In a hundred rooms, scores of corridors and on a dozen staircases, altercations and scuffles were going on. The majority of the rabble, now finding the National Guards against them, offered no resistance and slouched off, hurling curses over their shoulders; but, here and there, groups put up a fight and could not be turned out without bloodshed. In one such group, Roger saw a tall fishwife slash at a soldier with a hatchet, wound him in the arm, duck under the guard of another and run from the room. Sword in hand, he went after her.

The clothes of the poissardes amounted almost to a uniform, so it was easy to distinguish them. Most of the women were great muscular creatures, coarse-mouthed and brutal-faced; but Roger had been surprised to see that many of them were much above the average height. The one that he was chasing looked as tall as himself.

Seeing two Swiss guards approaching along the corridor, she darted up a service staircase. Roger dashed after her and caught sight of her again on the next floor. Shouting at her that if she halted and agreed to leave the palace quietly he would not harm her, he pursued her down the passage. At its end she came to a door and, finding it locked, turned at bay.

As Roger came pounding up he saw her face clearly for the first time. It was not that of a woman, but of a man. Next second he realized that his quarry was de Roubec.

Instantly there recurred to his mind the words he had overheard in the Palais Royal a few nights before—about not giving out the women's clothes until a first-class opportunity presented itself.* This, then, explained why so many of the poissardes were much taller than the average woman. The Orleanists had taken advantage of the ancient liberty accorded to the fishwives of Paris to approach the King and Queen without formality, to disguise a number of assassins in the type of garments the poissardes always wore, so that they could mingle with the real poissardes and under that cover commit the heinous task they had been given.

The revelation of this new piece of treachery added fuel to Roger's wrath. He had no thought now of settling his old score by slicing off the villain's ears and nose. With a cry of rage he rushed forward, intent to kill. De Roubec was half-crouching against the locked door with his hatchet raised to strike, but he never delivered the blow. It had been only a second before that he had recognized his pursuer. The knowledge that it was Roger now seemed to paralyse him with fear. The blood drained from his face. His unshaven chin showed blue in the early­-morning light, making his lean visage more than ever incongruous under its woman's bonnet. His mouth dropped open, showing his yellowed teeth. It seemed that he was about to scream for mercy; but there was time neither for him to ask nor receive it. Roger leapt the last few paces that separated them. His feet landed with a thud upon the floor. At the same instant he drove his sword through the cowering man's body."

De Roubec's eyes started from his head, a long low moan issued from his lips; suddenly he slid sideways and collapsed in a heap. Roger put his foot on the torso, gave his sword a twist, drew it out, and wiped it on the hem of the dark skirt beneath the poissarde's white apron.

For a moment he stood there frowning down upon the man who had caused Isabella and himself so much misery. They might by now be married and gloriously happy together in England had it not been for de Roubec's evil activities in Florence. Roger felt not an atom of compunction at having struck him down like a rat in a corner. To his mind the self-styled Chevalier had earned death thrice over; twice for having wrecked Isabella's life, and his own, by bringing about their separation, and a third time for having participated in the attempt to assassinate the Queen.

The sound of more firing and fresh tumult down below recalled Roger to the present, and while he was still staring at de Roubec's body an idea flashed into his mind.

It was by no means certain yet that Lafayette would succeed in clearing the palace of the insurgents. The National Guards were not to be relied on; at any moment some incident might turn them from their grudging obedience to renewed fraternization with the mob, then support of it. Should that happen the bodyguard would be over­whelmed and the Royal Family again in dire peril. Even if Lafayette's men did continue to obey him for the next few hours there was still the persistent rumour that they meant to take the King to Paris, and if they did it was certain that the Queen would refuse to be separated from him. In either case, it seemed to Roger, if things went well his presence would be redundant, but if they went badly he would stand a better chance of keeping near the Queen and, perhaps, being able to defend her in an emergency, if he disguised himself as a poissarde than if he remained in his ordinary clothes.

Hastily pulling off his coat and unbuckling his sword-belt, he began to strip de Roubec of the coarse female garments he was wearing. On stepping into the petticoats and ragged skirt he found that they came to within an inch of the floor, hiding his riding-boots. Untying the queue at the back of his neck he shook his head hard, and ran his fingers through his medium-long brown hair until it was sticking out wildly in all directions; then he put on the bonnet and pulled its frill low down over his forehead. To his grim amusement he found that de Roubec had been wearing breast-pads, so he put on this false bosom and over it the high-necked cotton blouse. His sword he picked up to carry in his hand, as most of the poissardes were armed and one of them might easily have taken it from a fallen bodyguard.

Looking out of a window he saw that the mob was now steadily being ejected from the front entrances of the palace, and decided that he had better join it; but in his new role he knew it might go hard with him if he fell foul of a group of angry Loyalists, so, hiding from time to time, he cautiously made his way down a back staircase and out through a side entrance.

As he mingled with the mob no one took any notice of him, and he gradually worked through the crush till he got to its densest part, which was swaying in a tightly packed mass that jammed the whole of the Cour de Marbre. From time to time there were sporadic shouts for the King, and in the course of an hour they steadily increased till they became a loud, imperative demand to see him.

At length he came out on the balcony, and the fickle populace cheered him; but after a few moments the cries of "Vive le Roil" died away and the crowd began to call for the Queen.

The King retired and the Queen appeared; she led Madame Royale by the hand and carried the Dauphin in her arms. The crowd hissed and booed, then a shout went up: "We want you without your children!: No children! No children!"

Madame Marie Antoinette withdrew. A moment later she re­appeared on the balcony alone. Her eyes were lifted to Heaven and she held her beautiful hands shoulder high, in an attitude of surrender.

Roger's heart missed a beat and he closed his eyes. The same thought had leapt into his mind as was already in hers. The conspirators had demanded her presence alone because they did not wish to risk harming the children, but intended to shoot her.

She was standing no more than twenty feet above the crowd, so an easy target, even for a pistol-shot; but her extraordinary courage seemed to stun her enemies. The vast crowd suddenly fell completely silent, then, forced to it by admiration, they began to cry, "Vive La Reine!’

After the Queen had gone in, the crowd called for the King again. When he came out there were more cheers, but a few voices started up the cry: "To Paris! To Paris!"

He went in, but they had him out again, a dozen times in the next hour; and every time the voices grew more insistent, until the cry became a chant: "To Paris! To Paris! To Paris!"

Afterwards Roger heard from de la Marck that each time the King had gone in, he had flung himself down in an elbow-chair, moaning: "I know not what to do I know not what to do!"

Lafayette asked the Queen her intentions, and she replied coldly: "I know the fate that awaits me in Paris, but my duty is to die protecting my children at the feet of the King."

Eventually Lafayette came out on the balcony, and announced that the King and his family would accompany the National Guard back to Paris at midday.

Expecting that the royal party would catch up with them, a part of the mob left at once, bearing on poles the heads of Messieurs Deshuttes and de Varicourt, two of the bodyguard whom they had murdered. At Sevres they halted, and seizing upon a wretched barber compelled him to undertake the gruesome task of dressing the hair on the dead heads.

By one o'clock the main contingent began to follow them to Paris. Several battalions of the National Guard, and another section of the mob, led the miles-long procession. Then came the royal coach, containing the King, Queen, Dauphin, Madame Royale, the King's young sister Madame Elizabeth, the Comte and Comtesse de Provence, and Madame de Tourzel. There followed carriages containing the royal household and then, since the National Assembly had declared its in­separability from the neighbourhood of the King, more than a hundred additional carriages filled with the deputies. The rear was brought up by sixty waggon-loads of grain seized from the municipality of Versailles, and more National Guards mingled with the last of the rioters.

Roger was now both very tired and very hungry. He had not slept for thirty hours and had had nothing to eat since a light snack taken in the palace the previous evening at a hastily arranged buffet. But as the procession moved off he elbowed, cursed, jostled and joked his way through the crush until he was within twenty feet of the royal carriage. He could get no nearer as the press was so great that it appeared to be borne on the shoulders of the sea of poissardes that surrounded it.

Craning his head above the crowd now and then, he kept as constant a look-out as he could. He had thrust his sword through a hip-high hole in his skirt, and had his pistols stuffed into his false bosom; but he realized now that though his having dressed as a poissarde had secured him a place within sight of the Queen, there was very little chance of his being able to intervene if any of the canaille attempted to harm her. Several times while the procession had been forming up lank-haired, brutal-faced ruffians had screamed out: "Death to the Austrian harlot!", levelled their muskets at her and fired them off. Whether their aim had been bad, or others near by had knocked their muskets up, Roger could not tell, but each time the bullets had whizzed harmlessly over her head. In no instance had he been near enough to grapple with her attacker, and he knew now that if she was shot all he could hope to do was to endeavour to mark her murderer down and later exact vengeance.

The King, with his usual bravery in the face of personal danger, had sought to shield her with his body, then, placing a hand on her shoulder, forced her to kneel down in the bottom of the carriage until the procession got under way. His complaisance in agreeing to go to Paris had once again brought him a wave of false popularity, and the firing ceased. Since their fat puppet had done as they wished the mob were pleased with him. Their mood became jocular, and they began to shout: "We've got the baker, the baker's wife and the baker's boy, so now we shall have bread." But they still took delight in insulting the Queen; the whole way to Paris they sang the filthiest songs and threw the most obscene epithets at her.

The march seemed never-ending. Actually, owing to the slow pace of the multitude, and the frequent halts caused by lack of march discipline in the long column, it occupied seven hours. At long last Paris was reached, and Bailly, with more fulsomeness than tact, greeted the King with the words: "What a beautiful day this is, when the Parisians are to possess Your Majesty and your family in their town."

Night had fallen, but the ordeal was not yet over. The Royal Family was dragged to the Hotel de Ville, and there compelled to listen for nearly two hours longer to windy speeches. Bailly again spoke of "this beautiful day" and the King replied that he came with joy and confidence into his good town of Paris.

His voice was so low that Bailly shouted in order that the people could hear. "His Majesty wishes me to tell you that he comes with joy into his good town of Paris."

At that the exhausted but still defiant Queen roused herself and cried: "Monsieur, you omitted to say 'with confidence'."

When these gruelling proceedings had at last concluded the royal party were allowed to get back into their carriages and, among further scenes of uproar, driven to the Palais des Tuileries. There, nothing had been prepared for their reception; all the living-rooms had either been granted to poor pensioners of the Court or long remained unoccupied. They were damp and dirty and, as it was now ten o'clock, pitch dark. With the few candles that could be found, the Royal Family started to settle themselves in, as well as circumstances permitted, for night. While the few available beds were being made up the bewildered little Dauphin remarked to his mother: "Everything is very ugly here, Madame."

"My son," replied Madame Marie Antoinette, "Louis XIV lodged here and found it very comfortable; we must not be more particular than he was."

Seeing her utter exhaustion Madame de Tourzel then took thechild from her and to the room which someone had hastily allotted them. It contained only one small bed, had entrances on three sides, and all of the doors having warped none of them would shut. She put the Dauphin to bed, barricaded the doors with all the movable furniture, and spent the night in a chair at his bedside.

After seeing the Queen enter the Tuileries, Roger had staggered back to La Belle Etoile. At first, not recognizing him in his strange garments, Monsieur Blanchard refused to let nun in. But, croaking out who he was, Roger pushed past him and swayed, drunk with fatigue, up to his room. He was now long past hunger. He had not closed his eyes for two days and a night. Flinging himself down on his bed still dressed in his woman's clothes, he slept the clock round.

In that he was luckier than the Queen. Next morning thousands of Parisians, who had not seen the Sovereigns during the recent crisis, surrounded the Tuileries and called on them to show themselves. They spent most of the day in satisfying the demands of an ever-changing crowd.

The King's arrival in Paris temporarily quelled the more general discontent. Although bread was as scarce as ever it was felt that by some miracle he would now soon ensure an ample supply of it. When­ever he appeared shouts of "Vive le Roi!" rent the air, and even the Queen reaped a little of his reflected popularity.

But all this was on the surface, and no more than the natural expres­sion of a loyalty to the throne which still animated a great part of the people. The real fact was that on July 16th the King had lost his power to continue as an absolute Monarch, and on October 6th he had lost his personal liberty. National Guard sentries now stood on duty at all the exits of his palace, in the corridors, and even along the walls of the room in which he fed. It was no longer easy for the Royal Family even to converse in private.

Such was already the situation when, on the morning of October 8th, clad once more in a quiet suit of his own, Roger went to the Tuileries to pay his respects to the Queen.

He thought that she had aged a lot in the past few days, but she received him with her unfailing courtesy, charm and awareness. She at once recalled his having come to Versailles on the 5th to offer his services, and thanked him on behalf of the King and herself.

When he asked if there was any further way in which he could be of service to her, she replied: "Our friends are all too few in these days, Mr. Brook. If, without danger to yourself, you feel that you can come here from time to time, I shall always be pleased to see you."

One good thing at least resulted from the terrible scenes at Versailles on the 5th and 6th of October. Many people averred that they had actually seen the Due d'Orleans, wearing a heavy great-coat and with a broad-brimmed hat pulled well down over his eyes, standing at the top of the marble staircase, pointing out to his assassins the way to the Queen's apartments. In any case it was universally accepted that His Highness had organized the attack on the palace. In consequence he had lost overnight the support of all but the vilest of the mob and a few personal adherents.

There was good reason to believe that men of such diverse views as Necker, Mirabeau, St. Priest, Montmorin, de P6rigord and the Due de Liancourt had all been involved to a greater or lesser degree in a conspiracy to force Louis XVI to abdicate and make d'Orleans Regent. But none of these leaders was prepared to countenance murder as a means of achieving that end, and all of them realized the danger of inciting the mob to such acts of violence. They condemned the out­break in the strongest terms and insisted that a public enquiry should be set on foot to investigate its origins.

The Marquis de St. Huruge, who had been definitely identified as one of the men dressed up as poissardes, and several others of d'Orleans' intimates, were arrested and, to the consternation of his remaining supporters, on October 14th the Duke left Paris without warning. It later transpired that he had had a brief, frigid interview with the King, and accepted a mission to England; and it was generally assumed that since he dared not face a public enquiry the King had sent him away rather than have a member of his own family exposed as a potential murderer.

During the few weeks that followed the installation of the Royal Family at the Tuileries, Roger took the Queen at her word, although, as things seemed to be settling down again, he made no further attempt to play the part of watchdog. He still could not rid himself of his heart­ache, and tiie tormenting thoughts of Isabella, so far away in Naples, that harassed him each night continued to rob him of all joy in life by day; but he did not allow that to interfere with his work, and stuck to it with dogged, if somewhat gloomy, persistence. The National Assembly now met in the Riding School of the Tuileries, and he spent most of his time in its vicinity, cultivating as many as possible of its members in order to gather material for his reports to Mr. Pitt; and every few days he made one of the little group of gentlemen who continued to wait upon the Queen.

It was on November 3rd, while he was attending one of these small gatherings, that Madame de Tourzel came up to him and said in a low voice: "Please to remain, Monsieur, until Her Majesty's visitors have gone. She wishes to speak with you in private."

Roger obediently outstayed the other ladies and gentlemen who were present, and when they had taken their leave the Queen beckoned him to follow her into a smaller room. Two National Guards had been posted inside the doors of the salon. There were none here, but evidently she feared that one of the many spies who were set about her might walk in without permission—as now often happened—for she gave Roger a skein of silk to hold, motioned him to sit down on a stool near her embroidery-frame, and sitting down herself, began to wind the silk into a ball. Without raising her eyes from the work, she said in a whisper:

"Mr. Brook, six months ago you undertook a dangerous mission for me, and executed it with skill and courage. I am now in an even more difficult position than I was then, and in much greater need. Nearly everyone who comes here is suspect, but you are less so than most because you are an Englishman; and also because you have been sufficiently discreet not to show the sympathy I know you bear us, by daily attendance at this mockery of a Court to which we have now been reduced. Would you be willing to serve me again by going on another journey ?"

Roger felt that the chances were all against his gaining anything by undertaking another mission for her. He had already won as much of her confidence as it was possible for any man in his circumstances to obtain. Moreover another mission would mean his leaving Paris to the detriment of his secret work, and this time there would be no adequate excuse for his doing so which he could give to Mr. Pitt.

Nevertheless, he was not at present involved in any particular undertaking of great moment to his country, and he felt that any dis­pleasure he might incur for having temporarily abandoned his post must not be allowed to weigh against the urgent need of this unfortunate but courageous woman. Better men than himself had jeopardized their careers in causes far less deserving, and he knew that if he refused he would feel ashamed at having done so for the rest of his life. So, loath as he was to risk possible dismissal by his own master, after only a moment's hesitation, he said:

"Madame, I will serve you willingly, in any way I can. Pray give me your orders."

She smiled her thanks, and said with tears in her voice: "It is my son. How I will bring myself to part with him I cannot think. But I have reached the conclusion that it is my duty to do so. He is France— the France of the future—and it is my belief that if he remains here he will be murdered with the rest of us."

"No, Madame, no!" Roger protested. "The situation is now becom­ing more tranquil every day."

Impatiently, she shook her head. "Do not be deceived, Mr. Brook. This quiet is but the lull before another and greater storm. Yet I think we may be granted a few months in which to take such measures as we may; and it is my dearest wish that before the tempest breaks the Dauphin should be conveyed to a place of safety. More, if 'tis known that he is beyond the power of our enemies, and in a situation to continue the royal line, that might well prove an additional safeguard to the King, his father."

Roger nodded. "There is much in that, Madame, and your personal sacrifice may prove to have been well worth while in the long run."

"But my problem has been where to send him," she went on. "The people will be furious when they learn that he has been sent abroad, and the National Assembly may demand his return; so it must be to some country which would be prepared to reject such a demand, and if need be incur the ill will of France on that account. I had at first thought of my brother, the Emperor Joseph, but he is again too ill, and his dominions in too great disorder, for me to burden him with such an additional care."

She was crying now, and as she paused to dab her eyes with a handkerchief, Roger threw a quick glance of apprehension at her. The obvious alternative seemed her other brother, Leopold of Tuscany, and Florence was the one city in Europe to which he could not go without exposing himself to very considerable danger.

After a moment she went on: "The Grand Duke Leopold would, I am sure, take M. le Dauphin at my request; but he needs a mother's care, and I feel that my sister is more to be relied upon to bring him up as I would wish. First, though, she will have to obtain her husband's consent to receiving a guest whose presence may embroil his Kingdom with France. Will you go for me, Mr. Brook, on a mission to Queen Caroline, and bring me back word whether King Ferdinand is willing to give my son asylum at the Court of Naples ?"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ON A NIGHT IN NAPLES

IN an instant Roger's whole outlook on fife was changed. For the past five months he had been a misanthrope; bitter, cynical, engaging himself from hour to hour in the first thing that offered, but unable to take a real joy or interest in either pleasure or work. Now, as by the waving of a fairy wand, all his old youth, vigour and enthusiasm flooded back to him.

He had not sought this mission of the Queen. On the contrary, he had agreed to undertake it out of chivalry. And now, accepting this task that had seemed so much against his own interests was to bring him a great reward. The magic word "Naples" meant that he would see Isabella again.

The thought that she might no longer be there did not even occur to him. The fact that she must now be married cast no shadow on the dawn of his renewed zest for life. Of his own volition he would never have gone to Naples and deliberately risked jeopardizing her relations with her husband; but now, he was being sent there. Fate had relented, and, it seemed clear to him, ordained that they were once more to breathe the same air, watch the stars hand in hand, and listen to one another's happy sighs. For many months his hopeless longing for her had been well-nigh intolerable, and now he had no doubt whatever that it was soon to be satisfied.

As in a dream, he took in the remainder of what the Queen had to say and received from her a locket, containing a miniature of the Dauphin, copied from a recent painting by Madame Vigee le Bran. It was to serve a dual purpose. Firstly, as the frame was set in brilliants in a curious design, and Madame Marie Antoinette had often worn it herself when a child, Queen Caroline would be certain to recognize it; so it would serve as a passport to her and make it unnecessary for Roger to carry any letter of introduction, which might have proved a danger to him. Secondly, the picture it now contained would show Queen Caroline what a charming little boy the nephew was, whom she was being asked to receive and mother.

A dozen times that evening Roger surreptitiously felt the locket, where he had concealed it under the frill of his shirt, to make quite certain that he had not imagined his interview at the Tuileries that afternoon. But there it was, the light but solid and slightly scratchy proof that next day he would be on his way to Isabella. Hardly able to contain himself for joy, he packed his gayest clothes in a valise and dashed off a note to Lord Robert Fitz-Gerald, simply stating that urgent business necessitated his absenting himself from Paris for about a month, and asking for that information to be conveyed to Whitehall.

The only cloud on his horizon was the small but very dark one that when he got to Naples his stay there could be only of very brief duration. Madame Marie Antoinette's letter to the Grand Duke Leopold had been a highly private assessment of the leading figures in French politics, and had called for no reply, so its delivery had not been a matter of any great urgency. But his present task was one of a very different nature. If he delayed in Naples overlong his whole mission might be rendered abortive by some new development in Paris during his absence. In any case poor Madame Marie Antoinette would be on tenterhooks until she received her sister's answer. So it was clearly his duty to get to Naples and return as swiftly as he possibly could.

In consequence, he decided that the only way in which he could square it with his conscience to remain a few days there was to travel with a speed beyond anything that even a fast courier would normally have accomplished. There were post-houses every five miles along the main roads, so by changing horses every time he reached one a courier could make the journey to Marseilles in about six days, but such hard riding demanded a good night's sleep at an inn each night. On the other hand a post-chaise could travel nearly as fast as relays of riding horses and, with changes of postilions as well as animals, it could continue on its way both day and night. Such a mode of travel was expensive, for it cost a shilling a mile; it also entailed great discomfort on the occupant of the post-chaise as, after a day or two, its continuous jolting became almost intolerable, quite apart from the fact that it deprived him of all proper sleep. Nevertheless Roger adopted this course without a moment's hesitation, considering it a small price to pay for a few days in which to do as he would, with a quiet mind, at the other end of his journey.

He ordered the post-chaise to be at La Belle Etoile at four o'clock next morning, and before dawn on November 4th he was out of Paris. There was hardly a stage on his way south that did not bring him vivid memories of Isabella.

By mid-morning he was being driven at a swift trot through the eastern edge of the forest of Fontainebleau, and it was in the forest that he had first met her. Many hours passed and the night was nearly gone when he reached the spot where he had come upon her coach being attacked; but dawn was breaking again as he entered Nevers, and he had a meal at the inn to which she had carried him bleeding from his wounds and sweating with pain; and at which, on a Sunday while the Senora Poeblar and the others were at church, Isabella had persuaded him to accompany her to Marseilles instead of going toFlorence via Chambery and Turin.

It was late that afternoon when, just on the far side of St. Pourcain, he traversed the place where some baggage had nearly fallen on his injured foot, and he and Isabella had first called one another by their Christian names; and it was the middle of the second night when the chaise mounted the hill beyond Lampdes where, in the close, warm semi-darkness of the coach, they had first kissed.

Evening had come again when he pulled up to sup at Orange, where Quetzal had had his encounter with the goat; and it was mid­night when the chaise passed through the silent streets of Avignon, recalling to Roger the Senora's death, her dying plea to him to respect Isabella's chastity and, two days later, the plighting of their troth.

At ten o'clock the following morning the chaise was rattling over the cobbles of Marseilles. He was incredibly tired, had a three days’ beard on his chin and was covered with dust, but he had done the journey in three and a quarter days. He had already ordered his leading postilion to take him straight to the Cafe d'Acajon, and as they drove up to it he saw that his luck was in; Monsieur Golard was quietly taking his morning repast there.

Climbing out of the chaise, Roger stretched his aching limbs; then, apologizing for his dishevelled appearance, accosted his old acquaintance. The shipowner recalled their previous meeting with pleasure, and at once pressed him to take some refreshment after his journey. To help keep himself awake for a few hours longer Roger ordered black coffee laced with brandy, and while it was being fetched enquired about sailings for Naples. Monsieur Golard said that he knew of no bottoms due to leave under three days; but on being pressed, he added that if speed was a greater consideration than either money or comfort, he thought he could arrange for a felucca to do the trip by private charter at a cost of about twenty-five ecus.

Roger considered the saving of time well worth the money, and by midday he was aboard a low, lateen-sailed craft that had a Corsican captain and a crew of four, all of whom looked like pirates. His main anxiety was that the weather should hold, as he was by no means a good sailor, and feared that if a storm arose such a fight barque would receive a most frightful buffeting. On his journey south he had hardly given a thought to the weather, but he realized now that when he left Paris it had been cold, dreary and raining, whereas here in Marseilles it was still as warm as late summer in England, and the midday sun made the low gunnel of the felucca hot to the touch.

But he was far too tired to take pleasure in the balmy Mediterranean climate at the moment, or even worry very much at the prospect of being sea-sick if they struck one of the storms to which that treacherous sea is liable in all seasons. No sooner had the vessel cast off from the pier than he dropped down her deck-hatch, stumbled to the berth that had been made up for him, lay down on his face to spare his aching backside, and fell into a sleep of exhaustion.

During the voyage Fortune continued to favour him. No ominous cloud darkened the horizon and a moderate wind enabled the felucca to make good headway. On the second evening out from Marseilles they cleared safely the tricky passage between the islands of Corsica and Sardinia; and later, looking astern, he enjoyed one of the loveliest sunsets he had ever seen. A sky of salmon, orange and gold threw up into sharp relief the dark outline of the two islands, giving their crags and forests an air of enchanted mystery. Yet even this scene of beauty took second place in his mind to that which unfolded before him the following afternoon.

Soon after midday they raised the island of Ischia, with beyond it the summit of Vesuvius; and an hour later the Neapolitan coastline came into view. As they entered the vast bay the landscape gradually took on colour and detail. By three o'clock Ischia was behind them to the left, then came a channel, the little island of Pracida, another channel, and Cape Gaveta running out towards the two islands. Curving away from the Cape, the isthmus of Posilipo sheltered the city, which faced due south and seemed to run for miles along the shore. A forest of masts rising from the shipping lying in the roads stood out sharply against the white buildings on the waterfront, but the ground rose steeply, and further inland spires and domes towered above them.

Beyond the centre of the city lay higher slopes of verdant green, dotted with hundreds of villas looking out over it across the bay. Dead ahead, dominating the whole splendid scene, Vesuvius reared its barren upper slopes to the blue sky, a plume of smoke drifting gently from its crater. Further south the land curved again, running out in the long peninsula of Sorrento. To seaward of it, twenty miles away and now behind them on their right, the isle of Capri was just discernible; so that as they tacked in northward towards the harbour the eye was enchanted on every side by the lovely scenery of this enormous lagoon.

Shortly after four o'clock Roger landed by some steps almost in the shadow of the Castello dell'Ovo. It was Monday, November 9th, and he had received his mission from the Queen only on the proceeding Tues­day, so he had performed his journey in the remarkably short space of five nights and six days. He reckoned that he had made three clear days over a courier by taking post-chaise from Paris to Marseilles; but there his advantage ceased, as the courier would have caught the bottom mentioned by Monsieur Golard as sailing three days after he left, so by chartering the felucca he had actually done little more than main­tain his hypothetical lead. But for three days he felt that he could justly consider himself his own master; and if his luck still held he might be detained in Naples for several additional days after he had seen Queen Caroline, while she secured the consent of King Ferdinand to receiving the Dauphin. His three-day voyage had given him ample opportunity to rest his aching bones and sleep his fill; so as he went ashore he was feeling tremendously excited and extremely well.

During his brief visit to Tuscany he had picked up a few phrases of Italian, but he soon found that the Tuscan tongue differed almost as much from Neapolitan as from Spanish, so he had to fall back on Latin, and accosted a well-dressed passer-by in that language. The stranger told him that all the rich foreign visitors to Naples stayed at Crocielles, and helped him to secure a carozza to take him to this famous hotel.

He had at first thought of lying low in some quiet lodging till he could find out the lie of the land, but two factors had decided him against it. Firstly, the language difficulty would have proved a perpetual stumbling-block in any arrangements that he wished to make; secondly, he could not bear the. thought of wasting a single hour in any place where it was unlikely that he would be unable to obtain news of Isabella. By going to Crocielles it was a certainty that he would find people there who moved in Neapolitan society, so could give him without delay the information he was so anxious to secure.

The company at Crocielles amply justified his hopes. Half a dozen English milor's and their families had recently arrived to winter there, a score of French exiles had now made it their headquarters, and there were also a few wealthy Germans. As soon as he had had a meal he got in conversation with several gentlemen who were about to enjoy an evening concert in the music-room, and once more he found that the goddess Fortune was still beaming upon him.

To begin with the King and Queen were not in Naples. They had gone on a State visit to Sicily and were at present in Palermo; but they were expected back at the end of the week. Nothing could have suited him better as, had they been staying in Sicily longer, it would clearly have been his duty to follow them there; but if he did so now the probability was that he would pass them on their way home, and thus lose several days before he could catch up with them again. By remaining in Naples to await their return he would be acting in the best interests of his mission, and at the same time reap a bonus of an extra day or two for his own affairs.

While the conversation was on the subject of the Court, he adroitly turned it to the personages about the King and Queen, then asked casually if any of the gentlemen present were acquainted with the Conde and Condesa Sidonia y Ulloa.

A young wit who was in the party took snuff and said with a snigger: "Who, having once seen the lady with black caterpillars for eyebrows, could ever forget her?"

Roger could have slain him, but dared show no umbrage, so veiled his eyes and prayed that the red flush he felt mounting to his cheeks would pass unnoticed. Next moment the reflection on his beloved's beauty was driven from his mind by an older man remarking:

"If you carry a letter of introduction to Don Diego I fear that you will have no chance of presenting it as yet. He is one of the Court Cham­berlains, so from home at the moment, attending Their Majesties in Palermo."

Instantly Roger's spirits soared up like a rocket. The statement surely implied that, of all the times in the year that he might have come to Naples, on just these few days he had earned so hardly he would find Isabella alone, unhampered by a jealous husband. Next second, his spirits fell like lead to his boots. It might equally well, or even better, be implied that she had accompanied her husband to Palermo; in which case those desperately won days would be utterly wasted, and from lack of even a sight of her become as gall and wormwood in his mouth.

From fear of compromising her, he could not possibly ask the all-important question that itched upon the tip of his tongue; so as soon as he could he excused himself, and next had a word with the hall porter.

A straight question elicited the fact that the Sidonia y Ulloas lived in a big villa half a mile further up the hill, and the man described its situation so clearly that it would have been difficult for a stranger to fail to find it, even at night. Then he added as an afterthought: "The Conde Diego is at present in Sicily with Their Majesties; but I saw the Condesa drive past in her carriage this morning."

Just as Roger could have slain the wit a few minutes earlier, he could now have kissed the porter. Fortune seemed to be wafting him on a magic carpet towards his dearest desires. Yet he did his utmost to conceal his elation, and remarked that, in that case, he must postpone his call.

Exercising an iron control over feet that itched to run, he sauntered slowly across the hall and upstairs to his room. Having collected his cloak he slipped quickly down a flight of back stairs to a side entrance, and so out into the garden. Darkness had come, and despite the warmth of the day the November night was chilly. Drawing his cloak about him, he slid like a shadow between the oleanders along a path to the road, then turning, he set off in yard-long strides up the hill.

Within a quarter of an hour he found the villa. It was a big house standing in about three acres of its own grounds. Its front facade was in complete darkness, except for a lantern above the porch. He walked some way round the wall that encircled the garden, hoping to get a full view of the back of the house; but that proved impossible, owing to intervening trees. As far as he could see there were no lights in the upper windows. A sudden depression descended on his mind like a damp, cold hand, as it occurred to him that Isabella might be out at some party and not be returning until the small hours of the morning.

To find out if she was or was not there now seemed more than ever a matter of desperate urgency. Feverishly he began to hunt for a foothold in the wall. After a few minutes' search he found one, stuck the toe of his boot in it, kicked off hard with his other foot, grabbed the top of the wall and hauled himself up till he was astride its coping.

He could see better now. There were lights in three of the down­stairs windows. Instantly his depression lifted. Dropping down on the far side of the wall, he thrust his way through a screen of bushes and emerged on to a path. Treading gently now he advanced towards the house. The path ran round a fish-pond, and as he skirted it he could see the lighted windows only from an oblique angle. It was not until the path turned inward again, quite near the house, that he could see into the room on to which the three tall windows gave.

His view was partially obscured by muslin drapes, but the heavy brocade curtains behind them had not been drawn, so between the drapes three diamond-shaped sections of the interior were visible. The room was long but of only medium height; the windows ran almost up to its ceiling, and Roger now saw that the centre one was really a pair of narrow double-doors that opened on to the garden. He took another few paces forward to get a more direct view of the room. As he did so a section of a woman's skirt, beyond the nearest muslin drape, came into his line of vision. Next moment he could see the whole figure. It was Isabella.

She was sitting in a low chair reading a book, and as she read she occasionally took a puff at a long cheroot. Roger knew that many Spanish ladies smoked. He had never seen Isabella do so before, but it occurred to him that perhaps she had been unable to obtain tobacco in that form in France.

His heart was pounding like a sledge-hammer in his chest. Had he, six nights before in Paris, been presented with a djinn out of the Arabian Nights to do his bidding, it could not have served him better than his own endurance and luck. He could hardly believe it to be true that he had really found his adorable Isabella again—and found her alone. But there she was, within a dozen yards of him. He had only to open the french window and walk through it to hold her in his arms.

It remained only to let her know of his presence without frightening her and causing her to alarm her household. Stooping, he picked up a few little pieces of lava, from which the path he was standing on was made; then he threw one gently at the window.

At the faint tap it made she looked up, but after a second reverted to her reading. He threw two more in quick succession. She looked up again, staring straight towards him now, yet not seeing him outside in the dark. He threw another. She closed her book, put down her cheroot, stood up, came over to the window, and opening it a little, called in Spanish: "Who is there?"

Roger's voice came in a whisper: " 'Tis I, dear heart."

Isabella stiffened as though she had been struck with a whip; then her hands began to tremble violently, and she almost whimpered: "Rojé! It cannot be true! It cannot be true!"

He too was quivering as he stepped out of the shadows. She swayed towards him, her arms outstretched. He sprang to meet her, and drew her into an embrace so fierce that it threatened to crush the very bones of her body. Her mouth found his, and melted under it in a delirious, half-swooning kiss.

Nine hours later, just as dawn was breaking, she let him out of the french window, and he stole across the silent garden to the place where he had entered it over the wall. As he straddled it and dropped down on the far side he could well have exclaimed with joy—as did Henry VIII on greeting his courtiers the morning after he had been married to Cathrine of Aragon—"Gentlemen, this night I have been in the midst of Spain."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE EARTHLY PARADISE

THOSE nine hours that Roger spent with Isabella in her great canopied bed passed for the reunited lovers as though they had been no more than ninety minutes. Neither closed an eye except momentarily to savour better the cup of pleasure, and they were not even called upon to control their transports from fear of being overheard. Isabella's bedroom lay above the garden-room where Roger had found her, and the previous owner of the villa—a beautiful Neapolitan who had been notorious for her amours—had had a narrow staircase connecting the two cut in the end wall of the house, so that whenever she wished she could receive her lovers in secrecy.

The only other entrance to the bedroom lay through an ante­chamber in which Maria slept at night. She was in Isabella's confidence and entirely to be trusted. When Isabella had called her in, and she saw Roger, her fat, honest face had glowed with delight, and she ran to kiss his hand. Now that her mistress was married she would have thought her mind unhinged by shock had she failed to reward her lover for his faithfulness and restraint while she was still unwed. She had gone downstairs and smuggled them up a supper of oysters, cold truffled pheasant pie, tartlets, fruit and wine; then left them to take their joy of one another. So, at long last, when the gods had decided to be kind to these two young people they had grudged them nothing.

Although the lovers had so much to say to one another, the golden hours sped by so swiftly that when they exchanged their parting kiss it seemed they had said almost nothing. Yet, as Roger made his way, feeling as though he walked on air, back to his hotel, he realized that they had talked of many things.

First, and most important, there were the arrangements for their meeting again. To his unbounded joy there was no impediment to his passing every night with Isabella until her husband returned with Their Majesties from Sicily. But that was not enough; they were greedy for every hour, for every moment, that they could spend in one another's company, and Isabella had declared that the solution to their problem lay in Roger's immediate introduction to Neapolitan society.

Her grief at losing him had equalled his at losing her, but she had found some consolation in life at Naples. She had expected to find her­self virtually a prisoner, hedged about with the same restraints and wearisome etiquette that made existence so dreary for ladies of high rank at the Court of Madrid; but that had not proved the case.

Although King Ferdinand was a Spaniard, during his reign of thirty years various causes had gradually whittled away the Spanish influence in his Kingdom. His father, Don Carlos, while still once removed from the Spanish throne, had conquered Naples and made himself its King; but to win the goodwill of the Neapolitans he had given them a treaty guaranteeing that the crowns of Spain and Naples should never be merged upon one head. So, when his half-brother died in 1759, and he ascended the throne of Spain—his eldest son, Phillip, being an idiot—he had made his second son, Carlos, Prince of the Asturias and heir to the Spanish crown, and given his third son, Ferdinand, Naples as an independent Kingdom.

Ferdinand, then only a boy of eight, had ruled by a Council of Regency, dominated by his tutor Tanucci; but a year after Ferdinand attained his majority he had married the Archduchess Maria Carolina of Austria. The marriage treaty had stipulated that she should have a say in all affairs of State; and, being a strong-willed young woman, she soon got him under her thumb. She had allied herself with the Neapolitan nobility, succeeded in getting Tanucci dismissed, and reversed his policy. Queen Caroline had not gone to the length of attempting to break the Bourbon Family Compact, so Naples was still allied to France and Spain; but in the twenty-one years that she had now been Ferdinand's consort she had modelled his Court on that of Vienna, instead of Madrid, and done away with all the hidebound etiquette with which the Spaniards surrounded royalty.

There were still several great Spanish families, such as the Novinos, Santa Marias and d'Avilas, living in Naples; but they had intermarried with the Sambucas, Monteliones, della Roccas, and other ancient Neapolitan houses; so now formed part of one aristocracy.

Isabella said that after the glittering Court of Versailles she found these petty princes and their ladies very provincial, but far nicer than the French. As Sovereigns, King Ferdinand and Queen Caroline left much to be desired. Naples was one of the most backward States in

Europe, and its peasantry still groaned under the burdens of a feudal tyranny while its rulers concerned themselves with little except their own pleasure. But they mingled freely with their nobility, often in an almost bohemian manner, and this gave an air of spontaneous gaiety to life in their capital.

Everyone of importance in Naples owned one or more villas with lovely gardens, within an easy drive of the city, at Posilipo, Portici or Sorrento; and even in winter the mildness of the climate enabled them to enjoy these properties. Almost every day one or other of Isabella's friends made up a little party of eight or ten people, to lunch informally and spend the afternoon at a villa along the coast; so while she could not invite Roger openly to her own house, she could get her friends to include him in these parties, and thus spend most of each day with him.

In the Princess Francavilla she had found such a sweet and sym­pathetic friend that she had confided to her the story of her love affair with Roger; so it would be easy to send the Princess a note that morning and have him invited for the afternoon. After that the Princess would take charge of matters and, without Isabella being compromised, arrange for him to be asked by mutual friends to every party where she herself would be.

When he had enquired after Quetzal Isabella told him that her Indian was well, as devoted to her as ever, and showed great intelligence over his lessons, which now occupied most of his time; but, un­fortunately, had taken an intense dislike to her husband. Feeling that he must find out where he stood, in case Don Diego returned from Sicily earlier than was expected, Roger had then asked, as casually as he could, if she found her husband tolerable to five with, and she had replied:

"I have no reason to complain of him. We were married almost immediately after my arrival here, and I had no option but to submit to his will. As my heart was, and is, yours, 'tis hardly to be wondered at if he found me cold. After the first few weeks he ceased to exercise his rights and openly returned to his mistress. In Naples it is the fashion for every man of quality to keep a mistress, whether he has a use for her or not. He had retained a pretty young thing of seventeen, whom he had been keeping before my arrival; so my failure to provide a counter-attraction caused him no inconvenience.

"For a man of only thirty he is very old-fashioned, and if he could, he would, I am sure, make me live the type of life to which women are condemned in Spain; but fortunately he dare not, for any husband who attempted to put his wife behind bars here would be the laughing-stock of Naples. He treats me with grave courtesy and is at most times of a pleasant temper; but now and then he is subject to very black moods. I soon learned their cause. It is not the custom here for men to remain faithful to their mistresses any more than to their wives, and these moods arise each time he has set his mind on some new charmer. They last as long as she rejects him; but as chastity is the exception rather than the rule among the fair of Naples his black fits are rarely of lengthy duration."

When Roger asked if Don Diego knew of their own affair, Isabella had shaken her head. "Had he heard anything of it, I feel sure he would have questioned me; but he has never done so. Fortunately there is little communication between this Court and that of Tuscany, and my cousin, who escorted me hither, naturally kept a still tongue for the family's sake. My aunt, of course, wrote to my mother of it, and it was from fear that someone who knew about my clandestine stay in Florence should arrive here that she hurried my marriage forward; but the fact that I had retained my virginity saved me from all but mild reproaches at having been most foolishly indiscreet. She and my father have since returned to Spain; so I do not think anyone here, except my friend Dorina Francayilla, will realize that we have even met before."

"There could be no harm in letting it be known that we met at Fontainebleau," Roger hazarded.

To that she had agreed, and added: "I think it might be well to do so. If we are to meet frequently in company a common interest in the Court of France will provide good grounds for our having a lot to say to one another."

During his walk down the hill Roger turned these matters over in his mind, and found them all extremely satisfactory. On arriving at Crocielles he ordered cans of water to be brought up to his room so that he could have a bath, and while he was having it contemplated his next move.

On his voyage from Marseilles he had decided to make capital out of what he felt to be Mr. Pitt's unmerited rebuke regarding his earlier mission. The Prime Minister had tentatively suggested that he might have sent Madame Marie Antoinette's letter by way of the British Embassy bag, and Roger still felt that to have done so would seriously have jeopardized the credit he was then hoping to gain with her. But he saw now that where he had been at fault was in not making use of British diplomatic facilities when he had arrived in Florence. He could easily have gone to the Ambassador, Lord Hervey, told him the facts, and got him to arrange a private audience with the Grand Duke.

At the time the idea had never occurred to him, but had it done so he could have saved himself a vast amount of trouble, considerable danger, and probably the loss of Isabella. Now, profiting by his previous shortsightedness, he had made up his mind to wait upon Sir William Hamilton, the British Envoy in Naples, as the best and simplest means of securing an audience with Queen Caroline.

When he had told Isabella his intention during the past night, she agreed to its wisdom, and pointed out that as they planned for him to enter Neapolitan society at once, the sooner he waited upon Sir William the better; for if he delayed it might later be thought strange that he had failed to present himself on his arrival. Then she asked him if he knew anything about the diplomat.

When Roger replied that he knew him only by name, she said:

"He is a cousin of the Duke of Hamilton, and must now be a man of about sixty. 'Tis said that when he first entered your diplomatic service he had ambitions, but he has been en post here for over a quarter of a century, and the laissez-faire atmosphere of the city of the bay has now, no doubt, reconciled him to remaining in this backwater until his career is terminated. He has the bearing of a true aristocrat and is intelligent beyond most. Moreover, he is a man of great taste. His collection of Roman antiques can scarcely be rivalled, and his mistress, although a flamboyant creature, is one of the most beautiful women I have ever met."

"You know her, then?" Roger exclaimed in some surprise.

"Everybody does," had come the quick reply. "She fives with him at the Palazzo Sessa, but the affaire is conducted very discreetly. His wife, who brought him his fine fortune, died in '82; and evidently after a few years of widowhood he found casual amours unsatisfactory to a man of his age and quiet tastes. Three seasons ago he brought out two ladies from England to winter with him in Naples. The elder, a Mrs. Cadogan, he installed as his housekeeper, and it was said that the younger, a Miss Amy Hart, had come here to study art and music. They repeated the visit last year, and are here again now. But there are so many English visitors to Naples that the truth of the matter soon leaked out. Miss Hart, or "Emma", as he calls her, is Mrs. Cadogan's daughter, and was an artist's model. She sat, I am told, for several paintings by your great artist Romney. Meanwhile she was kept and educated by Sir William's nephew, Charles Hamilton; but he became heavily in debt, so his uncle struck a bargain with him. He paid off his debts in exchange for his beautiful mistress."

"Since all this is known, I find it more surprising than ever that she should be received into society."

"You would not think so if you knew Naples better. The people here count sweetness of disposition as of greater worth than virtue. She is well behaved and does the honours of the Palazzo Sessa charm­ingly. 'Tis believed by many that they are secretly married and that in reality she is Lady Hamilton. In any case Queen Caroline, whose own morals are not beyond reproach, has made a friend of her, although, of course, she is not officially received at Court."

A few hours later Roger was still pondering the information Isabella had given him about this interesting menage, when he drove up to the Palazzo Sessa. Sir William was at home, and, after only a short wait, received him.

The elderly diplomat's aquiline features were bronzed by the sun of many Neapolitan summers, but its enervating climate did not seem to have undermined his quick perception, and Roger took an immediate liking to him. As soon as he had disclosed his business, and produced the miniature of the Dauphin, Sir William said:

"Although you tell me that you are acting privately on behalf of Madame Marie Antoinette, and Whitehall has no cognizance of your mission, I see great possibilities in turning it to the advantage of Britain, so will willingly do all I can to assist you."

As Roger thanked him, he went on: "You will no doubt be aware that Naples is still tied to France by the Bourbon Family Compact. For many years it has been my principal task to loosen that tie, and my efforts have not been altogether unsuccessful. In that, of course, I have been much assisted by the attitude of Queen Caroline, and the friend­ship of General Acton."

Roger knew that Sir William referred to the Neapolitan Prime Minister, but knowing nothing of the General's history, he committed the faux pas of remarking: "It must certainly have been a great asset to you, sir, that King Ferdinand should have chosen an Englishman for his principal councillor."

Sir William raised a humorous grey eyebrow. " 'Tis stretching something of a long bow to term him that; for he is half French, was born in France, educated there, and has spent the whole of his adult life in Italy."

"I pray you forgive me, sir," Roger said, with a slight flush. "But this is my first visit to Naples and I am abysmally ignorant of Neapolitan affairs."

"Then I had best tell you something of them," smiled Sir William; "at least to the extent of a few brief details about the people you will have to meet, and on whom the success or failure of your mission hinges. John Acton has carved out a fine career for himself, as his father was no more than a physician. He was travelling in France with the father of Mr. Edward Gibbon and on their coming to Besancon he decided that it would be a good place in which to settle and establish a practice. He married a French lady, and John was born a year or so afterwards. John's uncle had some influence at the Court of Florence, and at his suggestion the boy entered the Tuscan navy. His big chance did not come until he was nearly forty. It was in '75. Spain and Tuscany sent a joint expedition against the pirates of Algiers and the affair proved a serious disaster; but John, who had command of a frigate, performed prodigies of valour in the retreat and from that point received rapid promotion."

Sir William paused a moment, before going on: "You should also know that Queen Caroline has a very strong personality. She is extremely ambitious and by no means uninclined to gallantry. At that time her favourite was Prince Caramanico, and knowing her desire to make Naples a stronger power the Prince suggested to her that she should get John Acton to reorganize the Neapolitan navy. The Queen induced her brother, the Grand Duke, to part with his most promising sailor, and Acton was made King Ferdinand's Minister of Marine. He achieved such rapid progress in his task that he was asked to also undertake the reorganization of the army, and given a second portfolio as Minister of War.

"He has, of course performed miracles. When he came here ten years ago the Neapolitan navy was practically non-existent and the army numbered less than fifteen thousand men; whereas now Naples can send a fleet of one hundred and twenty sail to sea and put sixty thousand men in the field. But such feats cost money and quite early in the game John's demands practically emptied the Neapolitan treasury. To that only one answer could be found; they gave him a third portfolio and made him Minister of Finance."

Roger began to laugh, and Sir William smiled back at him. "By that time Prince Caramanico was in something of the position of a bird that has inadvertently imported a cuckoo's egg into its own nest. But the little monster had hatched out, so it was too late to do anything about it. However, Acton pushed him out of the nest quite gently. He got him sent as Ambassador to London. Then he had himself appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Neapolitan Forces by Land and Sea, and Prime Minister."

"All that, I take it, sir, was by favour of the Queen ?" Roger enquired.

"By that and his own great abilities. It has always been her ambition to have a voice in the councils of Europe; but a voice unbacked by force is as one crying in the wilderness. Naples is by nature a small and poor State. When she came here it was accounted insignificant. But in General Acton she found a man who could make Naples, if not feared, at least well worth courting. So they have good reason to be pleased with one another."

"Am I right in supposing, sir, that His Majesty concerns himself only with his own pleasures?"

Sir William nodded. "His tutor, Bernardo Tanucci, sought to gain a permanent hold over him by initiating him into vice when he was still a boy; and even took him to such low haunts as the public stews. Queen Caroline soon got rid of Tanucci, but the King has never lost his taste for low company. Although he is now thirty-eight his mentality is still that of a boy of fourteen. He likes to think of himself as an Haroun al Raschid, and often goes about the city with a few of his cronies in disguise; but disguised so thinly as to ensure recognition, so that he may enjoy his favourite sport of playing the King among the beggars."

Roger recalled that Isabella had said something about Ferdinand having been nicknamed El Rey de Lazzarone. He had not understood the inference at the time, but Sir William was continuing:

"As you must have seen, there are thousands of idle vagabonds about the city. They are known as the Lazzarone, and live almost entirely by petty crime; but they enjoy extraordinary licence, and no official dare bring them to book, as the King himself is the chief of their Guild, and they enjoy his special protection. When he is not clowning with them, he is either making childish attempts to deceive the Queen while pursuing some woman, or engaged in 'Nimrodical expeditions', as he terms the big shooting parties that are another passion of his, from his country palace at Caserta."

"It seems then, from what you tell me, sir, unlikely that His Majesty will have much say in the deciding of my business."

"If the Queen and General Acton are favourably inclined you may count it as good as done. But the King will have to be consulted; as, in the last event, should they receive the Dauphin here, and later refuse a peremptory demand for his return by the new National Government of France, that might involve Naples in war."

"Think you the French would really go to such lengths, sir?"

"They might; although the greater probability is that it would beget no more than ill-feeling between the two States. But 'tis that which interests me so greatly in your project. General Acton quite rightly places the interests of Naples before all else, although his English blood naturally inclines him favourably towards us. The Queen, as a daughter of Maria Theresa, has a natural bias towards Austria. So the present alliance of Naples with France and Spain is in opposition to the sentiments of both. Moreover, I am in the happy position of enjoying a far greater degree of their confidence than are the Ambassadors of France and Spain, so able to take the best advantage of any new turn in the diplomatic situation which may offer. If your mission is successful it may well create one, and give me just the chance I need. On grounds of sentiment alone, it should not be difficult to persuade Queen Caroline to give asylum to her nephew, and if she once does so she is far too proud and stubborn a woman ever to give him up. Should serious friction with France result on that account I feel confident that I could detach Naples from her old alliance and bring about a new one between her, Austria and Britain."

"I pray that events may enable you to do so, sir," Roger said, smiling.

Sir William stood up, beckoned him across to the big window, and waved a well-manicured hand towards the magnificent panorama of the bay.

"Let your eyes dwell there, Mr. Brook," he said with sudden seriousness. "As mine have done for twenty-five long years. You can forget John Acton's army and navy. In creating them he has served his mistress to the best of his ability; but the army is a rabble that would run at the very sight of my old regiment of Foot Guards, and it needs more than fisherfolk dressed as tars to make a navy. But the bay's the thing."

The elderly dilettante laid a friendly hand on Roger's shoulder, and went on: "You are too young to have played a part in the wars that near destroyed us in the '70s, and you were still in your cradle when Clive won Plassey and Wolfe Quebec. But for fourteen of the best years of my life we have been at war with the French, and I've not a doubt that we've yet to fight them again. Malmesbury, Ewart, Murray Keith, Eden, Dorset, Elliot, all my colleagues who have had the luck to represent their King in more important capitals than myself, think the same. And when it comes Britain must stand or fall, as she has always done, by sea-power. If war broke out next week Naples would become a French fleet-base. Just look at it. 'Tis the finest harbour in the Mediter­ranean—nay, 'tis the finest harbour in the world. But if we could stymie the French! If we could break their hold by a piece of skilful diplomacy, eh? Think of an English squadron lying there! It would dominate the whole of the western Mediterranean. Britain needs that bay. God grant me a few years yet to conclude the task that my heart has so long been set upon. Britain has got to have that bay."

For a moment they stood there in silence, looking down on the vast lagoon. In four more years, almost to the day, Sir William Hamilton —the man whom Whitehall had forgotten for so long—was to see his heart's desire realized. He was to stand at that very window, with a promising young Captain named Nelson beside him, gazing with pride and joy at a British squadron being revictualled by the ally he had won for his country.

But his triumph was still part of the unknown future, and with a sudden return to his light, affable manner, he said: "I trust you'll join me in a glass of wine, Mr. Brook, and tell me the latest news of the terrible disturbances that now convulse France."

Roger spent a further hour with him, then as he rose to take his leave Sir William said: "It is my loss that you have friends in Naples to whom you have already engaged yourself to dine; but I must insist that you have your things sent round from Crocielles and make the Palazzo Sessa your home during your stay in Naples."

The very last thing that Roger wanted was to tie himself up as a K/RS guest in a private house; so as he stammered his thanks he sought desperately for some way to excuse himself, and went on to murmur that, while he would be most happy to dine one evening, he could not dream of imposing further on Sir William's kindness.

Catching the note of perturbation in his voice the diplomat replied with a twinkle in his eye: "Please have no fear that I will seek to keep you from your other friends, Mr. Brook. Besides, at your age you will naturally wish to see something of the gaieties of the town. I have long nicknamed my home 'The Royal Arms', as I encourage my guests to treat it as an hotel. There is a night porter on the gate who will let you in at any hour you wish, and I will only add that when you have no other engagements we shall be delighted to have you with us."

To such true hospitality there could be only one answer. Having thanked Sir William again Roger returned to Crocielles, settled his bill and had his valise sent along to the Palazzo Sessa.

At Crocielles he found a note awaiting him from the Princess Francavilla. It requested his company at her town house at one o'clock, to join a party for a drive out to her villa at PosiKpo, where they would spend the afternoon. As it was still only a little after twelve he had ample leeway to get there at the time for which he was asked, so decided to walk and see something more of the city.

Naples, he found, could not approach Florence for the grandeur of its buildings; neither had it the cleanliness that the reforming Grand Duke had imposed upon the Tuscan capital. Its beauty lay in its marvellous setting, and a distant view was needed to savour its full enchantment. The streets were narrow, their smells noisome and the swarms of people in them, for the most part, indescribably ill-clad and dirty. Yet they seemed far from unhappy, and the beneficent climate they enjoyed for so many months of the year was clearly a great offset to their poverty.

They were going about their work as though it did not matter in the least if it got done that day or next week, and half of them were gossiping idly or playing games of chance in the gutters. The rags they wore were the only visible sign of hardship, for their bronzed faces were healthy, their black hair lustrous and curly and their dark eyes sparkling with vitality. In the better part of the town there were many black-coated abbe's, brown-robed friars, and nuns wearing various types of headdress. Every street had its quota of mendicants, who often displayed repulsive deformities while calling on the passers-by for alms; and Roger noted with interest that, poor as the crowd appeared, they gave freely of little copper coins.

At the Francavilla mansion, on the Chiaia, he was shown up to a salon on the first floor, where he found both the Princess and Isabella awaiting him. Dorina Francavilla was a Spaniard, her grandfather having been one of Don Carlos' captains at the time of the conquest of Naples; but she had fair hair and grey eyes. She spoke French fluently and told Roger that having heard so much about him she was enchanted to meet him. As Isabella's confidante her pleasure was unbounded at this unforeseen resumption of her friend's broken romance. She said that he was lucky indeed to love such a pearl among women, as all her efforts to persuade Isabella to console herself for his loss by taking a lover had proved in vain; so that after five months in Naples she was near acquiring the horrid reputation of a prude; and that now they were together again she meant to see to it that they made up for lost time, by not losing an hour of one another's company.

Roger thanked her with a grace that came naturally to him, and she gaily declared that she liked him so well that if Isabella did not look to her laurels she would snatch him for herself. Soon afterwards her husband came in, a portly middle-aged man of jovial countenance, who gave Roger an equally pleasant welcome. While they were taking a glass of wine the other guests arrived: two cavaliers, a handsome young abb6, and three ladies. When they were all assembled they went down­stairs to a line of waiting carriages, and were driven for three miles west, along the waterfront, to Posilipo.

The Francavillas' country-house was situated on the point looking due south across twenty miles of water to the isthmus of Sorrento. Below the great cone of Vesuvius it looked as if Naples stretched as far as the eye could see, but actually the distant clusters of buildings fringing the shore were those of towns and villages linked by country villas in an almost continuous chain. In the gardens of the villa there were palm-trees, cypresses, magnolias, camellias and oleanders, making shady walks, each terminating in arbours, stone seats, or fine pieces of ancient statuary.

It was, as Roger soon found after an excellent repast, a paradise for lovers. Without the least suggestion of indecorum the five couples paired off and strolled at their leisure through the green alleyways, to settle themselves for the rest of the afternoon in some of the many re­treats where there was no likelihood whatever of their being disturbed.

At five o'clock they reassembled on the terrace, and shortly after­wards drove back to Naples. Before they separated the Marchesa di Santa Marco asked Roger to join a party for a visit to her villa at Resina the following afternoon, and at a flutter of the eyelid from Isabella he readily accepted.

Soon after six he was back at the Palazzo Sessa. There, a middle-aged lady with a quiet, self-effacing manner introduced herself to him as Mrs. Cadogan, Sir William's housekeeper. She showed him up to his room, summoned a footman to act as his valet and told him that Sir William had a small company coming that evening for whom supper would be served at nine. As Roger was now having difficulty in suppressing his yawns, he asked that the footman should call him at eight-thirty; then, after one of the happiest twenty hours he had spent in his life, he enjoyed two hours' refreshing sleep.

At a little before nine he presented himself in his host's fine range of reception-rooms, where he was introduced to some three dozen guests, among them the beautiful Emma. His first impression was that she was a little overwhelming, as the robust health she enjoyed mani­fested itself in her almost unnaturally brilliant colouring and extra­ordinary vivacity, added to which her magnificently proportioned figure was so large that Sir William, although a man of medium height, looked quite small beside her. But Roger quickly fell under her spell, and later he realized that it was her genuine interest in everyone she met and her inexhaustible kindness, far more than her decorative effect, which made her so universally popular.

Mainly for the benefit of Roger as a newcomer to Naples, after they had partaken of a buffet supper, Emma was persuaded to give an exhibition of her "attitudes"; and for this unusual entertainment the whole company adjourned to one of the smaller salons at one end of which there was a little curtained stage. Emma went behind the scenes while Sir William busied himself arranging the lighting effects; after which the curtains were withdrawn every few moments to display the ex-artist's model posing to represent various Emotions or Mythological characters. Had Roger been forced to sit through a similar performance by a hostess less well-endowed with charms, he might have found it distinctly wearisome; but as Emma was then twenty-four, and at the height of her Junoesque beauty, he derived genuine artistic enjoyment from it.

When she had exhausted her repertoire some tables for cards were made up and such guests as did not wish to play settled themselves for a conversazione; so at half-past eleven it was easy for Roger to excuse himself on the plea of having had a long day, and by midnight he was again climbing over the wall of Isabella's villa.

He got home only a little before dawn, then slept late; but on getting up he found he had an hour to kill before he was due to wait upon the Marchesa di Santa Marco, so he set about exploring the ground floor of the Palazzo Sessa. To his surprise the whole of the south frontage and both wings consisted of one great suite of lofty chambers housing Sir William's collection of antiquities. The place was a veritable Aladdin's cave, and he determined that he must ask his host if he could spare the time to tell him about some of the treasures it contained.

The Santa Marco villa, where he spent the afternoon, was on the slope immediately below the western side of Vesuvius, and within a stone's throw of Herculaneum. Forty years earlier the systematic excavation of the buried Roman town had been begun by Don Carlos, and Roger would greatly have liked to see the remains; but his hostess, a large, lazy sloe-eyed woman in her early thirties, was evidently looking forward to spending the next couple of hours with her cavalier in the garden, as she quickly turned the conversation, and, even in this tolerant society, it would have looked too pointed had Roger and Isabella left her grounds on their own.

Nevertheless he saw Herculaneum, and also as much as had been excavated of Pompeii, later in the week under the most favourable circumstances. Sir William had willingly agreed to show him what he called "his lumber" and they spent the following morning together admiring bronze statuettes, graceful painted vases, curious amulets, mosaics, cameos and fragments of frescoes depicting life as it had been lived under the sway of Imperial Rome. It was while they were in the room that the Brothers Adam had specially designed to contain some of Sir William's most precious treasures that he said:

"In view of your interest, Mr. Brook, in this gracious civilization which so far surpasses anything that Christian nations have yet achieved, you must certainly devote a day to allowing me to show you the buried cities."

For Roger it was an awful moment; as he was torn between a longing not to miss such a chance, added to the difficulty of refusing Sir William's offer without rudeness and the appalling thought that acceptance would mean the loss of one of his few precious days with Isabella. But to such an old hand as Sir William the workings of Roger's young mind were transparent as glass, and while fingering some long gold pins that had once held up a Roman lady's hair, he went on casually:

"No doubt you have made some friends in Naples to whom you would like to return hospitality. Allow me to do so on your behalf. We will make up a party and I leave it to you to invite anyone you wish."

"You are too good to me, sir," Roger exclaimed with heart-felt gratitude. "The Prince and Princess Francavilla have shown me much kindness, and there is the Condesa Sidonia y Ulloa, with whom I was acquainted at the Court of France. . . ."

Sir William nodded. "So you met the dark-browed daughter of Conde d'Aranda there, eh? It increases my esteem for you, Mr. Brook, that you prefer the companionship of intelligent women. Pray ask her, then, and those charming Fancavillas, and anyone else to whom you have a mind. Emma, I am sure, will be delighted to have their company."

Then, to this delightful invitation, Sir William added what was to Roger a magnificent bonus. "A sloop arrived from Palermo late last night, bringing the news that instead of Their Majesties getting back here on Saturday, as was expected, they have decided to stay on over the weekend, so they will not now reach Naples until Tuesday. In view of the extra time this gives you, if your friends are agreeable, we might make our visit to Herculaneum and Pompeii on Sunday."

So on the Sunday a party of eight made an early start in two carriages with well-filled picnic baskets and the erudite Sir William as their cicerone. In vivid phrases he made five for them again the terrified inhabitants of the cities of the bay on the night of August 23rd, A.D. 79. Vesuvius had then been known as Mount La Somma and was less than half its present height. There had been earthquakes in the neighbourhood before, and a severe one sixteen years earlier which had thrown down some of the buildings in Pompeii; but they had since been rebuilt with greater beauty, and the 22,000 people who lived in the busy port had almost forgotten the occurrence.

At two o'clock in the morning everyone in the towns for miles along the coast had been alarmed by a terrible growling sound coming from underground. The sky was serene and sea calm, but by dawn it was seen that an enormous column of watery vapour was steaming up like a vast pine tree from the top of the mountain. As the morning advanced it grew and spread, assuming the form of a huge mushroom. For some time it remained suspended motionless in the air, a strange and terrify­ing sight, but endangering no one. Suddenly it burst and descended on the mountain sides in torrents of boiling rain. Gathering the soil in its progress it rushed down the slope towards the sea in the form of scalding mud and totally engulfed Herculaneum.

In a few hours the town had not only disappeared from the face of the earth, but was buried sixty feet below it. Such of the inhabitants as got away in time fled either to the little town of Neapolis, as Naples was then called, or to Pompeii. The former were inspired by the gods, as Neapolis sustained little damage, and up to eight o'clock in the evening it was thought that Pompeii would also be spared. But at that hour the eruption redoubled in violence, and the volcano began to throw up masses of molten stones. They struck against each other as they were vomited into the air with the roar of continuous thunder, and breaking into small fragments descended on the doomed city.

By two hours after midnight a mineral rain of red-hot stones, each no bigger than a pea, but in effect like a fiery hailstorm, was descending steadUy on Pompeii, burning and blistering everything it touched. Then after it, for hours on end, there fell hundreds of thousands of tons of calcined earth in the form of dust, and a black snow composed of ashes. The clouds laden with these soffocating components had spread far and wide, so that the whole terror occurred in pitch darkness. There now seemed no greater hope of safety in taking one way rather than another.

In wild confusion, patricians and plebeians, freedmen and slaves, priests, foreign traders, gladiators and courtesans ran backwards and forwards in frantic efforts to save themselves. Blindly they rushed into one another and into the walls of the houses they could no longer see. The heat was so stifling they could not get their breath. The sulphur fumes got into their eyes and lungs; the falling dust suffocated them, and thousands of them choked out their lives in agony.

The air for many hundreds of feet up was so thick with particles that the night seemed eternal. On the day that followed, the distraught people who had escaped with their lives did not even know that the sun had risen, and thought that it had been blotted out for ever. Even as far away as Rome day was turned into night, and the crowds wailed to the gods in panic, believing that the end of the world had come.

"That," Sir William told his guests, "is no figment of my own imagination, but almost the words in which this appalling catastrophe was described by cultured Roman men of letters, such as Pliny the Younger, who were actual eye-witnesses to these ghastly scenes."

Then he took them to the Forum, the Temples, the Theatre, the Baths, the houses and the shops, showing them the amenities the Romans had enjoyed. And as they ate their picnic lunch he smilingly apologized that he could give them only Lachrima Christi to wash it down, instead of Falernian, as he did not doubt that just as the Roman way of life had reached a peak of civilization still unrealized by themselves, so had the wines of those times been proportionately better drinking.

The following morning it was with something of a shock that Roger realized that it was Monday, and that he had been a week in Naples. It had been a marvellous week, unforgettable as one of unalloyed enjoyment. He had spent every night of it in Isabella's arms and the greater part of each day with her beside him.

Every afternoon had brought a renewal of this lovely carefree existence, where with a little group of charming, laughing companions they had eaten of all the delicacies that sea and land provided, then wandered hand in hand through enchanted gardens.

None of the country villas compared with most of the chateaux he had seen in France. Their furnishings were usually either very old or else tawdry; grass grew between the paving-stones of the terraces and moss upon their steps. The liveries of the footmen were often worn and shabby; but they snowed no servility, and seemed as happy to serve a meal as their masters and mistresses were to eat it. Everyone laughed at the most stupid things, and the servants joined in the jokes that were made at table. They gathered round too afterwards, when to a highly appreciative audience the cavaliers read aloud to the assembled com­pany poems that they had written in praise of the charms of their respective ladies.

Sometimes there had been older people in the parties, but never by a word or look had they suggested that there was anything improper in their juniors pairing off to spend the latter part of the afternoons in amorous dalliance. They had remained, dozing or playing a quiet game of cards up in a sunny, sheltered angle of the house, while the younger people wandered down on to the lower terraces until the colours of the gay silks and satins that they wore disappeared among the greenery of the gardens.

And what wonderful gardens they were! Roger knew that he would never forget their flights of old stone steps, tall candle-like cypresses, ilexes gently whispering in the breeze, miniature cascades, fountains with naiads, tritons and dolphins whose jets of water softly plashed into marble basins; their busts of long-dead Roman Emperors posed on pedestals in bays of clipped yew; their temples to Flora, Diana and Apollo; arbours, rockeries and grottos; their little pavilions, belvederes and semi-circular balustraded view-points, from which lovely vistas opened on to the tranquil bay.

In each there had been a hundred places in which to steal a kiss, or more; and about the light, ethereal loves of these friends of Isabella there had seemed not the least suggestion of sordidness. They gave the impression that they were living again the pastoral loves of shepherds and shepherdesses from the writings of the ancient Greeks; and had created here a new Olympus.

Rogef recalled a morning, now over two years ago, when he had gone to call on his clever friend Monsieur de Talleyrand-Perigord. The Abb6, as he was then, had just returned from dinner, followed by an all-night entertainment, given by Madame du Barri at her chateau at Luciens, where, in her retirement, she lived in almost fabulous luxury. De Perigord had that day predicted the upheavals that had since occurred in France, and were now sweeping all culture, beauty and light-heartedness away; and, with a sad shake of his handsome head, he had remarked: "Mon ami. Those who have not had the good fortune to have lived in Paris before the Revolution will never know what it is like to have lived at all." Yet Roger felt that could the cynical Bishop have spent a week in Naples he would have been compelled to alter his opinion.

But his own week was up. It had gone with incredible rapidity. Tomorrow Their Majesties would be back in Naples. Then, within a few hours, he would be forced to leave this earthly paradise.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

DESPERATE MEASURES

Now that Roger faced the issue, he knew that it would be futile to buoy himself up with false hopes of further delays. His mission was an urgent one, so it would receive prompt consideration; and immediately a decision upon it was taken he must return to France. Even should circumstances postpone his actual departure for a day or two, the gates of paradise were now closing against him with a terrifying rapidity. When Their Majesties landed tomorrow Don Diego would land with them. Tonight was the last he would be able to spend with Isabella.

In the morning he must give her back the key she had lent him to the garden gate, to save him having to climb over the wall. Don Diego used that key and gate. He was in the habit of coming in at all hours of the night by it; and Isabella had said that after his return nothing would induce her to receive her lover in the house, from fear that they might meet going or coming in the garden.

The more Roger thought of his approaching departure the deeper his gloom became. Now that he had lived with Isabella she meant even more to him than she had before. To give her up would be worse than tearing off one of his own limbs. He felt that he positively could not bring himself to do it. Yet there seemed no other alternative.

The gods, too, seemed suddenly to have deserted him. He had been blessed with a week of marvellous sunshine, but at last the weather had broken, and it had turned to rain. They had for that day accepted an invitation from the Prince and Princess Siglio to join a party going out to Lake Agnano. The Princess's younger sister had recently entered a convent in that neighbourhood, so they were to lunch at the Convent, then spend the afternoon in the gardens of the Prince's villa, which stood perched on the cliff that separated the lake from the sea.

Now that it was raining Roger feared that the party might be put off or, almost as bad from his point of view, they would have to spend the afternoon indoors. To his great relief, a messenger arrived in the middle of the morning with a note from the Princess to let him know that as lunch had been arranged for them at the Convent they would go there in any case; and they could then see if an improvement in the weather made it worth while to go on to the villa.

To Roger the lunch party was a strange experience. On arriving at the Convent he and his friends were conducted to a big room which was divided in two by a partition wall; but in the centre of the wall there was a fifteen-foot-wide archway, from the top of which a grille of iron bars, about ten inches apart, ran right down to the floor. In both halves of the room tables had been laid for a dozen people, and one end of each was separated from the other only by the grille, so that the two tables had the effect of one long one. The visitors sat on one side and on the other the Mother Superior, several pretty young nuns, and three jolly-looking priests. Both parties were served with the same rich food and wines, made merry with the same zest, and unblushingly exchanged the latest scandals and risquestories.

Isabella told Roger afterwards that many young women preferred going into a nunnery to marriage, as it relieved them of all responsi­bility; and in the Kingdom of Naples these girls still enjoyed the great degree of freedom which, until comparatively recently, had for many centuries been customary in all Catholic countries. They had their love affairs with their confessors, and sometimes even secret ones with lay­men, who managed to smuggle themselves into the convents disguised as gardeners, friars and workmen. But they were never burdened with the cares of rearing children, as their infants were taken from them at birth. If the mother was rich her child was put out to nurse; if not it was quietly strangled and buried in the garden. Roger considered him­self broadminded but, for once, he found himself shocked.

By three o'clock the weather had cleared a little, so it was decided to go on to the villa. From it the views both to seaward and inland were beautiful beyond expression. In the dear water of the lake deer were drinking, and bright kingfishers skimmed through the reeds on its shore. But to Roger's intense annoyance it came on to rain again, so love-making in the garden was out of the question; a card party was made up, and he and Isabella had no option but to join it.

That night, for the first hour or two, they said little, but their embraces took on an almost desperate fervour. Then, towards morning, Roger suddenly made up his mind to commit himself to a course of action with which he had been toying, on and off, all day.

"Isabella!" he cried at last, in an agony of passion. "I cannot give you up! I cannot! Not for good! 'Tis too much to be required of any human being. I must return to France, I know. But as soon as I have concluded my mission I mean to come back to Naples and settle here."

He knew that to do so meant the end of his career, and that his private means were far from adequate to support the expensive tastes he had acquired in the past few years; but he felt sure that he could count on Sir William to find him some sort of post in Naples, and he was prepared to tackle any job provided it enabled him to remain near Isabella.

For a moment she remained silent, then she said sadly: "Nay, Rojé . You must not do that. My heart is aching as much as yours; but at least we have been blessed with this wonderful week to look back upon; and now we must face our cruel separation bravely. I forbid you to return. Your doing so would create a situation that I shudder to think of."

"Why should it?" he burst out. "Every woman here has her lover; more, most of them give themselves to one man after another as they list, yet none of their husbands takes serious notice of their infidelities."

She shook her head. "My husband is not like the rest. If he found out that you were my lover, he would kill you."

"Nay, sweet. You are allowing your fears to run away with your imagination."

"I am not, Rojé! I am not! Remember he is a Spaniard; and not even one who was brought up here. True Spaniards hold the honour of their wives more precious than their own fives. Don Diego despises the Neapolitan gentlemen for their laxness. I have heard him voice that opinion. If he found us out I swear that he would kill you."

Isabella's unexpected opposition had only the effect of making Roger more set than ever in his resolve to make her the be-all and end-all of his future. In the past week a score of people had told him how lovely Naples was in the spring, with its almond and peach blossom, its fields gay with crocuses, its gardens scented with magnolias and stephanotis; and how joyous the nights could be during the heat of summer, with dancing in the open under the stars, moonlight bathing parties, and trips across the phosphorescent water to Ischia and Capri. It seemed to him at the moment that only a fool would wear himself out intriguing to obtain information in cold northern Courts if, instead, he was capable of earning the modest competence which would enable him to five as Isabella's lover in this lotus land. Turning towards her, he said earnestly:

"Listen, my love. Even though I think your fears to be exaggerated, I will take your word for it that should Don Diego believe his honour touched upon he will prove dangerous. We will, then, deny him all chance of proving that we have given him a pair of horns. I promise you that I will make no attempt to come to you in secret here. Quetzal can act as our confidential messenger, and I will content myself with such opportunities as are bound to offer from our meeting several times a week at the houses of our friends. To that your husband can raise no objection."

"Oh, Rojé! Rojé!"Isabella sighed. "How can you be so blind to the inevitable result of this course that you propose ? 'Tis an old saying that there is safety in numbers; and that is the protection of most of these Neapolitan ladies. They change their beaux so lightheartedly that no one is ever certain if any one of their affairs has ever reached its logical conclusion. On that account 'tis near impossible for even a jealous husband actually to pin anything upon them. But I could not bring myself to flirt with other men, neither could I support the thought of your making love to other women, even as a cover. In a few weeks our fidelity would become conspicuous, and my husband would have only to watch us for a little when together to realize our love, and be certain that we were deceiving him. His Spanish pride would never stomach the thought that other men might be laughing at him, and in the end your life would prove the forfeit for your attachment to me."

"Be not too certain of that," Roger murmured truculently. "I am accounted no bad swordsman, and did he challenge me I would be most happy to meet him. Such a conversation might well prove a swift way out of all our difficulties."

Isabella flung her arms about his neck, and began to sob. "My own! My loved one! 'Tis clear you have not the understanding of a child upon such matters. In Spain, a husband who believes he has been wronged does not consider himself called upon to expose himself to the blade of his wife's lover. He hires others to do his business. To return here as you suggest would be to expose yourself to the dagger of an assassin."

Roger was no coward; but her tearful words shook him badly, and conjured up the most horrid visions. For weeks, and perhaps months, all might go well; he would lead that carefree sybaritic life he had visualized and discreetly enjoy Isabella's favours; then one dark night when he least expected it he would be caught off his guard, and die in the gutter with a bravo's stiletto plunged to its hilt between his shoulder-blades.

Yet his pride would not let him give way altogether, and they parted in the dawn, knowing that they would meet the following afternoon, but with nothing settled.

On the Tuesday it rained again; but not sufficiently heavily for King Ferdinand to forgo the public welcome that it had been arranged for him to receive on his return; and by eleven o'clock the clouds dispersed to let the sun come through. The streets were decked with flags; carpets, tapestries and gaily coloured rugs were hung over balconies and from windows. Just before midday Roger and Isabella met at the Francavilla mansion, to which a party had been invited to witness the procession.

Both the Neapolitans and their King loved a show, so half the army had been turned out to line the route; and, to keep the populace amused while they waited for the Sovereigns, a score or more of triumphal cars had been decorated and manned to drive up and down the main thoroughfares. These cars were a feature of Neapolitan public holidays and were always brought out in different guises for the great pre-Lenten Carnival, the summer Battle of Flowers, and other festivi­ties. Most of them were huge vehicles drawn by as many as twenty oxen, and they now moved up and down with their loads of bacchantes, mermaids and acrobats escorted by groups of absurd masked figures on enormous stilts. Meanwhile, bands played, cannon thundered and salvoes of musketry crashed out from the port.

At length the cavalcade came in view; trumpeters, outriders, cavalry; the King's favourite regiment, the Volontari della Marina, in their uniforms of green with scarlet facings and yellow buttons; then the great gilded coach of the Sovereigns, surrounded by the Guardia del Corpo.

As soon as Roger saw it in the distance he drew Isabella back from the balcony into the room. He had been waiting impatiently for that moment, knowing that his one chance to get a few words alone with her would be while the attention of the rest of the party was held by the high-light of the procession. Without wasting an instant, he said:

"If you are still unshakable in your refusal to allow me to return to Naples, will you, instead, elope with me?"

She drew in a sharp breath; then exclaimed: "No, Rojé! No! What you ask is impossible!"

He had gone very white, but he tried to control his voice, as he hurried on: "I know that it is much to ask; but there is nothing impos­sible about it. You know that you can trust yourself to me, and that I would never desert you. When we reached England we could say that we had been married abroad. I swear that in all things I would treat you as my wife; and no one would ever know that we had not been joined in wedlock."

"In time it would leak out," she quavered. "The Spanish and Neapolitan Ambassadors at the Court of St. James would be certain to hear the story of our elopement. I love you, Rojé! Oh, I love you dearly! But to do as you wish would bring public shame on me, and mar your own future. We could not be received anywhere together once it became known that I was living with you as your mistress."

"We would live very quietly in the country for a time, until . . ."

The cheers on the balcony had died away, and the guests were beginning to drift in to the refreshment buffet. Roger's last sentence was cut short by a fat, garrulous Abb6 coming up to them and inter­rupting their conversation with platitudes about how fortunate it was that the rain had cleared off for the procession. Two ladies joined their group, and in the half-hour that followed it proved impossible to resume their conversation. It was not until just as Isabella was leaving that Roger managed to get another few swift words alone with her.

"When shall I see you again?" he whispered.

"Tonight at the Opera. There is a gala performance. Everyone is going."

"There will be no chance for us to talk in private. I beg you to come here again, later this afternoon."

"I cannot. I have not seen my husband yet. He will expect me to be at home, so that he can tell me all that occurred during the royal visit to Sicily."

"Tomorrow morning, then?"

"Yes, at twelve o'clock."

"Can you not make it earlier? I may have to attend upon Their Majesties."

"Nay I dare not. There is no possible excuse that I could give for leaving the house appreciably in advance of my usual hour."

There was not time to argue, as neighbours of Isabella, who had brought her and were carrying her home in their coach, were already waiting for her on the stairs. So he could only kiss her hand and murmur: "So be it, then. Here, at midday tomorrow."

That evening he accompanied Sir William Hamilton to the fine new San Carlo Theatre, for the gala performance. The diplomat had his own box and he remarked to Roger that, much as he enjoyed his rolls in the Mediterranean and climbs up Vesuvius in summer, it made a pleasant change of diversion to come there any night he felt inclined when the real winter had set in, and there was ice in the streets of Naples. Roger found it difficult to imagine Naples under snow, but gave the matter little thought as he was anxiously scanning the other boxes for Isabella and her husband.

When he did catch sight of them he was disappointed, as the man he took to be Don Diego was seated towards the back of the box, and it was difficult to make out his features.

Soon afterwards the Sovereigns appeared in the royal box; there was a great shouting and clapping of hands, the flambeaux were doused and the show began.

However, ample opportunity was afforded Roger later that evening of seeing the man he instinctively hated, as the performance occupied five hours, including two intervals of nearly an hour each, during which the audience either strolled up and down in the foyer, or called upon their acquaintances in the boxes.

During the first interval Sir William went to make his service to the Queen, and Roger decided to make his first call on the beautiful Duchesa di Lucciana, who had given him a gracious smile from a box nearby. Having spent ten minutes with her party, he felt he might now pay his respects to Isabella, without having appeared over-eager to do so.

In her box he found the di Jaccis, the Ottobonis and the Abbé Guarini, so for a moment his entrance was not even noticed by Don Diego. He kissed Isabella's hand and with perfect aplomb she then presented him to her husband. The two men bowed formally and exchanged a few well-turned compliments; after which the Princess di Jacci reclaimed Don Diego's attention, so Roger discussed the perform­ance with Isabella and the Abbe1 for six or seven minutes, then bowed his way out.

As he made his way slowly towards the Sambucas' box for his next call he tried to sort out his impressions of El Conde Sidonia y Ulloa. Roger had in no circumstances been prepared to like the man but he had to admit that he was both handsome and possessed of a striking presence. Don Diego was slightly taller than himself, or perhaps only seemed so from his exceptionally upright carriage. He was very dark, with an olive skin and sparkling black eyes. His most outstanding feature was an aquiline nose so thin as to be almost knife-like. His mouth, too, was thin-lipped, but well formed, and when he smiled he showed excellent teeth. His face was narrow and his firm chin seemed to be permanently tilted up, which gave him an expression of extreme hauteur. Roger decided that, his own prejudices apart, Don Diego was not a particularly lovable person, and that his main preoccupation in life was to impress other people with the blueness of his blood and the ultra-aristocratic good looks with which nature had endowed him.

When Roger rejoined Sir William the diplomat said: "I have spoken to Her Majesty of you and she wishes me to bring you to her in the second entr'acte"

Roger endeavoured to show suitable gratification at the announce­ment, but actually found difficulty in concealing his distress. His brain was now almost bursting with wild projects concerning Isabella, and so far he had failed to concert with her on even the basis of a plan for their future. He had been hoping that he would at least be granted until the next day before being called on to discuss his mission with the Queen; but here was the matter being hurried forward without the loss of a moment, and he knew that once the affair was broached his remaining time in Naples might be reduced to a few hours. In a state of nervous anxiety he sat through another hour of the performance, then accom­panied Sir William to the royal box.

King Ferdinand had already left it to go out on to the steps of the theatre and accept the homage of the crowd. His hordes of privileged beggars called him Lou Pazzo—the madcap—and their cheers showed how pleased they were to have him back in his capital. So when Roger was ushered into the presence he made his bow to the Queen alone. She was, he knew, several years older than the Queen of France, and he found that although the sisters shared a family likeness, Maria Carolina had little of Marie Antoinette's beauty. Her figure had suffered from having borne thirteen children, her shoulders were rounded and her neck overlong. She also had something disagreeable in her manner of speaking, moving her whole face when she talked, and gesticulating violently. Her voice was hoarse and her eyes goggled. But she impressed him at once as having a strong mind, and her reception of him could not have been kinder.

She expressed the greatest affection and concern for her sister, said she could hardly bear to wait to hear the latest news of her, and asked Sir William to bring Roger to the State Ball at the Palazzo Reale as soon as the performance was over. In consequence, his last hopes of a post­ponement of his business till the following day went by the board, and an hour and a half later he was making his bow to her again.

He had known that the gala at the San Carlo was to be followed by a ball, but had not expected to be invited to it. Now, for the first time, he saw Neapolitan society at Court, and was interested to note that in sharp contrast to Versailles, little formality was observed. The King was already mixing familiarly with his guests, slapping the men on their backs and patting the cheeks of the prettier women with a heavy gallantry which, under the eye of his jealous Queen, might have passed for no more than fatherly licence.

For years the two of them had continually deceived one another, each conducting a series of shallow amours typical of the Court over which they ruled. The Queen indulged herself with handsome young men whom she raised to positions of wealth and influence according to their mental abilities; and, being a clever woman, she managed her affairs so skilfully that the King seldom found her out. On the rare occasions when he did he was pleased as punch about it, for it enabled him to do as he liked for a week or two, on the principle that what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander. But she was such a much stronger personality that she soon overawed him again, and she was so greedy of attention that she grudged him every flutter.

Like her brother Leopold she was intensely suspicious, and she maintained a very efficient spy system among the personnel of her Court; moreover the King was such a simpleton that he was constantly giving away his own secrets, so she nearly always knew of it soon after he started an intrigue with some new charmer. She then treated him to scenes of the most violent jealousy and nipped the affair in the bud by sending his flame into exile. Once, when she had caught him kissing a lady at a Court ball, her rage had been so great that she had called a halt to the function there and then, and sent everyone home without their supper.

But tonight she was giving little thought to her wayward spouse. Within a few moments of Roger's arrival she made him give her his arm, and walked up and down one of the side galleries with him for over an hour. She listened to all he had to say, admired the miniature of her nephew, and asked innumerable questions about the state of things in France. Like her brothers the Emperor and the Grand Duke, she had a positive conviction of the divine right of hereditary Sovereigns to rule their peoples as they thought fit. But, unlike them, she was opposed to all innovation. As a woman, in spite of her unattractive manner and appearance, Roger found her likeable and kind; but as a Queen he deplored her reactionary sentiments, and he thought there was something both pathetic and shocking in the fear and hatred she displayed for the common people.