Chapter 3 Scaramouche The Kingmaker by Rafael Sabatini
BARON DE BATZ
André-Louis was annoyed; not hotly annoyed; he was never that; but coldly bitter. He expressed it without tact considering his audience.
"The more I see of the nobility, the better I like the canaille; the more I see of royalty, the more I admire the roture."
They sat—André-Louis, Aline and M. de Kercadiou—in the long narrow room appropriated by the Lord of Gavrillac on the first floor of the Three Crowns. It was a room entirely Saxon in character. There was no carpet on the waxed floor. The walls were lined in polished pine adorned with some trophies of the chase: a half-dozen stags' heads, with melancholy glass eyes, the mask of a boar with enormous tusks, a hunting horn, an antiquated fowling-piece and some other kindred odds and ends. On the oak table, from which a waiter had lately removed the remains of breakfast, stood a crystal bowl containing a great sheaf of roses with which some lilies had been intermingled.
These flowers provided one source of André-Louis' ill-humour. They had been brought from Schönbornlust an hour ago by a very elegant, curled and pomaded gentleman, who announced himself as Monsieur de Jaucourt. He had delivered them with expressions of homage from Monsieur to Mademoiselle de Kercadiou, in the hope—so ran the royal message—that they might brighten the lodging graced by Mademoiselle until more suitable quarters should be found for her. The quarters in prospect were disclosed by a note of which M. de Jaucourt was also the bearer, a note from Madame to Mademoiselle de Kercadiou. And this was the second source of André-Louis' annoyance. The note announced that Mademoiselle de Kercadiou was appointed a lady-in-waiting to Madame. Aline's bright transport at this signal and unexpected honour had supplied André-Louis' annoyance with yet a third source.
With deliberate rudeness upon apprehending M. de Jaucourt's mission, he had gone to take his stand by the window, with his back to his companions, watching the rain that fell in sheets upon the churned mud of Coblentz. He had not even troubled to turn when M. de Jaucourt had taken ceremonious leave. It was M. de Kercadiou who had held the door for the departing messenger.
And now when at last André-Louis condescended to speak, his slight, agile, well-knit body moving restlessly in the gloom and damp chill of that long chamber, it was to interrupt Aline's delighted chatter in those uncompromising terms.
She was startled, astounded. Her uncle was scandalized. In the old days for the half of those words he would have risen up in wrath, stormed upon his godson, and banished him from his presence. But in the course of that journey from Paris a lethargy had been settling upon the Lord of Gavrillac. His spirit was reduced. It was as if, bending under the strain of the grim events of some ten days ago, he had suddenly grown old. Nevertheless, he reared his great head to combat this outrageous statement, and there was a note of anger in his voice.
"While you live under the protection of the one and the other it were more decent to repress these republican insolences." Aline surveyed him with a little frown above her candid eyes.
"What has disgruntled you, André?"
He looked down upon her across the table at which she was seated, and worship rose in him, as it ever did when he considered her, so fresh, so pure, so delicate, so dainty, her golden hair dressed high, but innocent of powder, a heavy curl resting on the right of her milk-white neck.
"I am fearful of all that approach you lest they go unaware of the holy ground upon which they tread."
"And now we are to have the Song of Songs," her uncle mocked him. Whilst Aline's eyes were tender, the Lord of Gavrillac pursued his raillery.
"You think that M. de Jaucourt should have removed his shoes before entering this shrine?"
"I should have preferred him to have stayed away. M. de Jaucourt is the lover of Madame de Balbi, who is the mistress of Monsieur. In what relationship those two gentleman stand to each other as a consequence I'll not inquire. But their brows would help to adorn that wall." And he flung out a hand to indicate the antlered heads that gazed down upon them.
The Lord of Gavrillac shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "If you would practise towards my niece half the respect you demand for her from others it would be more decent." Severely he added: "You stoop to scandal."
"No need to stoop. It comes breast-high. It assails the nostrils."
Aline, whose innocence had been pierced at last by his allusion, coloured a little and looked away from him. Meanwhile he pursued his theme.
"Madame de Balbi is a lady-in-waiting upon Madame. And that, monsieur, is the honour proposed for your niece and my future wife."
"My God!" ejaculated M. de Kercadiou. "What will you insinuate? You are horrible."
"It is the fact, sir, that is horrible. I merely interpret it. It but remains for you to ask yourself if that vicious simulacrum of a Court is a fitting environment for your niece."
"It would not be if I believed you."
"You don't believe me?" André-Louis seemed surprised. "Do you believe your own senses, then? Can you recall how the news was received yesterday? How slight a ripple it made on the face of waters which it should have lashed into a storm?"
"Well-bred people do not abandon themselves in their emotions."
"But they are grave at least. Did you observe much gravity after the first gasp of consternation? Did you, Aline?" Without giving her time to answer, he went on. "Monsieur held you in talk for some time; longer perhaps than Madame de Balbi relished..."
"André! What are you saying? This is outrageous."
"Infamous!" said her uncle.
"I was about to ask you of what he talked. Was it of the horrors of last week? Of the fate of the King, his brother?"
"No."
"Of what, then? Of what?"
"I scarcely remember. He talked of...oh, of nothing. He was very kind...rather flattering...What would you? I...I...talked...Oh, he talked as a gentleman talks to a lady, I suppose."
"You suppose?" He was grim. The lean face with its prominent nose and cheek-bones was almost wolfish. "You are a lady, and you have talked with gentlemen before. Did they all talk to you as he talked?"
"Why, in some such fashion. André, what is in your mind?"
"Ay, in God's name, what?" barked M. de Kercadiou.
"It is in my mind that at such a time Monsieur might have found other occupation than to talk to a lady merely as gentlemen talk to ladies."
"You make one lose patience." said M. de Kercadiou gruffly. "Once the shock of the news was spent, where was the cause for anxiety? Within a month the allies will be at the gates of Paris, and the King will be delivered."
"Unless the provocation makes the people kill him in the meantime. There was always that for Monsieur to consider. And anyway, it is in my mind that Aline should not be a lady-in-waiting in a group that includes Madame de Balbi."
"But in Heaven's name, André!" cried the Lord of Gavrillac. "What can I do? This is not an invitation. It is a command."
"Madame is not the Queen. Not yet."
"As good as the Queen here. Monsieur is regent de posse, and may soon be so de facto."
"So that," said André slowly, almost faltering, "the appointment is not to be refused?"
Aline looked at him wistfully, but said nothing. He got up abruptly, stalked to the window again, and stood there tapping the pane and looked out as before upon the melancholy rain, a queer oppression at his heart. Kercadiou, whose scowl bore witness to his annoyance, would have spoken but that Aline signalled silence to him.
She rose and crossed to André's side. She set her muslin-clad arm about his neck, drew down his head and laid her smooth, softly-rounded white cheek against his own. "André! Are you not being very foolish? Very difficult? Surely, surely, you do not do me the honour of being jealous of Monsieur? Of Monsieur!"
He was softened by the caress, by the intoxicating touch of her so new to him still, so rarely savoured yet in this odd week of their betrothal.
"My dear, you are so much to me that I am full of fears for you. I dread the effect upon you of life in that Court, where corruption is made to wear a brave exterior."
"But I have been to Court before," she reminded him. "To Versailles, yes. But this is not Versailles, although it strives to put on the same appearance."
"Do you lack faith in me?"
"Ah, not that. Not that!"
"What then?"
He frowned; searched his mind; found nothing definite there. "I do not know," he confessed. "I suppose love makes me fearful, foolish."
"Continue to be fearful and foolish, then." She kissed his cheek and broke from him with a laugh, and thereby put an end to the discussion.
That same afternoon Mademoiselle de Kercadiou entered upon her exalted duties, and when later M. de Kercadiou and his godson presented themselves at Schönbornlust, and stood once more amid the courtiers in that white-and-gold salon, Aline, a vision of loveliness in coral taffetas and silver lace, told them of the graciousness of Madame's welcome and of the condescension of Monsieur.
"He spoke to me at length of you, André."
"Of me?" André-Louis was startled.
"Your manner yesterday made him curious about you. He inquired in what relationship we stood. I told him that we are affianced. Then, because he seemed surprised, I told him something of your history. How once you had represented your godfather in the States of Brittany, where you were the most powerful advocate of the nobility. How the killing of your friend Philippe de Vilmorin had turned you into a revolutionary. How in the end you had turned again, and at what sacrifice you had saved us and brought us out of France. He regards you very favourably, André."
"Ah? He said so?"
She nodded. "He said that you have a very resolute air, and that he had judged you to be a bold, enterprising man."
"He meant to say that I am impudent and do not know my place."
"André!" she reproached him.
"Oh, he is right. I don't. I refuse to know it until it is a place worth knowing."
A tall, spare gentleman in black approached them, a swarthy man in the middle thirties, calm and assured of manner. His cheeks were deeply scored with lines, and hollow, as if from loss of teeth. This and the close set of his eyes lent a sinister air to the not unhandsome face. He came, he announced, to seek the acquaintance of Monsieur Moreau. Aline presented him as Monsieur le Comte d'Entragues, a name already well-known for that of a daring, resolute royalist agent, a man saturated with the spirit of intrigue.
He made amiable small talk until the Countess of Provence, a foolish artificial smile on her plain face, descended upon them. Archly scolding them for seducing her new lady-in-waiting from her duties, she swept Aline away and left the two men together. But they were not long alone. M. le Comte d'Artois very deliberately approached them, a tall, handsome man of thirty-five, so elegant of shape and movement that it was difficult to believe that he sprang from the same stock as his ponderous brothers, King Louis and Monsieur de Provence.
He was attended by a half-dozen gentlemen, two of whom wore the glittering green and silver with scarlet collars which was the uniform of his own bodyguard. Among the others André-Louis beheld the sturdy, sardonic M. de Batz, who flashed him a smile of friendly recognition, and the pompous countenance of M. de Plougastel, who nodded frigidly.
Monsieur d'Artois, gravely courteous, his fine eyes intent, expressed satisfaction at the presence here of Monsieur Moreau in the happy circumstances which brought him. Soon André-Louis began to suspect that there was calculation in all this. For after M. de Artois' compliments came a shrewd questioning from M. d'Entragues on affairs in Paris and the movements and immediate aims of the revolutionary circles.
André-Louis answered frankly and freely where he could and with no sense of betraying anyone. In his heart he believed that the information he supplied could no more change the course of destiny than a weather-prophet's judgments can control the elements. This frankness conveyed the impression that he served the cause of the monarchists, and Monsieur d'Artois commended him for it.
"You will permit me to rejoice, Monsieur Moreau, in that a gentleman of your parts should have seen at last the error of his ways."
"It is not the error of my ways that matter: or was deplorable."
The dry answer startled them. "What then, monsieur?" asked the King's brother, as dryly.
"The circumstance that those whose duty it is to enforce the constitution so laboriously achieved, should be allowing their power to slip into the hands of scoundrels who will enlist a desperate rabble to gain them the ascendancy."
"So that you are but half a convert, Monsieur Moreau?" His highness spoke slowly. He sighed. "A pity! You draw between two sets of canaille a distinction too fine for me. I had thought to offer you employment in the army. But since its aim is to sweep away without discrimination your constitutional friends as well as the others, I will not distress you with the offer."
He swung abruptly on his heel and moved away, his gentlemen followed him, with the exception of Plougastel and de Batz; and of these Monsieur de Plougastel at once made it plain that he had lingered to condemn.
"You were ill-advised," he said, gloomily self-sufficient. "To come to Coblentz, do you mean, monsieur?"
"To take that tone with his highness. It was...unwise. You have ruined yourself."
"I am used to that. I have often done it."
Considering how André-Louis had last ruined himself with the revolutionaries and that Madame de Plougastel was one of those for whose sake he had done it, the hit, if sly, was shrewd and palpable.
"Ah, we know. We know your generosity, monsieur," Plougastel made haste to amend in some slight confusion. "But this was...wanton. A little tact, monsieur. A little reticence."
André-Louis looked him between the eyes. "I'll practise it now with you, monsieur."
He wondered why he disliked so much this husband of the lady whose natural son he knew himself to be. His first glimpse of him had been almost enough to make André-Louis understand and excuse his mother's frailty. This dull, pompous, shallow man, who lived by forms and ready-made opinions, incapable of independent thought, could never have commanded the fidelity of any woman. The marvel was not that Madame de Plougastel should have had a lover, but that she should have confined herself to one. It was, thought André-Louis, a testimonial to her innate purity.
Meanwhile Monsieur de Plougastel was being immensely, ludicrously dignified.
"I suspect, sir, that you laugh at me. I am too deeply in your debt to be in a position to resent it. You should remember that, sir. You should remember that." And he sidled away, a man offended.
"It's an ungrateful task, the giving of advice," said de Batz, ironical.
"Too ungrateful to be worth undertaking uninvited."
De Batz checked, stared, then frankly laughed. "You are quick. Sometimes too quick. As now. And it's as bad to be too soon as too late. As a fencing-master, you should know that. The secret of success in life as in swordsmanship lies in a proper timing."
"All this will have a meaning," said André-Louis.
"Why, that I had no notion of offering advice. I never give unless I am sure of being thanked."
"I hope that you do yourself less than justice."
"Faith, I hope so too. You goad a man. You would make it almost a pleasure to quarrel with you."
"Few have found it so. Is that your aim, Monsieur de Batz?"
"Oh! Far from it, I assure you." The Gascon smiled. "From what you said to M. d'Artois just now I gather that you are at least a monarchist."
"If I am anything at all, monsieur, which I sometimes doubt. I wrought, of course, with those who sought to give France a constitution, to set up a constitutional monarchy akin to that which governs England. There was nothing hostile to the King in this. Indeed, his majesty, himself, has always professed to favour the idea."
"Whereby his majesty became unpopular with Messieurs his brothers here and with the nobles, so that some thirty thousand of them who support absolutism and privilege have emigrated and have set up here a new court. France to-day is a little like the Papacy when it had two sees, one in Rome and one in Avignon. This is the stronghold of absolutism, and since you not only are an enemy of absolutism but have actually divulged the fact, there is nothing for you to do here. You have, in fact been told so by M. d'Artois.
"Now it is not good for an able and enterprising young man to be without employment. And for a monarchist abundant work is waiting at this moment."
The Baron paused, his keen eyes on André-Louis' face. "Continue, pray, monsieur."
"It is kind of you to wish to hear me further." M. de Batz looked about him. They stood in mid-apartment, cleaving as it were the stream of sauntering courtiers. Away on their right, by the great marble fireplace, Monsieur, in dark blue, with a star of diamonds sparkling on his breast, sprawled untidily in an armchair. Idly he had thrust the ferrule of his cane into the inner side of his left shoe, and he was prodding with it there whilst entertaining a group of ladies in a conversation too gay and lively to be concerned with the heavy matters of the hour. Ever and anon his laugh would float across the room. It was the loud, unrestrained laugh of a foolish man; such a laugh as that which in his brother Louis XVI had offended the fine susceptibilities of the Marquise de Lâge, and there was a false note in it to the sensitive ears of André-Louis. He considered that he would not trust either the intelligence or the sentiments of a man with such a laugh. He frowned to see Aline foremost in the group, which included the Countess of Balbi, the Duchess of Caylus and the Countess of Montléart; he was irritated by the expression in the eyes which Monsieur continually bent upon Aline and by Aline's apparent satisfaction in this royal notice.
Monsieur de Batz took him by the arm. "Let us move where we shall be less in the way and better able to talk."
André-Louis suffered himself to be steered into the embrasure of a window that overlooked the courtyard, where carriages of every kind and description waited. The rain had ceased and again, as yesterday at this hour, the sun was struggling to pierce the heavy clouds.
"The King's position," M. de Batz was saying, "is grown extremely precarious. He will have come to realize the wisdom of the emigration of his brothers and the nobles which he condemned when it took place. No doubt he realized it when he attempted to follow them only to be turned back at Varennes. He will be ready enough, therefore, to be fetched away now if it can be contrived. As a monarchist, Monsieur Moreau, you should desire to see the monarch out of peril. Would you be prepared to labour to contrive it?"
André-Louis took time to reply.
"Such a labour as that should be well rewarded."
"Rewarded? You do not believe, then, that virtue is its own reward?"
"Experience has shown me that the virtuous commonly perish of want."
The Baron seemed disappointed. "For so young a man you are oddly cynical."
"You mean that my perceptions are not clouded by emotionalism."
"I mean, sir, that you are not even consistent. You announce yourself a monarchist, yet you remain indifferent to the fate of the monarch."
"Because my monarchism is not personal to Louis XVI. It is the office that matters, not the holder. King Louis XVI may perish, but there will still be a king in France, even if he does not reign."
The dark face of de Batz was grave. "You take a great many words, sir, merely to say 'no'. You disappoint me. I had conceived you a man of action, a man of bold enterprises. You reveal yourself as merely...academic."
"There must be theory behind all practice, M. de Batz. I do not quite know what you propose to do or how you propose to do it. But the task is not one for me."
De Batz looked sour. "So be it. But I'll not conceal my regret. It may not surprise you, sir, incredible though it may seem, that I cannot find here a dozen gentlemen to engage with me in this enterprise. When I heard you announce yourself a monarchist I took heart, for you would be worth a score of these fribbles to me. I might rake all France and never find a man more apt to my need."
"You are pleased to flatter me, M. de Batz."
"Indeed, no. You have the qualities which the task demands. And you will not lack for friends among those in power, who would help you out of a difficult situation if you should fall into one."
But André-Louis shook his head. "You overrate both my qualities and my influence with my late associates. As I have said, sir, the task is not one for me."
"Ah! A pity!" said de Batz frigidly, and moved away, leaving André-Louis with the impression that he had missed the only chance of making a friend that was offered him at Schönbornlust.