Chapter 20 Scaramouche The Kingmaker by Rafael Sabatini
MAMMON
An ironical spice is added to the facts when it is considered how few were the hours that elapsed between the departure of Monsieur de Langéac from Charonne to bear the news of Moreau's end to Hamm, and the arrival at Charonne of Monsieur Moreau himself, and how narrow was the margin of time by which so much of what followed might have been averted.
Monsieur de Langéac had set out provided with a forged passport which was the competent work of Balthazar Roussel, whose accomplishments in penmanship, engraving and other kindred arts rendered him one of the most valuable members of the Baron's little army of underground workers. It was Balthazar Roussel who was responsible for the activities of the little printing-press installed in a cellar of that country house at Charonne, which provided by far the most perfect of all the false paper money of the Republic with which France was flooded to the embarrassment of the government and the constant depreciation of the currency. That, however, is by the way.
Monsieur de Langéac had been gone not more than six hours, and the June twilight was deepening when to that quiet, lonely house at Charonne came at last André-Louis Moreau whom they were mourning.
They were assembled—de Batz, Devaux, Boissancourt, Roussel and the Marquis de la Guiche—in the library: a long, low chamber, communicating with the dining-room, and with windows opening upon the lawn, beyond which rose the trees of the woods of Bagnolet. They sat there in the gloaming with few words passing, a little band of men too dejected and depressed by failure to address themselves to the conception of any future plans.
Babette de Grandmaison came in to light the candles and draw the curtains.
She had scarcely completed the task, when the door opened abruptly, and André-Louis, hat in hand, appeared upon the threshold. There was a general gasp, a moment's astonished pause, then a sudden rising, and Babette ran to fling her arms about the newcomer's neck, kissing him resonantly on one cheek after the other.
"This is to make sure that he is not a ghost," she informed the company.
The Baron was wringing André-Louis' hand as if he would tear it from the wrist, his dark eyes preternaturally bright. He was dragged forward, bombarded with questions, laughed over, almost wept over, by those men whose gloom had been suddenly cast off.
He explained his escape, made possible by his old friend and associate Le Chapelier, and by the fortunate circumstance that the Committee of Public Safety desired no publication of any attempt to rescue the Queen. They were consoled for their failure when they learnt that her deliverance was as good as assured without any exertion of their own. But there were reticences on both sides. André-Louis said nothing of his enrolment as an agent of the Committee of Public Safety; this chiefly because he attached no importance to it. De Batz, on his side, in deploring now that Langéac should already have set out for Hamm, said nothing of the conviction in which he had departed. But even as it was that departure was sufficiently alarming to André-Louis.
"He will inform them that I have been arrested!"
And upon that he vowed that unless a messenger could be found upon the morrow who would so ride as to reach Hamm, if possible, ahead of Langéac, he would set out himself to return to Westphalia.
From this it followed that early next morning de Batz accompanied him to Paris, in quest of the necessary messenger. They began by paying a visit to Pommelles at Bourg Egalité—the old Bourg la Reine—and here, providentially, as it seemed, they found a courier from d'Entragues on the point of setting out to return to Hamm. His departure was delayed no longer than it took André-Louis to write a letter to reassure Aline and his godfather on the subject of his fate.
This done, he remained with de Batz in Paris, so as to keep an appointment on the morrow with the Representative Delaunay, at the house of Benoit the banker. They could address themselves with a better spirit to the major project with which this appointment was concerned since the news André-Louis had brought of the government's intentions towards the Queen relieved de Batz of the dejection consequent upon his failure. Delaunay came to the appointment accompanied by yet another conventional named Julien, a tall, dry man with a narrow, yellow face and sly eyes, an erstwhile Protestant minister who had unfrocked himself and renounced the faith so that he might exchange religion for politics. Delaunay had by now entirely overcome any scruples about availing himself of the advantages of his position in the government offered. And Julien, who represented Toulouse in the Convention, had attached himself to Delaunay in the hope of participating in the operations by which the deputy for Angers was to enrich himself.
These hopes, however, received from André-Louis, to the general surprise, a check at the very outset of their interview. He made difficulties. He pointed out to the conventionals a danger in discovery.
"An enemy who seeks your ruin," he warned them, "might charge you with peculation. And in these days, with suspicion in the very air we breathe, an impeachment of your probity might easily succeed, even if without foundation."
Taken aback, they demanded to know who need ever discover their share in these transactions.
"You will grow rich," André-Louis replied. "The source of your wealth may be called in question."
"But by whom, in God's name?" cried Julien, galled to see wealth within his reach and yet to be counselled against seizing it.
"By those who have the right. Your fellow conventionals, who will be in prey to the envy you will excite. That is the risk you will run."
Delaunay brushed the difficulty aside. A man in love, he was reckless and impatient of obstacles between himself and the object of his desires.
"Nothing is ever accomplished without risks."
The portly florid banker listened in mild bewilderment. De Batz himself, without yet perceiving André-Louis' aim, remained impassive, even when the young man's next words served further to daunt the allies it was desired to win.
"You are right, of course, citizen. But in your place I should take every precaution before setting out upon a road which, without them, may lead to the guillotine."
Julien shivered, and wrung one bony hand in the other. "Ah, that, no! Name of God! If that's the risk—"
"Wait," growled Delaunay to silence him. "You speak of precautions, Citizen Moreau. You have something in mind, that's plain. Of what precautions are you thinking?"
"Were I in your place I know exactly what I should do. I should begin by associating with myself in these operations some of the more prominent men in the party of the Mountain, which to-day is the only party that counts. I should make choice of some man well in the public eye; some man who stands so high in public favour, whose virtue is so well-established that he is unassailable; a man, in short, whom it would be perilous to attack because scandal against him would recoil upon the heads of those that utter it. Such a man, whilst safe in himself by virtue of his unimpeachable position, would render you safe by your association with him."
The incipient despondency of the two deputies began to lift. Whilst Delaunay was thoughtfully nodding, Julien inquired bluntly whether the Citizen Moreau had anyone in mind. The Citizen Moreau, a trifle dubiously, named Robespierre, who was now virtually the leader of the Mountain and whose star was rapidly ascending to its zenith in the revolutionary firmament.
Delaunay laughed with a touch of scorn. "Morbleu! If we could bring in Robespierre we should be safe indeed. But Robespierre! My friend, you do not know the man. He is afraid of money. It is not for nothing that they call him the Incorruptible. He is hardly normal in his tastes. He is just a vanity in human shape. His only appetite is for power. That he will achieve by any means, or perish in the attempt. But apart from that he is purity itself. If I were to show him how he might enrich himself, his almost certain answer would be to impeach me for peculation before the revolutionary tribunal, and send me to the guillotine. No, no, my friend. We can leave out Robespierre."
"There is Danton," Julien suggested, tentatively. "No one can pretend that his hands are clean in money matters. He is becoming a considerable landowner, I am told; and there is little doubt that he and his friend Fabre have been dipping their fingers into the national treasury."
But André-Louis would have neither one nor the other.
"They are already tainted, and, therefore, vulnerable. Your need, citizens, demands men of spotless purity in money matters. That is why I named Robespierre—"
Delaunay attempted impatiently to interrupt him. "But Robespierre—"
André-Louis held up his lean hand. "You have made me realize that Robespierre is unapproachable. But consider him a moment with me. Neither of you was in the Constituent Assembly, of which I was a member, representing Ancenis. I remember the deputy for the Third Estate of Arras from those days: an insignificant little pedant, who gave himself airs, who very occasionally was permitted to address the Assembly, and almost invariably sent it to sleep by his dullness when he did so. In himself and left to himself, Robespierre would never have become anything. Bumptious, maladroit and tiresome, he would never have done more than weary people. You agree with me, I hope."
The deputies remained stolid before this frankness of criticism of one who since the fall of the Girondins had fast been rising to the first place in the Convention. André-Louis continued.
"He has risen to the position he occupies as a result of the efforts of his friends. Saint-Just sees God in him, or at least the high-priest of such a divinity as Saint-Just desires to worship, and it is Saint-Just's clear eloquence which mends Robespierre's paucity of expression for ideas admittedly his own. Couthon is such another champion. Basire another. Chabot another. You know them, these pillars upon which Robespierre is supported. It is amongst them that you must look for your associate. For if trouble followed Robespierre would assuredly rise to protect any of these supporters upon whom, for all his vanity, he knows that his own position is dependent."
Convinced, they proceeded to pass them in review. Saint-Just, of course, was the first whose qualifications they weighed. That terrible young man, however, seemed invulnerable. Considering his closeness to Robespierre, it was assumed that he might at present share Robespierre's fear of money. Next, the cripple Couthon, with his magnificent head and useless legs, seemed hardly a likely subject for temptation. Basire was mentioned, and about Basire they debated for some time, until at last André-Louis, who knew exactly what he wanted, urged François Chabot.
An unfrocked capuchin of appalling antecedents, François Chabot was to such an extent the victim of two passions, women and money, that Delaunay was of the opinion that in the pursuit of either only his natural cowardice would deter him.
"The temptation," said André-Louis, "must be made heavy enough to counterbalance his fears."
The masks were off by now, and they were talking with the utmost frankness. André-Louis continued to expound.
"It is worth an effort to win Chabot. He stands high in the councils of the Mountain. He stands higher still in the esteem of the people. As a patriot his zeal has been shown to amount to fanaticism. It was he who discovered the Austrian Committee, which, as everybody knows, never existed at all. It was his denunciations which helped to overthrow the Girondins. Next to Marat there is no man in public life to-day whom the rabble worships more completely; and to one who depends as Robespierre does upon the people's favour, Chabot is an inestimable ally since he commands it. Bring Chabot into these operations, whether concerned with speculation in émigré property, whether covering a still wider field, and you may pursue them without fear of denunciation, if only because the arch-denouncer will be your ally. Bring in Basire as well by all means. But spare no effort to win François Chabot."
And so it was agreed that his brother deputies should bring Chabot to dine at Charonne one day soon, so that he might be enmeshed in the viscous net that André-Louis was preparing for them all.