Chapter 21 Scaramouche The Kingmaker by Rafael Sabatini
THE TEMPTING OF CHABOT
Delaunay's impatience would brook no postponement of that excursion to Charonne beyond the following Décadi, the Republican Sunday—for the Revolutionary Calendar, which divided the week into ten days, the month into three weeks and the year into twelve months, had by now been adopted. So, on the next Décadi, three days later, the two deputies and the banker drove out to Charonne, taking with them that stalwart champion of the Mountain, François Chabot, who represented the department of Loir-et-Cher in the National Convention.
They dined early in the afternoon, in the garden, just the six of them, with the Citoyenne Grandmaison to do the honours of the table as hostess. La Guiche, Roussel and the others had temporarily effaced themselves. Under the lime trees, from which the ardent June sun was drawing the fragrance, a feast was spread with abundance of choice wines to which the deputies did the fullest justice.
François Chabot, now in his thirty-fifth year, was a stiffly-built, vigorous little man with a lively, good-humoured face that was fairly full in the cheeks. His nose was disproportionately large, and made a line with his deplorable brow which sloped away to be lost in a mass of brown curls. He had the full lips of the sensualist and a prominent chin in which there was a dimple. His eyes were good, and in their seeming alertness simulated an intelligence altogether greater than that which lay behind them. In dress he observed a patriotic and unclean slovenliness; his clustering brown curls were ill-kempt, and generally he did not suggest that soap and water played any considerable part in his daily habits. In manners as in appearance he was gross and uncouth, betraying constantly his plebeian origin.
Nevertheless he was unquestionably a great man in the State, and he seemed destined for yet further greatness. His popularity dated back to the moment when he had discarded the capuchin habit so impatiently worn for fifteen years, so that he might assume instead the tricolour cockade and procure election to the Legislative Assembly. No gesture could have been more symbolical of the casting-off of the trammels of superstition, or could more sharply and favourably have drawn attention to him. Of this he had known how to take the fullest advantage. Eyes and ears were not turned in vain upon the new deputy. His commonplace mind imposed no restraints upon his use of the turgid eloquence that emotionally sweeps the rabble off its feet. And then the ardent patriotism revealed in his denunciations! He was a very sleuth-hound of republicanism on the trail of every aristocratic or counter-revolutionary activity.
Few orators occupied the tribune as frequently, both in the Convention and the clubs. He discovered plot after plot, most of which had no real existence, and if there were some in the Convention who sneered at him and his interminable fiery denunciations, yet his popularity with the mob rose ever higher, so that even those who sneered were compelled to recognize him for a power in the land, to be ranked among the half-dozen men at most to whom the Nation looked for leadership.
The rugged, downright Danton made the mistake of despising him, stigmatizing his denunciations as capucinades, in contemptuous allusion to his conventual antecedents. This merely had the effect of ranging Chabot entirely on the side of Robespierre in the great struggle for mastery that was just beginning.
At the moment he came fresh from the triumph of his latest denunciation which had been hurled at the Deputy Condorcet's criticisms of the new constitution. Together with this, Chabot had announced the discovery of the latest conspiracy against the State in which he had implicated several prominent men. If there were still in the Convention some who were daring enough to deride his accusations, yet such was his authority that the seals had been placed, by his demand, upon the private papers of three whom he denounced.
After these labours, the deputy for Loir-et-Cher may have felt that he owed himself a little relaxation. Delaunay's suggestion that they should spend a day in the country, at a house where a good table was kept with a charming hostess to preside over it, came opportunely.
Delaunay had understated the case when he attributed only two passions to Chabot. The capuchin's starved youth had left him a sensualist in every direction. He loved good food and good wine as much as he loved all the other pleasures of the flesh. Indeed, his history justifies us in describing him as a glutton and a drunkard. These proclivities he could rarely indulge save at other men's tables, for despite his avidity for money he remained poor. He had never discovered how money could be made, so ingenuous was he in matters of finance; and it had never yet occurred to him that ways of enriching himself were ready to the hand of a man who had climbed to his position.
These omissions in the ex-capuchin's education were to be repaired by André-Louis under the limes in the garden at Charonne. They had plied him steadily with wine, and added to it the intoxication of skilful flattery, until the man's wits were addled. He had grown increasingly voluble, and increasingly at ease in his manners. He had addressed himself with an ever-growing familiarity to the handsome Babette, and he was ogling her fondly when the repast, being ended, she rose to withdraw. Protesting against her departure, he rose with her, seized her about the waist and sought to compel her to sit down again. In the struggle he even kissed her, and there was a moment when Delaunay, aware of the relations between de Batz and the lady, was afraid that the lecherous capuchin would not only ruin their hopes, but himself come to grief. The blood, indeed, was rising to the Gascon's swarthy face when a kick and a wink from André-Louis recalled to him the need for prudence.
The dark, queenly Babette, meanwhile, played her difficult part with skill. Dissembling her disgust at the uncouth deputy's too physical attentions, she laughed lightly, almost coquettishly, as she disengaged herself. With a promise to return so soon as the household duties claiming her would permit, she tripped away across the lawn.
Chabot was disposing himself to go in pursuit of her, when the massive Delaunay heaved himself up, took the ex-capuchin by the shoulders, and almost flung him down again on his chair.
"A little circumspection, name of a name," the Augevin growled at him.
Chabot, almost winded by the violence, sat still. Only his smouldering eyes followed the graceful figure as it moved across the lawn to the long, low white house with its green shutters. He was a little aggrieved. There had been a distinct implication in Delaunay's mention of a charming hostess. Charming Chabot had certainly found her. But surely of an excessive coyness, an utterly unnecessary aloofness.
To create a diversion, de Batz poured wine for him. The deputy fetched a sigh, and sipped it appreciatively, taking from it what compensation he could for other joys which it seemed were to elude him. And then at last, with some abruptness the conversation turned on money. It was Benoit, the banker, who was also of the party who tossed that ball among these players.
"Morbleu, de Batz," he said, "that last operation of yours must have brought you in at least a hundred thousand francs."
Chabot, in the act of drinking, almost choked. A hundred thousand francs! God of God! Were there such sums to be made? But how? He was asking these questions almost before he knew it, and André-Louis was laughing as he answered him.
"On my soul, will you affect ingenuousness, Citizen-Representative? Is it for a man of your eminence in the State, a man of your influence and power to ask such a question? For a hundred thousand livres that de Batz may make as a result of infinite pain and labour, there's a million to be picked up without effort by a man in your position."
Chabot's eyes held a look that was almost of consternation.
"If there is, I should be glad to know more precisely where. I would so, by God!" He turned upon Benoit. "You, who are a banker, a man who makes money by money, though God knows how, what have you to say to that?"
Benoit explained to him the transactions in confiscated property which could be rendered so profitable. A man in Chabot's position would be among the first to know what was to be bought and what margin of profit it would leave.
Chabot was shocked. "You mean, citizen, that I am to abuse the position which by the people's trust and faith in me I am permitted to occupy?" He grew stern. "Will you tell me how I could justify myself before the tribunal of my conscience?"
"What justification does a man need who has done no harm?" quoth André-Louis.
"No harm?"
"It must be a surviving impression from your monastic days, citizen, that there is harm in taking profit to yourself. One of the superstitions of a worn-out and discarded kill-joy creed."
Chabot passed from amazement to amazement. "But...But surely...The profit to myself, whence comes it? Is it not filched from the sacred treasury of the republic? Is not that to commit a sacrilege? Is it not a robbing of the inviolable altars of the nation?"
Gently smiling, André-Louis shook his head. He became apostrophic. "Oh, virtuous excess of sensitiveness! What a thrice-blessed age is this in which we live, that men of State, departing from the corrupt habits of their kind in all ages, should hesitate to appropriate even that which rightly belongs to them. Citizen Chabot, I honour you for this hesitation as all men must honour you. But at the same time I grieve that such lofty ideals should give you so false a perspective of the facts; should make you neglect to reach for those rewards which are your right, which your labours in the cause of freedom have justly earned you. I should grieve even more deeply if as a consequence of your neglect of opportunity this wealth should be appropriated by the worthless, by the hucksters and even by the friends of despotism, whilst you and your noble kind continue to labour in necessitous circumstances, almost in want. Will you allow these profits, citizen, which you could spend so worthily to the great honour and glory of the sacred cause of liberty, to fall instead into the hands of corrupt reactionaries who may employ them to undermine the very foundations of this glorious republic you have laboured with such self-abnegation to establish? Have you no duty there, Citizen-Representative?"
The Citizen-Representative blinked at him helplessly.
That flood of turgid rhetoric, of the very kind of which he himself was so remarkable an exponent, which meaning nothing explicitly yet seemed implicit with so much significance, befogged the wits which the wine had already rendered torpid. Through this fog gleamed with increasing vividness the prospect of riches whose acquisition would not affront his sensitive conscience or—which is really the same thing at bottom—imperil his position.
The others maintained an impassive silence. Julien almost shared Chabot's stupefaction, bewildered by the specious cant which André-Louis employed. Delaunay, more clear-sighted, was under no illusions, whilst Benoit and de Batz silently admired both the manner and the matter of André-Louis' retort to the deputy's cry of conscience.
"You mean, citizen?" said Chabot at last. "You mean that if I do not take advantage of these opportunities, others will who might turn the results to evil purposes?"
"I mean much more than that. These operations ensure a ready liquidation of the confiscated properties with immediate returns to the national treasury. What we do, we do openly. There is no stigma attaching to it. The commission entrusted with the sale of lands welcomes our collaboration, without which those sales would be immensely retarded. If then it is not wrong in us, if, indeed, it is considered right in us, can it be less right in you, who are so fully entitled to rewards and have so little opportunity of obtaining them in ordinary ways?"
This was a little clearer. It removed satisfactorily the substance of Chabot's opposition. But the shadow remained.
"That is well for you, citizens," he answered slowly. "The place you occupy does not leave you vulnerable to such reproaches as might be aimed at me. It might be said, my enemies might make it appear, that I turn my position to my own private benefit. My purity of intention would thus become suspect, and under such suspicion I should no longer be in case to serve my country."
"That is true. Men whose first aim is the service of mankind are peculiarly susceptible to such attacks. Suspicion can wither your powers, the breath of calumny can wilt your forces and lay low your every noble endeavour. But before suspicion or calumny can touch you, some knowledge of the facts must transpire. And what need any know of your transactions?"
Chabot blinked again under his interlocutor's steady regard. Excitement had drawn the blood from his round cheeks. He drained a bumper that once more de Batz had filled for him, and wiped his mouth with the back of his unclean hand.
"You mean that a thing done in secret..."
"Name of a name! Is a man to go through life opening the recesses of his heart to the gaze of the multitude? Are you—is any man—under the necessity of putting weapons into the hands of his enemies? You have spoken, citizen, of the tribunal of conscience. A noble image. So long as that is satisfied, are you to trouble about anything else?"
Chabot took his head in his hand, leaning his elbow on the table. "But if I grow rich..." He paused. The golden vision dazzled him. He looked back on the grey, needy years, spent in a poverty which had denied him all those lovely things of life which he knew himself peculiarly equipped to enjoy. He thought of occasional banquets to which he had been bidden, even such as this at which he had just been a guest, and contrasted it with the lean fare to which he was normally condemned by his restricted means, he, a man of State, a power in France, one of the pillars of this glorious republic which he had helped to found. Surely some reward was due to him. Yet timidity made him hesitate. If he grew rich how was he to enjoy his riches, how spread himself such tables, guzzle such wines, command such mistresses as dark-eyed Babette who had presided here, without betraying this improvement in his fortunes? Something of the kind he expressed, to be promptly answered by instances of other deputies, from Danton down, who had obviously accumulated wealth without anyone daring to question its sources.
"And these sources," said André-Louis impressively, "are far from being as pure and untainted as those which we reveal to you."
A sudden suspicion flared in Chabot to stay him in the very moment of surrender to these almost irresistible seductions.
"Why do you reveal them? What is your interest in me that you should come to empty Fortune's cornucopia into my lap?"
It was de Batz who answered him, laughing frankly. "Faith, the reason is not far to seek. We are not altruists, Citizen-Representative. We desire your valuable company. We lead you to the source. But we remain to drink at it with you. Am I plain?"
"Ah! I begin to see. But then..." He hiccoughed. "Faith! I do not yet see quite clearly."
Delaunay addressed himself to enlightening him. "Should I be in this, François, if I perceived in it the least shade of dishonesty? You are a man of ideals, and you have rarely been in close contact with that greatest of realities, money. I am a man experienced in finance. You may take my word for it that all here is beyond reproach."
Dull eyes regarded him in silence from the deputy's flushed face. Delaunay continued.
"Consider it this way: the only real sufferers in these transactions are the émigrés, who have crossed the frontier so that they may make war upon the country that gave them birth. It is their properties that are to be converted into gold so that the hungry children of France may be fed. Our intervention in these transactions will not lessen by a single hard the sums to be poured into the national treasury. On the contrary, by accelerating the liquidation we do good service to the people."
"Yes, I have perceived that," Chabot admitted, but still with a lack of conviction, still fettered by timidity.
He fell into thought, and presently loosed his retrospections.
"I have been rigorously bound by my scruples in the past. No representative has gone upon more missions than have I, and in each of them I could have made money had I not set my probity above all else. At Castries I was entrusted with four thousand livres for secret expenses, and I collected some twenty thousand livres in fines and ransoms. Not a denier of this found its way into my pockets. My hands have remained clean. And these are trifles compared with other temptations that have come my way. The Spanish minister offered me four millions if I would save Louis Capet from the scaffold. It was a bribe that would have overwhelmed the honesty of many a man. But strong in my patriotism and my sense of duty to the Nation, the temptation never touched me."
It may have been true. But it still remained that the temptation must have lacked point, since Chabot could not have accomplished what was required. As well might the Spanish minister have offered Chabot four millions for the moon.
"Your proposal, however," the representative ran on, "is of a different order. I begin to see that in the manner you suggest I might make a little money honestly. I have made, I confess, a little in the past, a very little, by the favour of two good friends of mine, those good fellows the brothers Frey. And they have reproached me with having neglected my opportunities to make more."
He ran on, parading his honesty and the strength with which in the past he had resisted temptation. And he spoke at length of the Freys, whose very adopted name implied as he pointed out their patriotism and shining republicanism. Their original name was Schönfeld. But they had discarded this when they had left Vienna, quitting it because with the sentiments that inspired them they could live no longer under a rule of despotism. The elder brother, Junius, who so called himself after the founder of Roman liberty, had refused the office of first minister to the Emperor Joseph because he would not bend the knee to a tyrant. These were men who had given proof of their idealism, abandoning wealth and position, so as to come and live in the pure air of liberty in France. They had been good friends to Chabot, and but for his scruples might have been still better. They were skilled in finance, being bankers by profession. He would take counsel with them before he made a final decision in this matter in which he was now invited to co-operate.
If this was a little disappointing to those schemers who had so richly fed the ex-capuchin and so generously plied him with wine, yet they could offer no further insistence without arousing suspicions that might completely scare away so timid a quarry.
And then, even as he was disposing himself to depart, Chabot was assailed by yet another doubt.
"After all, citizens, I was overlooking in my ignorance of finance the fact that to make money in the ways you indicate, money is necessary at the outset. And I have no money."
De Batz made short work of that difficulty. He cried out on a note of protest: "Citizen-Representative! Can you conceive that a man of your shining merits should lack friends to advance you what capital may be necessary?"
Chabot looked at him, his glance a trifle unsteady.
"You mean that the Freys..."
"The Freys! I am not thinking of the Freys. I am thinking of myself. If you associate yourself with us, it is but proper that I should provide the necessary initial funds. You may draw on me, my friend. I am here to serve you."
The wavering gaze of the representative continued to consider the Baron.
"That would remove a difficulty," he admitted. "Well, well, we'll talk of this again after I have taken counsel with Junius Frey."