Chapter 29 Scaramouche The Kingmaker by Rafael Sabatini
THE BAIT
If to Chabot the prospect of marriage was a dream, to Léopoldine, when she was informed of it, it was a nightmare.
For the first time in her docile young life she was in rebellion against the will of the masterful brother who was so much her senior. She would not marry the Citizen-Representative. She announced it flatly. To describe that august personage she employed such terms as hateful, detestable, repellent. He was not even clean, and she knew that he was not good.
They argued. She passed from indignant resistance to dismay when she perceived for how little her own wishes were to count. Finally she came to intercession and tears.
Emmanuel was so moved that he wept with her. But the Roman fibres of the sterner Junius remained unshaken. Aware that the weak points in her defences were her gentle kindliness of spirit and her sense of duty, he directed his attack upon these. He told her the truth. Ruin stared them in the face. Their only chance of evading it lay in this marriage. She, at least, would no longer be a foreigner, and to her they would transfer the greater part of their possessions, nominally as her dowry, actually to be held in trust for them by her and her husband.
By coming to live with them, Chabot would render their fine house in the Rue d'Anjou his domicile, and none would dare to lay impious hands upon the domicile of that august representative of the sovereign people.
So far Junius was frank with his sister. Where he practised deception was in pretending that the representative had sought her hand. In such a time of peril far from daring to reject the suit of a statesman of Chabot's eminence, he had welcomed it as a Heaven-sent chance to save themselves and to save her at the same time. For what must her fate be if they were ruined?
He passed on to speak of Chabot. The man might be a little rough externally, but this could be improved. To so ardent a lover a hint of how to render himself more acceptable to his mistress would suffice. For the rest that rough exterior covered a noble, kindly soul, aflame with republican zeal. Had it been otherwise could she suppose that Junius would ever have consented to sacrifice her? All was not gold that glittered, and much that did not glitter was gold.
If all the arguments he summoned could not suffice to conquer her repugnance, at least they defeated her opposition. If thereafter she was not resigned, at least she was submissive, regarding herself as a suitable sacrificial victim for the salvation of her brothers.
But there was one whom she desired should know the truth. Perhaps she hoped that the knowledge might move him to work some miracle for her deliverance.
And so on the morrow André-Louis received the following pathetic little note:
Citizen André-Louis,
My brother Junius tells me that I must marry the Citizen-Representative Chabot. That this is necessary for our security. I care nothing for my security. I would not buy it at this price, as I hope you will believe, Citizen André-Louis. But I must care for the security of my brothers. I suppose this is my duty. Women are the slaves of duty. But I do not love the Citizen Chabot. I think I am greatly to be pitied. I want you to know this. Good-bye, Citizen André-Louis.
The unhappy Léopoldine.
André-Louis laid the letter before de Batz. "You perceive the appeal between the lines," he said, his countenance dark.
De Batz read, sighed and shrugged. "What can I do? If the sacrifice could have been avoided I should have avoided it. I am no butcher of chickens. You know that I should not hesitate to sacrifice myself. Let that be my justification for consenting to sacrifice another."
"It is no justification. You are master of yourself. Your fate is in your own hands."
"Is any man's fate in his own hands? Besides, it is the fate of a people that is concerned." His voice grew harshly imperious. "Ruthlessness becomes a sacred duty."
"What reply am I to make?"
"None. That will be kindest. The poor child seems to hope that she is something to you. In that hope she writes. Your silence will dispel it. She will the more readily submit to her destiny."
André-Louis, seated dejectedly on the striped settee, took his head in his hands. "That foul capuchin," he groaned. "As God lives he shall bitterly repent it."
"Of course he will. But he is no more responsible than the girl herself. In a sense he is as much a victim, although he does not yet perceive of what. But he will."
"And the Freys? These inhuman brothers who for the sake of their own profit throw their sister to that beast?"
"They shall also repent. Take comfort in that."
"And you, then? You who are responsible for it all?"
"I?" Erect and tense, de Batz looked at him with brooding eyes. "I am in God's hands. At least, however impure the course I take, I take it from no impurity of motive. I serve an idea, not myself. In this I am purer than you are. Perhaps on that account I am immune from the scruples that trouble you."
André-Louis thought of Aline, of his hopes of her which were the mainspring of his share in these tortuous activities. To bring his hopes to fruition he was prepared to go to almost any lengths, but not to the length of sacrificing an innocent child to the evil lust of that beast Chabot. Aline herself would shrink from him in horror, her purity outraged, if she thought him capable of adopting such means to reach her. Yet, as de Batz had pointed out, he was powerless now to prevent this thing.
The anger surging in him from that impotence came to be concentrated on Chabot. Because of Léopoldine he would pursue him the more ruthlessly, and already he perceived the means by which he could discredit and smash him utterly.
He was in that mood of vindictiveness when later in the day he was visited by Delaunay and Julien.
De Batz was absent, and André-Louis sat, pencil in hand, at his writing-table on which there was a litter of papers. He sat in shirt and breeches and with the venetians closed to exclude the sunlight, for the early September day was stiflingly hot. He was at work on the details of the scheme which he had conceived for the speedy ruin of Chabot. Delaunay came to issue something in the nature of an ultimatum. He and Julien desired to know when the operations in émigré property on a large scale were to take place. Months had gone since first the matter had been mooted, and so far little had been done. They had been guided entirely by the wishes of the Citizen de Batz. But unless there were some prospect of real activity they proposed to operate independently.
"And thereby run your heads into the lunette of the guillotine." André-Louis lounged in his chair, one leg thrown over the arm of it, and looked up at them with a mocking eye. "Well, well! To be sure they are your own heads, and you may do as you please with them."
"Will you tell me for what we are waiting?" Delaunay asked, his habitual stolidity unimpaired by the young man's raillery.
André-Louis tapped the writing-table with his pencil. "The ground is still insufficiently prepared. Chabot has not yet been persuaded to come into the enterprise."
"To Hell with Chabot!" said Julien fervently.
"By all means," André-Louis agreed. "But not until we have done with him. You forget that his eminence is to be our shield. You are too impatient. Difficult enterprises are to be prepared slowly and executed quickly. That is the way to succeed in them."
Delaunay fell to grumbling in his deep, slow voice. "Devil take it all! At this rate it will be next summer before we may look for the harvest."
André-Louis was thoughtful, his half-closed eyes upon the papers on the table before him. He unhooked his leg from the arm of his chair, and sat up.
"You are pressed, eh, Delaunay? The Descoings begins to find your promises lean fare? She is impatient of more solid nourishment? If that's your trouble, I have here something else, something that offers an immediate return."
"That's the proposal for me," said Julien.
"And, faith, for me. What is it?"
André-Louis expounded briefly a scheme which for some days now had been engaging his attention. It concerned the India Company—the Compagnie des Indes—one of the few commercial enterprises in France whose credit had remained unimpaired by the upheaval of the Revolution.
"Under the law of the Eighth Frimaire of the Year One the shares of a Company become subject to the payment of certain dues on the occasion of each transfer of ownership. Have you observed that the India Company has been evading this law? I see that you haven't. You want to grow rich, yet you don't know where to look for wealth. The Company, let me tell you, has replaced its shares by bonds similar to those issued by the State. Of these no transfers are required. All that is necessary is accomplished by a simple entry in the Company's register. Thus the tax is successfully evaded."
He took up a sheet that was covered with figures. "It's a simple form of fraud, and its success lies in its simplicity. I have computed that as a result the State has already been swindled of over two millions."
He paused, and looked up at the representatives, who stared back at him in round-eyed silence, until at last Delaunay broke out:
"But how the devil are we to profit by that?"
"By denouncing the fraud in the Convention, and foreshadowing some decree that will sow terror in the hearts of the shareholders."
"And then?"
"The price of the stock will fall to nothing. That will be your time to buy it. After you have bought, you will frame the decree. Indeed, you may frame two decrees: one that will completely ruin the Company, and another that will deal indulgently with its transgression. You will then give the directors to choose between the two. You offer the indulgent one at a certain price—say, a quarter of a million. With ruin as the only alternative, the directors must pay. Then, with the restoration of confidence, the shares will quickly rise again. You sell at twenty, fifty, perhaps a hundred times what you paid for them. In this way you will make two separate profits, and the second one may be enormous. It will be limited only by the courage with which you buy." He smiled up into their bulging eyes. "Simple, isn't it?"
Julien pronounced him a remorseless rogue, and swore under his breath to express his amazed appreciation of this rascally scheme. Delaunay's habitual stolidity gave way to laughter in which there was a scared note.
"You're a fine fellow, on my soul! I imagined that I knew something of finance. But this..."
"This is the fruit of genius. Chabot becomes more than ever necessary to us."
"Chabot?" Delaunay's face lengthened. "That means delay again."
André-Louis was firm and emphatic. "Not only Chabot but some other prominent and popular Montagnard. Bazire, for instance, whom you would have brought in before. He, too, stands close to Robespierre, and carries weight."
"But why?"
"It is necessary." André-Louis got up, and faced them standing. His manner increased in authority. "A commission will have to be appointed for the purpose of framing the two decrees which you will require. You must take care in advance that you have at hand the right men to compose it, men whose interests in the matter will be identical with your own. That is why these others must be brought in beforehand."
The object was clear to them at once. "If Chabot should refuse?" Delaunay asked.
"Conquer his hesitation by the offer of money down. Promise him a hundred thousand francs—more if necessary—for his immediate co-operation. I will supply the money." He pulled open a drawer of his writing-table, and took out a bundle of assignats bound with tape. He flung it down. "There it is. Take it, and bestir yourselves. This is no pettifogging affair. There's a chance of fortune if you go about it with address."
Spurred by the prospect of swift and easy fortune, they went about the business with all the address they could command. That same night at the Jacobins they jointly tackled Chabot, and bluntly put the matter to him. At first he recoiled in terror. The very magnitude of the operation daunted him. It seemed to him that where the profits were so vast the risks must be grave. But to show him that in the matter of a profit personal to himself there was no risk or doubt, Delaunay thrust under his nose the hundred thousand francs he had received for the purpose.
"Take them. They are yours as an earnest of all that you may make. And there are millions to be made."
Chabot gasped as he pondered that bundle of assignats. "But if I expose the fraud of the India Company, how can I afterwards—"
"It will not be for you to do that," Julien interrupted him. "I will bell the cat. Your part will be to ask for a commission of investigation, and get yourself appointed to it with us and with one or two others we shall name to you. All you will have to do will be to frame the decrees."
Cupidity growing in his glance Chabot continued to eye the proffered money.
"Give me a moment," he begged his tempters, and mopped his brow. "What will be said when it is discovered that I have been buying the shares of the Company? What will—"
"Simpleton!" said Delaunay contemptuously. "Do you suppose that any of us will do that? We shall appoint Benoit or another to buy and sell for us. Our hands will not be seen at all."
Peremptorily he added: "It is you or another, Chabot. I give you the first chance because we are old friends. But resolve yourself. Will you take the money and join us or must I offer it elsewhere?"
Before that immediate and terrible risk, Chabot capitulated. He stuffed the bundle into the breast of his shabby coat. Then he made a little oration.
"If I consent, it is only because I perceive that no harm can result to the Republic, or to any sound patriot. These rascally directors of the India Company, who have been defrauding the national treasury, will be the only sufferers; and it is proper that they should be punished for their dishonesty. Yes, my friends. Before the tribunal of my conscience I stand clear. If it were otherwise let me assure you that no prospect of gain, however considerable, would move me to take part in this."
Julien looked at him with wonder in his deep-set eyes. "Nobly spoken, Chabot. How worthy you ever prove yourself of the great trust the people repose in you. A man of your purity of republican principles is destined for the highest honours his country can bestow upon him."
And the unfrocked priest, suspecting no irony in the speech of that rascally unfrocked parson, bowed his head. "I covet no honours. I desire but to perform the duty which my country has imposed upon me. The burden was not of my seeking. But I will carry it while my legs will bear me up, and while breath does not fail me."
They left him, to go and seek Bazire. As they went, "Do you know, Julien," said Delaunay in his gentle, sluggish voice, "that the little rascal believes himself?"