For Our Liberty (12 page)

I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t know who the Abbé was that we were being taken to. I didn’t care. I was more interested in knowing how the gendarmes had been looking for us all morning when word could not yet have come from Paris that we’d escaped?

CHAPTER NINE

We reached our destination at dusk, tired, dusty and relieved. Beston’s barouche was badly sprung and the upholstery mildewed and hard. The three of us, Dominique, Beston and I, sat inside whilst the rest of the merry men either rode ahead or behind, keeping us clear of the patrols and checkpoints. For the most part we drove alongside the Somme until we reached the vicinity of Abbeville and then we turned northwards to the village of Saint Riquier and Beston’s home. Dominique chatted to Beston well enough but I was mostly silent, watching Beston or scrutinising the dull flat countryside for signs of pursuit.

I couldn’t make my mind up about the Vicomte. He was amiable, but reserved, and Dominique’s probing brought out flashes of frustration and anger directed at the Revolution, Bonaparte’s government and the failure of the counter revolutionaries to achieve anything of substance. He used the attempt on Bonaparte’s life outside the Paris opera a couple of years previously as evidence of the incompetence of his colleagues. I thought this somewhat unmerited since Bonaparte’s carriage had only escaped the explosion by the narrowest of margins. Beston struck me as one of those who are always prepared to criticise but are equally unwilling to take the lead. Perhaps I was being unfair; foremost in my mind was who had betrayed our escape from Paris and I was beginning to see conspiracy and treachery everywhere I looked. Very few people had know of our proposed method of escape.

Beston’s chateau sat in a small valley nicely hidden from the road. It was not grand but had obviously been extended from a large farmhouse over the years and its hotchpotch of styles mirrored the slow rise and then rapid decline of the family’s fortunes. The plain stone original Romanesque house had one wing that displayed the simple symmetry of the renaissance and a grander entrance had been added later, complete with the Doric columns of the neo-classical. All of it was in need of repair.
 

 
After we arrived I had washed and changed for dinner with reluctance, I felt I would be far happier alone with only my thoughts for company. Three candles on the dinner table flickered in the draught. They barely illuminated the chipped and cracked Sèvres dinner service and the unpolished silver cutlery. The corners of the room were deep in shadow, hiding the damp stains and the flaking paint. The room had once been magnificent, lavishly decorated with marble, silk and delicate Louis XV furniture, but that had been many years ago.
 

The Abbé de Ratel sat at one end of the table with Dominique and me on either side. Paul Beston was at the head, almost hidden in the gloom. An aged servant, who had probably served the family in the glory days of the Sun King, poured a glass of wine for me, his hand shaking so much that another red stain spread across the table cloth. Given the state of the chateau I was not optimistic about the quality of Beston’s cellar but was agreeably surprised by the heavy, peppery Médoc. It must have been hard for Beston to keep any staff at all after the revolution and the constant ballots for conscription. He seemed not to notice the decay of a once fine house and I suppose his pride was one of the few things that the Committees had left intact.
 

The meal, however, was what I expected; a thin onion soup followed by tired chicken that had drowned in a watery sauce. I sipped my soup and reflected upon the problem of who had betrayed us. Of course it wasn’t a very long list; only Calvet, Fauche, Duprez, Montaignac, and Garnerin had known of the plan to escape from Paris. Garnerin hadn’t been told whom he was to transport so that ruled him out. Calvet I discounted because he’d come up with the plan and if he’d wanted me captured then I’d been in his home for over a week. So Fauche, Duprez, or Montaignac. I tried to guess why one of them had betrayed us. That one was a Police agent amongst the Royalists and opposition to Bonaparte was self evident. But which of them? Fauche I had liked. Duprez had seemed innocuous. Montaignac I took exception to from the start but I wasn’t prepared to label him a traitor just because I didn’t like him. However, it did put him at the top of the list.

Once I had deduced that there was a traitor in the Royalist camp I had to conceive of a way to resume the journey to the coast as soon as was feasible, and without the help of Beston and the Abbé given that I didn’t know how much the traitor knew of their plans to help us. However, escaping Beston’s warm, if slightly down at heel, hospitality was not going to be straightforward. Dominique was engaging both the Abbé and Beston in conversation, getting news of mutual acquaintances and probing them as to the success of the Royalist cause in the area. Both men seemed enraptured by her but I couldn’t blame them for that. She shone in even the meanest candlelight.

Beston I have already described for you. The Abbé de Ratel, however, deserves some attention before I relate the conversation that follows. He had clearly once been a tall and handsome man. His shoulders were still broad but had become a little stooped. His countenance was lined, but did not have the crow’s feet and dimples of one who had seen happiness, instead there were deep frown lines permanently creasing a once noble brow and his eyes were hidden behind cracked spectacle lenses that reflected the candle flames. Beston deferred to him, even in his own house, and so I guessed that he was somehow senior in what passed for the Royalist organisation. I wasn’t told of what church he was Abbé of and doubted if it had survived the atheism of the early years of the Revolution in any case. He certainly did not have the air of a priest about him despite the black coat and breeches he wore. In another age I could have seen him as a crusader or Templar Knight perhaps, a warrior first and a man of God second. He noticed me looking at him.

“You are quiet Monsieur Blackthorne. Would you prefer us to speak English?” he said. I’m sure it was warmly meant but it seemed to me as if there was slight resentment there. Perhaps the Royalists were annoyed at having to rely on the old enemy England for support. The Abbé was of an age where he could have fought against my father in America or against my grandfather during the Seven Years War.

“No, thank you. French is fine. I am indebted enough to you without forcing you to abandon your mother tongue.”

“It is we who are indebted to you, and your countrymen. Without funds and arms from London we could do little.” The Abbé wiped his mouth on a stained napkin and sat back in his chair, his face disappearing into shadow. I sensed the resentment there again but could not see his expression. Beston breathed out a little too sharply and we all turned to look at him.

“Some would say we do little anyway,” he said, as he gestured for the servant to clear his plate.

“Paul, we have guests,” the Abbé admonished but Beston had had either too much wine or enough of sneaking around the countryside meeting British agents and doing nothing else.

“Until we rise up like the Vendeé we have no hope of seeing the King return,” said Beston.

“Paul, we are not strong enough. Bonaparte’s agents are everywhere.” The Abbé and Beston had obviously had this discussion many times.

“Every day that we wait the damned First Consul gets stronger and we get weaker. It will not be long before he places the crown on his own head. Then where will we be? Many of the Émigrés are returning already. Making their peace with Bonaparte.” He sighed and finished his wine. He made to get up but Dominique put a hand on his arm.

“What would you have us do, Monsieur le Vicomte?” she asked.

“It is obvious. We need to kill General Bonaparte. It is the only way.” He stood up angrily and made to leave.

“Paul, that is enough. I won’t have you talking of your foolish plans.” Fire sparked in the Abbé’s eyes.
 

Beston’s shoulders sagged and he sighed. There was obvious frustration in him but also weary resignation.

“I apologise. I am tired and I shall retire. Masson will see to your needs,” he said gesturing at the manservant, “Mademoiselle, Monsieur. Bon nuit,” he said and left, the candles flickering as he shut the dining room door behind him.

We were all quiet for a few moments. It was an uncomfortable silence. The Abbé took a long sip of his wine, emptying his glass. He asked Masson to bring the Calvados and ignored my protests of tiredness, insisting that we both have some. It came from his home village in Normandy, he explained. After the thick amber liquid had been dispensed the Abbé sent Masson out of the room and leaned into the pool of light from the candles.

“I am afraid that Paul may well be right, Monsieur Blackthorne. Every day there are fewer of us fighting for our King. Bonaparte is tempting them back with baubles and promises. We get weaker as he gets stronger.”

“I cannot speak for my government but I think we will always support the Royalist cause, if only to stop republicanism on our own doorstep,” I said sipping the calvados. It was good, rich and sweet with a lovely apple flavour.

“Oh, I do not doubt it, “The Abbé said, “Your ships will keep Bonaparte bottled up, your money will continue to finance your allies and your spies but the only way we will win this war is on land and neither you nor your allies seem able to defeat the Corsican on the battlefield.”

“We defeated a French army in Egypt,” I said.

“A side-show. Besides Bonaparte had long gone and the terms of the treaty made your navy ferry the French back home and saved them going to the expense of equipping a fleet of their own. It was an irrelevance.” The Abbé made a dismissive gesture and I fought down a riposte. Many of my friends still lay in the sands of Egypt, good men who had fought and died, killed by sword, shot and sun. Nevertheless, I knew he was right; they had died for nothing.

“So why do you carry on the fight?” I asked.

“Because I will never forget the blood running in the streets. I will never forget the look on my father’s face as he was lead away. I will never forget the flames in the night sky as my church burnt down. And I will never forget all the pain that France has suffered under all the committees, directories and consulships.” He was flushed and angry, the most animated I had seen him all evening.

“Many would say that Frenchmen are freer now than under the Bourbons?”

“Oh yes. Liberté, egalité et fraternité. Tell that to the thousands killed by the mobs, the tens of thousands of conscripts killed in futile battles or the hundreds of thousands who starved after the land was given to the peasants.”

“I am not defending the Revolution but how much more can be achieved by further bloodshed?” I wasn’t trying to provoke him. I was genuinely intrigued to find out what the resumption of war would bring, apart from another decade of blockades, coalitions that formed and were defeated, and more irrelevant side-shows.

The Abbé refilled his glass from the decanter. The anger had left him and he slumped back in his chair.

“Perhaps you are right, but I shall carry on. I know nothing else now. I will help in what small ways I can, and then perhaps my father may rest easy in his grave. None of us fight for a cause. We all fight for the memory of someone we lost.”

“Then I salute you, and wish you well.” I raised my glass. “I for one will be glad to get back to England and away from all this. War was bad enough but I am ill suited for this treachery and secrecy.”

“You have survived this long, so I don’t think you are as unsuited as you would wish to be. I think we may be allies yet, you and I.” The Abbé raised his own glass and smiled, but it was the thin smile of a very weary man.

“Perchance you are also correct,” I said, “but I pray I never have to find out.”

Dominique had been listening to us and sipping her Calvados. She asked the Abbé to pass the decanter and then refilled her glass.

“Abbé, what were the plans that Paul referred to?” she asked, her finger playing around the rim of her glass.

“Oh, he and some other firebrands imagine they can stage a coup to replace Bonaparte. They are just dreamers.”

“Do you mean they would put the King back on the throne?”
 

“No, a General to start with, but one sympathetic to our cause. When the time was right the King would march back into Paris,” the Abbé said, without enthusiasm.

“Which General would be so bold?” said Dominique.

“I think all of them have inherited Bonaparte’s lust for power, if not his ability on the battlefield.”
 

The two of them began another discussion of the internecine politics of Paris. I had had enough. I drank the last of the Calvados and made my excuses. It was time that I retired. I had a lot to think about and little patience to listen to more plots. I rose, lit a candle and asked the Abbé to pass on my thanks for the meal. He wished me goodnight, as did Dominique who stayed at the table.

The corridors were full of ghostly furniture beneath dust sheets. Mice scuttled along damp rugs just outside the light from the candle. Lighter squares on the walls showed where pictures had been removed and sold. If there was ever evidence needed of the death of the French aristocracy then Beston’s chateau provided it. Dominique had wheedled some of our host’s story from him over dinner despite him seeming initially reluctant to talk of the past or of fellow Royalists. It seemed that he was lucky to be alive at all; he had been an officer in the King’s army and only the testimony of his men had kept him from an appointment with the guillotine. He was probably the younger son of the family. His parents and siblings would have either fled or been killed by the mob but he had stayed rather than flee to a foreign country and either live off charity, or worse take up a trade. My boot-maker back in London was a Comte, but his ancient title now only meant he could charge a little more for his shoes.